Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Wasted Leads: How Lead Management Can Help Minimize This

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For those companies who purchase leads from lead generating companies, a wasted lead is an expense that they can very well do without. How do leads get wasted, and in what sense are they wasted? Can lead management and lead management software help minimize, if not, altogether stop the wasted potential that these leads have?

Wasted Leads and How These Happen

You may have seen this happen before. You have a very good lead, a potential sale that you know can really turn a profit for your company then the next thing you know, the lead suddenly turns sour and disappears. How does this happen? Wasted leads are leads that could have become sales for you had they been handled properly or by the right people. The loss of a good lead is often due to mishandling, and this can often fall on the shoulders of the sales agent who handled the pitch. Another person who can also be called to task for this kind of a loss is the sales manager or in this case, the lead manager. Potential customers that are lost, specifically those that are called qualified leads, could actually be prevented had there been lead management software set in place or a lead management system set in motion.

How a lead is lost is usually due to some factors that could have been avoided had there been a lead manager in charge of lead distribution or lead assignment. When a potential lead or a qualified lead is generated, whether it be from software that is custom made for the company or from lead-generating companies that you employ to do this for you, you will need to hand it over to one of your better agents to make it convert. Having a trainee or someone who is new to your team handle such a lead can result in a wasted lead, and you do not want that. If you had a lead manager or even lead management software in place, the possibility of this happening is minimized.

How to Salvage Wasted Leads

We all know that prevention is better than a cure, and while a wasted lead can be considered a huge loss, you can actually try and salvage the lead with the use of a team of individuals who are experts at troubleshooting such a problem. Most of the time there is no need for a team like this if there were an efficient lead manager and software in place at the start, but having a backup like this cannot hurt the company one bit. The people who will man such a team should consist of highly amiable people who know how to convince people to rethink their decisions in terms of the lost sale or negative outcome of the previous transaction. This team should consist of people who can also answer any question about the products, services, and other possible questions that such leads might ask concerning the company and the like.

Since this team will definitely be handling people who have already talked with other sales agents in the same company, the very agents who lost these qualified leads, the people in this team will have to work twice as hard to get these people to reconsider the services and products of the company with sales savvy, excellent public relations, and an air of friendliness that is hard to resist. While a lot of companies may not consider having such a team on hand, it is rather wise to have one that can follow up on these lost leads after a day or two of losing them. This means that they might still get these leads to turn a profit for the company by giving the lead a day to rethink things and a new perspective from another agent who can better serve their needs.

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