Why You Need an Online Sales Counselor — Your First Step Toward Conversion

Digital marketing moves fast. When buyers contact you, you must follow up as soon as possible — no matter when they reach out. Making a prospect wait until it’s convenient for you to reply is not an option: If buyers don’t hear from you right away, they’ll find a builder who actually wants their business.

You can delegate lead management, but you can’t just hand it to an administrative assistant with a little extra time in the day. It’s a full-time job — and the results you achieve from a timely follow-up are directly proportionate to the level of commitment you dedicate to lead nurturing.

We connected with Matt Riley, vice president of marketing at Builder Designs, who recommends hiring a full-time online sales counselor (OSC) to follow up on inquiries and cultivate leads so your sales team can focus on converting them to sales.

Here are a few tips from his newest eBook, “The New Home Builder's Guide to Online Sales and Marketing.”

Treat your website like the virtual model home it is

You spend hundreds of thousands of dollars designing, building and staging your model home, so of course you staff it full time so customers can experience your brand and get answers to their questions.

Think of your website as a virtual model home — if you leave buyers to aimlessly wander around, you’re missing opportunities to guide them to the next step. This is where an OSC really shines.

Keep your web content fresh, compelling and relevant so buyers will reach out for more information — and your OSC can immediately reply and engage.

An OSC should:

• Respond quickly and personally. According to the Zillow Group Consumer Housing Trends Report 2017, 46 percent of new construction buyers want a response within a few hours or less; 76 percent expect to hear from you within a day or less.
• Provide the information they specifically asked for.
• Establish the relationship by asking the right questions.
• Offer suggestions and additional insight to maintain the conversation.
• Update your CRM with detailed notes for each prospect.
• Follow up personally after the initial contact to secure an appointment with an on-site salesperson.

A fast reply gives buyers a good idea about how you’ll respond after they give you their money. Think of it this way: If you take three or four days to reply to a buyer’s initial inquiry, they’ll probably assume you’ll take your sweet time responding to their call after they purchase one of your homes.

How does that affect the relationship you’re trying to build, not to mention your referral and repeat buyer rates after the sale?

Set a speed record for responding

Your OSC should aim to reply to buyer inquiries within five minutes. Sound unreasonable? Consider today’s on-demand world of overnight shipping and using your smartphone to pay for items, check in for flights, select theater seats and make dinner reservations.

Buyers expect the same instant response when they’re shopping for a home, and delaying your reply widens the gap between the inquiry and the sale. An OSC knows their job is to respond quickly, monitor the buyer from the moment of their first inquiry, and work with them until they’re ready to meet your on-site salesperson.

With an all-star OSC, you’ll see incremental sales that you didn’t have before — true sales that you didn’t “steal” from one category to credit another.

Choose your OSC wisely

Your OSC is the customer’s first interaction with your brand. Their job is selling and prepping the buyer so the on-site sales professionals can make the conversion.

Here’s how you might describe the job to an OSC candidate:

“For my virtual model home, I need a real salesperson — someone who can take inbound leads, respond fast, stick to a specific sales process, respond fast, follow up, make calls, respond fast, follow up again, sell the company and themselves via email and phone, respond fast, follow up, send videos, follow up — and do all of these things without actually meeting the customer in person. Did I mention speed and follow-up?”

Recruitment wish list

The ideal OSC understands that their job is helping buyers realize their homeownership dream. They’re enthusiastic, knowledgeable, empathetic, responsive and diligent about achieving goals. They’re also likable, well-spoken and genuine, and they have:

• Customer service experience
• Strong communication skills — especially over phone and email
• An appreciation for speed
• A dedication targeting prospects with finesse and cultivating leads with patience and tenacity
• Motivation to succeed
• A sales mindset

Remember: An OSC is not an on-site sales consultant. The OSC fields calls and online inquiries and qualifies the prospect, while the consultant pushes the sale over the line. They work as a team, and they’re both equally important roles.