I read recently that according to the NAR, it takes most agents 3 days to return a call from a prospect. Could this be true? Do you really take three days to call someone back? You don't have to tell me, but you know if this describes you or not. Do you know that when a prospect calls or emails that they expect a response within 2 hours or they will make a call to the next person on the list?

This goes for all industries not just realtors. It seems like once someone gets busy they let the "unimportant" calls go. A very busy virtual assistant recently asked me if I wanted to reply to an inquiry she had received because she couldn't fit another client into her schedule at that time. So I replied. The response I got was, "Where were you three weeks ago when I needed the help?"   

While I understand that no one can be available 24 hours waiting for the phone to ring, there are things you can do when you are busy so that you minimize your chances of losing these prospects to your competition.

Set a time when you will make follow up phone calls. And stick to it. Then add a message to your answering machine that tells people when they can expect a return call, such as "within X amount of hours". You don't have to be specific but you should give them an approximate time when you will call. You can also set an autoresponder for email inquiries, which is basically an answering machine for email that will tell prospects the same thing.  

Prioritize your call backs into groups. I don't need to tell you who is more important than whom. That's for you to decide. I put all current clients as my top priority. Followed by people who are major players in meeting deadlines.

So - what if you really are too busy to get to the prospects on your list when making your call backs? If you are finding that after calling everyone on your priority list that you don't have time to call prospects back, get help. You should not be letting new business go because you are too busy with current business. Embrace the growth of your business. That's a good thing. Then find the very best people you can find to take some of the tasks off your hands so you can be the one who makes the calls to your prospects.