Timetoreply helps track and increase customer response time online

Based in Cape Town, South Africa timetoreply helps sites measure how quickly they respond to customer enquiries which then helps them improve their response time. The startup has announced that the popular entrepreneur Chris Staines who’s been voted among the world’s top seven entrepreneurs in 2000 by Business Week Magazine has recently invested in the company.

Dane Spear started to develop timetoreply in 2012. The algorithmic software could be used by website owners to measure how fast sales agents were responding to web-generated leads or unqualified sales opportunities, and track improved contact rates over time. Put simply, it’s a web-based widget that shows online visitors how quickly sites will get back to them and provides the tools you need to respond faster.

Sites that use timetoreply have a badge called Speedo on their homepage. This alone, results in an average 28% increase in leads without any uplift in website traffic. For example, timetoreply’s homepage has a little badge in the site’s corner which reads “8 minutes”, meaning that based on the site’s track record it will take the sales team that long to reply to potential customers.

“I very rarely see a new product or business that has all the attributes I am looking for”, says Staines. “For me it has to be truly global, easily scalable, unique, have huge benefit to its customers, demonstrate exceptional margins and have an outstanding team behind.”

In terms of scalability, Spear estimates that at least 40% of the 644 million active web-sites worldwide have web-forms seeking to generate leads. “That means there are probably over 200 million potential customers,” he suggests.

Staines believes timetoreply will quickly become the industry standard for response. “We have developed this idea in Cape Town, South Africa, which has spawned a number of globally successful internet start-ups such as Clickatell, Yola, and Gyft — all now based out of the US,” says Staines.