In total, we sent 150 website enquiries to property developers and 150 to car dealerships. Out of the 300 sent, only 193 actually responded, that’s just under two thirds. It was found 36% of customers didn’t receive any response at all. These 107 customers could be viewed as lost sales.

The graphs shows the breakdown in results for each industry.

The findings clearly show the automotive industry has a higher response rate than property developers, but how do they compare when looking at the speed of responding to our web enquiries?

What this shows is not only does the automotive industry respond to more of their web enquiries, but they also have a quicker response time of an average of four hours.

We interviewed 147 researchers from our panel and asked them how they would typically approach contacting a customer for the first time, how quickly they would expect their website enquiries to be responded to and if they did make an enquiry online, how would they like the business to respond back.

As you can see from the graph, the majority of the 147 researchers interviewed would make a first-time enquiry either via an online enquiry form or via email. This is followed by a telephone call into the business with only four percent saying they would visit the business if they had a premises or office.

The majority of researchers would be happy with receiving a response to their email or web enquiry within 24 hours, closely followed by two hours. With the automotive and property industries achieving a response rate of four and five hours respectively, they are currently exceeding their customers expectations. That’s if the customer receives a response at all.

Many businesses believe that their first response back to a customer should be via phone, regardless of how they submitted their enquiry. Typically, customers like to be handled in the same way that their enquiry was sent. So, for example, if a customer makes a call into your business, the research shows the best contact method back is to call them, and if they enquire online or via email, email them back, unless your online enquiry form has the option to select which contact method they would like.

The most factual method of measuring how your online enquiries are being handled is to carry out mystery shopping. Instructing an agency to carry out a series of online enquiry mystery shops into your business will identify if your first-time enquiries are being responded to, how quickly they are and what method is being used. The mystery shops can also identify the accuracy and quality of the information that is being provided with the response.

All online mystery shopping assignments will include a detailed report analysis per location, as well as screen captures of all communication sent and received. Each report will be available to review within two to three business days of the mystery shop taking place. Having a regular online mystery shopping programme in place will allow you to measure how many enquiries are being responded to as well as measuring the speed, quality and accuracy of each response. You can also identify if the responses are creating a call to action or just simply providing the information requested.

With over 20 years’ experience in the market research industry, we have successfully learnt that everything attributed to a business plays a role in a customer’s experience, and we have adhered this to each of our business strategies. We pride ourselves on offering insight and expertise to some of the biggest brands in the world, providing research and analysis across a range of industry sectors.