Lead management is certainly becoming the new buzz word in CRM. My theory is that it is to obscure the failure of the CRM concept and the budgetary fiascos it has brought to most organizations. As you know, CRM always promised big ROIs and WOW customer experiences. So, as my theory goes, CRM is out and lead management is in.
What is Lead Management?
Lead management has two fundamental objectives: maximizing the ROI on your lead acquisitions and delivering lead converting customer experiences. It is as simple as that–lead management is about turning more leads into sales.
Beware! Simplicity often breeds counterproductive complexity. This was the fate of CRM. Customer relationship management was supposed to simply help me build a relationship with customer. Unfortunately, most have turned into an over priced database and email spam machine that often increases my work load and drives away my prospects.
Lead management could befall this same fate.
What Should Lead Management Do For Me?
Lead management should be measured against the primary objectives: lead ROI and customer satisfaction.
Here are the top lead management software best practices for delivering these objectives:
- Drive sales action: Speed Matters in Lead Management
- Compel accountability: Accountability to customers and to marketing investment
- Maximize time on sales: Remove all unnecessary data entry
- Lead nurturing: Build trust and relationships, not promote the lead squeeze
Your lead management software should promote the building of trust and relationships with prospective customers. And make that process as simple and manageable as possible for sales.
Lead management should drive immediate action. This means giving sales people awareness of new and active prospects, compelling focus and action on each customer, and rewarding each sales action with another lead.
Sales is not an art–closing is an art. Your lead management software needs to enforce performance accountability and good sales process best practices. Lists of leads given to sales people convert very poorly, regardless of the marketing method or source.
Your sales force is the most expensive data entry personnel on the face of the planet. Why are you having them do that and take precious time from sales. Let the lead management system track sales activities and results. Sales people should be selling.
Enough with the mindless crushing of customers. Think intelligently about creating experiences, not random impersonal clotheslining of customers. Automation is okay, but think about the process. Lead nurturing should be driven by customer behavior, not time.
What to Avoid in Lead Management
- Lack of accountability to prospects: Lists of leads to be sorted and selected
- Sales doing all of the work: Lists of leads to be sorted, selected, and updated
- Sales as an art: “ultimate flexibility” = no processes and no useful metrics
- Dropping customers into the blender: Unintelligent auto-responders and dialers
Lead management software (technology in general) should only be implemented if it helps you manage complex processes and scale those solutions to increase production.
If your lead management system simply puts your legal pad of people to call on a computer screen then you have a very expensive legal pad.
If your sales CRM makes your sales people spend more time on data entry you just increased your cost per sales and diverted time from sales activity.
If your sales lead management does not allow you to define, deploy, and observe a consistent sales process across your organization then you have an expensive black box, and turning over hope of success to it.
If your lead management software indiscriminately “pounds” through customer records to “get response” then you are going to get a reasonable response to your sales effort–”click!” or “unsubscribe.”
Getting the Most Out of Lead Management Software
Lead management software is the promise of getting more sales production from your marketing efforts. Make sure you are getting a system that is designed with that goal in mind: simplicity, compels action, enforces accountability, no data entry, gets results.
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Want more information about Kaleidico's lead management software or services visit www.kaleidico.com.
