How does the calendar affect sales call success?
Is there a best month or season for getting live answers?
We looked at over 4 years of historical data to determine how seasonality affects sales call answer rates. Looking at a set of 11,766,338 dials from January 2011 through April 2015, here’s what we discovered…
Average Answer Rates Overall
The average answer rate was 13.53%. So for more than 8 out of 10 sales calls, you should expect to reach a voicemail or a bad number.
Key takeaway?
Have a great voicemail script (or recording) and well thought out emails to engage contacts that don’t result in a live answer. Effective communications for reaching this massive segment of non-answers can have a dramatic impact on your overall success – as well as increase the chance of a live answer on subsequent attempts.
Answer Rates by Season
Here’s how the seasons stack up for average pickup percentage:
- Winter (December – February): 14.28%
- Spring (March – May): 13.99%
- Summer (June – August): 12.85%
- Fall (September thru November): 12.55%
Winter reigns by a narrow margin over spring, and registers a nearly 14% improvement over the worst season, fall.
There is a potential correlation here to the amount of time people are spending inside, where they are more likely to answer a call.
Answer Rates by Month
What is the best month for sales connections?
Here’s what happens when we dial in a little more and look at monthly averages…
- January: 15.63%
- February: 14.90%
- March: 15.20%
- April: 14.28%
- May: 12.48%
- June: 12.45%
- July: 13.44%
- August: 12.67%
- September: 12.41%
- October: 12.33%
- November: 12.90%
- December: 12.30%
Despite falling during the best season for sales calls, December actually registers as the worst month overall. January, the month with the best answer rates is good for a 27% increase in pickups over December.
The first quarter of the year is clearly supreme. Otherwise, there’s surprisingly little variation between the remaining months… other than July perhaps, which registered a noticeable uptick.
What are your takeaways from the data above? Which months are typically the best for sales in your line of work? Let us know in the comments below?