Many small- to medium-sized companies do not yet have the funds to hire an intake person full-time. From marketing to insurance to office rent, the costs of running a business can add up quickly, so having an intake specialist may seem like more of a luxury than a need.

In most cases, getting an intake specialist should be a goal of most businesses. But if you haven’t reached that point yet, there are a few steps you can take to maximize your conversion rate, or the percentage of calls and emails you get that turn into clients.

Here are a few tips:

Use an Outside Intake Service

Abby Connect is a service that specializes in 24/7 phone call intake. This service has been so effective for our clients that we’ve seen law firms use Abby Connect for all intake services, even during office hours. They’re a more affordable stand-in for a salaried intake specialist, and they can answer calls afterhours. Click here to visit their website.

Have an Efficient Contact Form System

Nobody wants to get a bunch of spam notifications every day. At Sutton Digital Marketing, we purchase a Clean Talk subscription for all clients. This is one of the best available tools for Spam prevention.

This allows our clients to activate notifications for their contact form emails without being too concerned about Spam.

Activate the “Texting” Feature for Google Messages

Most companies rarely get a message on Google Business Profile; however, replying to these messages quickly is an essential component of Local SEO. It’s also a great way to close clients before they contact a competitor. To streamline things, consider activating the “texting” feature so you get Google Messages direct to your phone.

Use Apex Chat

Apex Chat is a live chat feature that most of our clients use. Although we are offered a commission when our clients sign up, we always give our commission back to our clients to reduce the amount they pay per lead. Apex is one of the few investments that we recommend to all clients. At the time of writing, the signup cost is around $300 and the cost per qualified lead is $18. Most of our clients pay $50 to $150 per month for the service.

Apex Chat ensures a website visitor can talk to a real-life person right away. Around 5% to 10% of our clients’ signups come from Apex Chat leads.

We will continue to update SDM; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!