Telemarketing Software Featured Article

Lead generation and lead management are two of the most important tasks for any sales organization, but they’re also the most infrequently maintained. Sales people want to sell rather than engage in administrative tasks that keep leads flowing and ensure that they don’t get dropped, lost or forgotten.

Some sales organizations have dedicated lead management personnel, but not all are large enough to keep a full-time lead manager on staff. According to Genie Parker of VanillaSoft, artificial intelligent (AI) can go a long way toward making sure leads are dealt with correctly.

“Prospects are constantly moving along the sales cycle and keeping up with new developments can be challenging,” she wrote “When reviewing data, it’s important to question if it’s current and how complete it is. Data often does not show all companies in all industries. And sometimes it’s not categorized correctly either. These inaccuracies can significantly affect the analysis.”

There’s also a question of whether the data the sales organization is collecting is even relevant or factual This can result in leads being lost, leads followed up incorrectly or two or more sales people following up on the same lead, which makes the company look ineffective and inefficient…not exactly a great impression for a potential buyer.

“When presented with a surplus of available information it’s important to be asking the right question – ‘What data do we need?’ If you just dive into all available data without knowing what to look at, you’ll waste a lot of time and be thoroughly overwhelmed,” wrote Parker.

AI can remedy a number of lead management and collection woes by creating “data attractors,” or any kind of download that requires the customer to provide an “information trade” for the download (think: white papers, checklists or Internet tools). This allows the sales organization to look at a more correct “bigger picture” once the data has been connected into a more digestible format with data analysis, which should ideally be done by the AI.

“You should be looking for patterns, personas, segments and any insight you can distill,” wrote Parker. “These models can then be used to prioritize targets, create new targets and score existing targets. It will also help in creating a snapshot of prospective companies to prepare the salesperson for contact.”

With a live, warm and relevant lead and armed with the right customer information to personalize the call (or email), sales people will find it easier to put the lead into the right context and present a compelling offer to each lead.