Taking the Lead Management Challenge

Company X, an international instrumentation company, recently came to us with a challenge.  Since we love challenges here at Smartlead, we took it on, headstrong!

You see, Company X sells 32 product lines, with annual sales over $1.5 billion, respectively.  But, they were using this complicated process to manually manage and distribute leads. Both qualified and unqualified leads found their way into the sales channel, with the sales team unable to really differentiate.  What we realized about Company X is that they had a lead management system, it’s just that they had never consciously made a decision about it.

While they were getting by using this strategy, their method was inefficient to say the least.  Not only did it cause a lot of frustrated employees, it also often caused a loss of sales due to inaccuracies in the system.  This manual process was taking weeks to do what a lead management system could do in 15 minutes. Needless to say, we had a lot to overcome!

Before I get into how we were able to help Company X, I wonder what approach you might’ve considered at this point?

What we realized is that there were really 2 parts to the issue.  The first being a problem with their complex distribution system, and the second was losing their unqualified leads because they didn’t have the tools or know how to deal with them.

Our solution:
·         An automated lead processing and distribution system.
·         A process to nurture lower ranked leads.

Specifically, the nurturing system includes:
·         Outbound sales calls by the SmartLead Contact Center.
·         SmartLead’s literature fulfillment services.
·         An e-mail marketing system.

What this really accomplished for Company X was the ability for their sales team to focus on qualified leads, while SmartLead nurtured the rest until they became sales-ready.
When we implemented our program for Company X, we saw some drastic results:
·         Doubled sales in 1-year period.
·         Captured/qualified 20,000 of the company’s sales leads in one year.
·         Increased close rates by focusing 200 field sales representatives on the most profitable leads.
·         Compressed the sales cycle by streamlining its lead processing and distribution system.

We were ecstatic with these results, but every day we strive to overcome new obstacles with our clients.  But, we are always wondering about other solutions.  What are some challenges you have seen in lead management?  What have you been able to do to solve them?