Fulfill Inquiries Fast

At Lett Direct, we sometimes conduct studies to determine how quickly companies fulfill catalog requests (i.e., inquiries).

While some catalogers do a great job turning around requests, many don’t. Unsolicited (and solicited) catalog requests can be extremely valuable, and a high percentage convert into buyers. Therefore, inquiry fulfillment needs to be monitored more closely and given a higher priority. This month, I’ll discuss the importance of inquiry fulfillment and provide results of a recent study we conducted.

Unsolicited catalog requests come from many sources. We don’t always know their origins, but we do know inquiries are “diamonds in the rough.” If someone takes the time to request your catalog, chances are he or she is very interested in your products. What’s more, you can re-mail the inquiries — those that do not convert right away — two, three or more times with success. The point is, they’re very qualified prospects.

How fast should you fulfill inquiries? There’s a direct relationship between the number of days it takes you to fulfill a request for a catalog and the conversion rate. It’s best to fulfill the initial catalog request in 24 to 48 hours.

Some catalogers hold inquiries until they have enough to send via Standard A mail. This is a big mistake. Inquiries need to be fulfilled daily. Again, the faster you fulfill catalog requests, the higher your conversion rate will be.

A Study of Catalog Requests

We recently completed a catalog-request study to determine how long it takes catalog companies to fulfill inquiries. We called 19 companies earlier this year. As of March 3, we’d received 15 catalogs. In other words, about 21 percent of the catalogs we requested never came. (This report is consistent with a similar study we did about a year ago.)

Of the 15 catalogs we got, it took from three days (best performance) to 43 days (worst performance) for the catalogs to arrive in-home. On average, it took 15.2 days to get the catalogs we requested.

Note the date we requested each catalog and the time of day we called. We were placed on hold a few times. The length of average talk time varied, and in one case it took four minutes to complete our request. The expected arrival date was the day we were promised by the operator. In most cases, it took considerably longer to get the catalog compared to what we’d been told. There seems to be inconsistency between what the operators told us the time lag would be versus reality. As with many things, it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver.

From these results, we can extrapolate a few lessons:
- In general, companies pay very little attention to fulfilling catalog requests. Inquiries are gold, yet some catalogers don’t do a good job getting catalogs into the hands of these qualified prospects.
- The length of time it takes to fulfill the inquiries isn’t made a top priority. For every day it takes after about one week, the value of the inquiry diminishes.
- There usually are no incentives or dot-whacks thanking prospects for their inquiries or making them offers to purchase.
- The re-mail opportunities are minimized due to the length of initial fulfillment time.

Following are six tips to keep in mind when fulfilling inquiries:

1. Process inquiries daily. Don’t wait until someone else has had time to get to them.

2. Fulfill inquiries via first-class mail. Do whatever it takes to get a catalog to someone who requested it, and try to do it within five days of the request.

3. Thank prospects for their inquiries with a label placed on the front cover or with a special ink-jet message on the back cover next to the address block.

4. Make a special offer of free shipping or a dollar amount off orders for first-time purchasers.

5. Be sure every catalog includes a source code to determine the conversion rate.

6. Re-mail the non-converting inquiries at least three times.

I once tested fulfilling catalog requests via first-class mail versus Standard A. I found the conversion rate increased by 20 percent with first-class mail, which was more than enough to offset the additional postage cost. While you may not experience the same increase, it’s safe to say you’ll maximize your conversion rate if you boost the rate at which you fulfill catalog requests.

Typical Conversion Rates

I’ve discussed conversion rates in general, but how do they compare, and what can be expected?

The initial conversion rates for inquiries typically range from 5 percent to 10 percent. Re-mailing the non-converting inquiries one, two or even three times often yields an additional 2 percent to 4 percent. These percentages compare favorably with the response rate from a typical rented list at 1 percent to 2 percent. An actual chart that tracks the conversion rate of a consumer catalog company’s inquiries over time is available by clicking here (PDF).

Encouraging More Inquiries

We know inquiries yield a high conversion rate. So what can you do to generate more inquiries? Following are a few ideas:

1. Test the use of space ads to generate catalog requests.

2. Test inquiry-generating cooperative programs that you pay for on a “per-inquiry” basis (these programs tend to generate a lot of inquiries, but the conversion rate can be low).

3. Encourage more inquiries by placing a request card (bind-in or blow-in) in your catalog.

4. Put a “Tell-a-Friend” space on your catalog order form.

Ours is a society of instant gratification. We order something today, and we expect it tomorrow (or within a few days, anyway). Fulfilling inquiries quickly is essential to a successful marketing program. Follow through and maximize your inquiry conversion results.

Stephen R. Lett is president of Lett Direct, a catalog consulting firm specializing in marketing, circulation planning, forecasting and analysis. He can be reached at (302) 541-0608 or by e-mail at slett@lettdirect.com.