We all have heard that speedy follow-up is essential when a prospective buyer or seller contacts you. This makes sense. When you make a request, you want to feel confident your business will be handled promptly and professionally. What continues to be surprising is how few agents actually do it—especially for online prospects.

Let’s look at the numbers…a 2008 Keller Center research report about real estate agents found that respondents who reported greater success on average responded to initial leads more quickly. In fact, those who contacted leads within 4 hours saw a 50% conversion…which dropped to about 33% after 2 to 3 days…and plummeted to 20% for after waiting 4 to 7 days to make the call.

That’s why we, at Market Leader, have been advocating for extremely fast response times throughout our 10-year history. We built automated email follow-up into our Vision system to help our customers capitalize on the better conversion ratios of fast responders.

Despite the fact that making the call is an industry-wide best practice, in a recent Market Leader study of real estate agents, we found that less than 50% of agents would call all the prospects who provided a phone number on their website…and another good portion of our survey responders did not attempt to call at all.

Don’t miss opportunities simply because you didn’t make the call right away…or ever…

Aldona Clottey is Senior Director of Product Management at Market Leader. In this role, Aldona oversees Market Leader’s product planning and strategy.