Best time of the day to follow up?

[Brian Marchini]

I have been working as an internet manager for some time, and recently had a discussion on when was the best time to call. When I mean call, I am talking about follow up and not the initial call which should really be within 1 hour and preferably within 20 minutes.

I personally have found that the best time to call is either the same time they sent their email request in, after 5pm or around "lunch time". I am told that the "new" best time is between 9am and 11am which just doesn't make sense to me.

I also think that in an ideal world, your calls should be varied.

 

[Rdpatrick]

For us it's usually best after 5PM, except for Wednesdays. For some strange reason everything in our town (except for us) shuts down on Wednesday and I usually have the best luck around lunch time.

 

[john.quinn]

Best practice: if you are not scheduling andin-person appointment, schedule the next phone appointment. If you are leaving a message, try something like, "I'll try to reach you again at about 2:00 -- if that time is not good, please shoot me a note or give me a shout back at your convenience." Get on the same page with your clients by setting the right expectations.

ALWAYS tell them you'll be calling again if you leave a message -- if they know you will keep calling, they are more inclined to pick-up the phone one of those times it rings.

 

[kevinfrye]

Brian - you are correct.

First call is immediately after the lead comes in. Second call should be after working hours (as many folks submit a lead while at work, but give you their home contact info). Third call is best made at the same time the lead came in, as this is often an indicator when they are shopping (in the morning, on their lunch break, in the evening after the kids are in bed, etc...)

 

[ewalraven]

For us it's usually best after 5PM

I've had the same experience. People off work and what not. There's charts and graphs for everything else .. I sure somebody has something on this ..

 

[damdifino]

I've had the same experience. People off work and what not. There's charts and graphs for everything else .. I sure somebody has something on this ..

I found this data that is pretty useful for this question: US Department of Labor - Employed persons working and time spent working on days worked.

Using these tables, you can see that the average person works 8.46 hours, which is not surprising. Based on this and using an hour for lunch, I would expect that most people arrive home from work around 5:30 p.m.

Personally, for unsold follow-up calls, I have found the most success encouraging my salespeople to make calls between 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. on weekdays and from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. on Saturdays (we are closed on Sundays here in Indiana). Saturday morning follow-up calls are a gold mine for us.

I have also found that calling after 7 p.m. too frequently interrupts family dinner - which usually results in the customer saying, "don't ever call me again" - and calling before 10 a.m. results in waking up the customer - which has the same affect.

 

[TomLaPointe]

I think this goes both ways, and often depends on the job or business of the prospect. In my experience, business owners and business leaders tend to take calls during business hours, whereas employees / blue collar workers are better contacted during lunch-ish or after hours. Making an intentional effort to reach everyone on wednesdy or thursday was always key, on the assumption they would be visiting lots on Friday / Saturday