How to effectively manage leads that come from a website form?

This question came from a Tilda user. We invited an expert to answer it, so the advice would be genuinely useful.

People are filling out the form on my website, but I'm not sure what to do next. What's an effective way to handle these leads?

Heather Langley answers:

The key here is to make sure you have a structured process in place to store lead data and make the follow-up process as efficient and effective as possible. This is where customer relationship management (CRM) comes in handy, giving you a place to keep track of what happens after someone gets in touch.

If you're someone who doesn't know much about websites, it's probably a good idea to choose a website builder with a built-in CRM. This keeps everything managed in one central place and means you don't have to worry about paying for a separate service. For smaller businesses, this is a popular approach as it keeps things simple and makes sure that any leads are quickly seen and handled by your team.

It's important that enquiries reach the right people. If you have different employees responsible for handling different types of leads, you need to make sure that you have automated forwarding set up so that each enquiry reaches the right person and the sender can receive a helpful response as soon as possible.

Having the right CRM setup makes the process much easier to manage. If you are using a website builder without a built-in CRM or have a hand-coded website, you may need
to opt for custom CRM software to manage your leads. This can integrate with your existing platforms, connecting your customer data across multiple locations. From here, it becomes much easier to keep on top of your sales pipelines.

Once you've made sure all of your leads are being reliably recorded, the next step is to establish how you want to manage your communication.

It is recommended to set up an automated email that is sent to a user as soon as they’ve submitted an enquiry via your website. This acknowledges that their message has been received and is an opportunity to let them know that it could take a few days to get a response.

From here, it is best to give some human input. Receiving a custom-written email from the relevant person within a business is always going to be more valuable than receiving an automated response, so this is your opportunity to provide great customer service and hopefully gain a new paying customer.

A big area that is costing many businesses conversions is a lack of follow-ups. It's easy to send an initial response and then leave it there, but maintaining an open conversation with a lead makes them more likely to convert. Scheduling follow-up emails that offer additional support or prompt the user to take the next step may be the push that is needed to turn an enquiry into a customer, but it's important to not be too pushy with this.

At the end of the day, not all of the enquiries you receive are going to result in sales, but the stronger you manage your leads, the better the outcome is bound to be.