If you are in a lookout for finding ways to grow revenue, one of the most fundamental processes you need to review is your lead management program in your organization. Leads can come in several ways, and it is often found in many organizations that there are loose structures in place to react and manage these leads. If you are in a lookout for finding ways to grow revenue, one of the most fundamental processes you need to review is your lead management program in your organization. Leads can come in several ways, and it is often found in many organizations that there are loose structures in place to react and manage these leads.
As your company’s ability to hit revenue targets essentially begins with good lead management skills, trying these 3 strategic tips can help you in improving your lead management efforts dramatically.
1. Create a Solid Definition of a Lead and Make Sure All Employees Value It
One of the biggest challenges that the sales team and the rest of the company faces is the definition of a lead. It has been estimated by Gartner that more than 80 percent of leads that are sent to the sales team are never acted upon. This happens because of two primary reasons. Firstly, the leads are routed to the wrong person and not in a timely manner. Secondly, the leads sent are not ready to engage with the sales person yet.
Hence, for effective lead management and better sales, you need to provide and educate your sales staffs with a more granular knowledge of as to when a prospect becomes a lead and should be forwarded to the sales.
2. Adopt an Effective Customer Management Tool
For ultimate effectiveness in sales, you need to provide your sales reps with a CRM tool that captures information about every interaction that your sales personals are having with their customers and prospects. Modern CRM software for customer management integrates different channels of communication, which includes emails, SMS, chat, social media listening, and others.
3. Follow the Source
Your prospects most often hear about your business and your brand through referrals, ads, online banner ads, or any other forms of advertisement. However, it is mandatory that you need to keep track of what actually caused your prospects to raise their hand so that you can understand which channel of communication works and does not work for them. As a part of an effective lead management strategy, it is important that your sales team need to capture the source of all intervening events, so that you can understand how many times you need to touch your prospects and leads before converting them to customers. If you do not capture the source of your leads using a CRM for SMB or large enterprises, you will have no way to find out which lead sources are working for your business.
4. Quickly Distribute the Leads
Lastly, studies have confirmed that if you can respond to a lead within 12 hours of a prospect contacting you, your sales closing rate increases dramatically. Think about your own experience. How many times have you tried to contact a business establishment to request information and they never got back? Hence, respond quickly and set your brand apart from your competition. Using the best CRM for small business helps in providing automatic reminders to your sales reps. CRM software assists sales not to miss any calls.