Best industry practices to help you keep track of your sales leads efficiently

If you are focusing just on your paying customers and the leads which are showing some interest in your business, then you have been doing it all wrong! Leads are the lifeline of any company and they are the ones who not only make your business profitable but also help you realize the efficiency of your sales process. Therefore it is very important to keep track of all your leads to get improved insights on your sales process.

So how do you keep track of all your sales leads? Read on to know the top industry practices which will help you keep a track of your leads, irrespective of the size of your organization.

Prepare an email flow

Lead nurturing is a very important step in managing the leads. Before you shoot your first introduction email, you should create the complete sequence of emails which you would send to your leads over a course of time. Just sending the offer email and a follow up mail a couple of weeks later will not cut through. With a defined email sequence, you will be able to comprehend lead response for each email and evaluate their interests as per their responses.

Create a timeline for follow-ups

Not all the leads who enter your sales funnel will exit as a successful buyer, some people need more convincing before conversion. It is therefore very important that you invest in a good CRM software which provides lead generation tools and automation. This will help you keep track of all leads in your pipeline when the number of leads increases . By scheduling follow-ups, your are ensuring that each lead will be talked through and nurtured, as you will know where exactly each prospect is and what the next step for him should be.

Follow a sensible lead cycle

Going after a complete dead end makes no sense right? Although it is important t nurture leads, you need to ensure that it should not take out kore resources than it’s worth. It is therefore very important to impose a lead cycle so that you don’t end up engaging with the same lead over and over again. Keeping the lead cycle short enough will ensure that your sales pipeline is fresh and connect you with new opportunities on a regular basis.

Keep track of the pipeline

The difference between a sales funnel and a sales pipeline is that a funnel focusses on stage by stage conversion, whereas a pipeline will indicate what is on your plate this very minute. Integrating the pipeline along with the funnel, into the process is a good idea. The pipeline helps simplify the lead nurturing process and work more efficiently.

Practice lead scoring

Leads scoring is the process of scoring leads in the order of their priority with the highest priority leads on the top. You can score the leads based on project size, urgency or availability of resources and focus more resources on the ones with higher priority. This helps you save up on time and resources and understand when it’s time to remove unresponsive leads from the pipeline.

All these practices can be done effectively and efficiently with a good CRM software. CRM Runner is an all in one CRM tool which makes lead management and nurturing a cakewalk for you. You can easily plan and schedule emails, create follow-ups and track all leads with a comprehensive sales funnel. Contact us at info@crmrunner.com and start your free trial now!

Why customer complaints might be a silver lining for your business

Customer Service is a very important aspect of Customer Relationship Management or CRM. A positive customer experience will lead the customer to share his experience with his friends and family which in turn will create new leads and customers at zero cost. However, what happens if a customer has a negative experience? As per multiple studies, 96% of unhappy customers do not complain and 92% of those simply leave and never come back. The hope remains with the remaining 4% who do complain and continue to patron your business. There is still a change you can fix things and make them happy again.

Reasons why a customer complain

If a customer finds your product or service not up to the mark and he decides to complain on your platform or on social media, it could be driven by any of these motives:

  • They want to save other people from having the same experience
  • They want to get a refund
  • They want you to change your business policies
  • They want an apology
  • They want to damage your brand’s reputation.

Different category of people have different reasons for their complains. A good CRM software should be able to help you track and document each and every complaint so that you can handle each of them differently.

How can these complaints benefit you

Customer complains although not a pleasant thing can help you improve your business and provide you with multiple opportunities.

  1. Helps you identify gaps in your business

If you received a complaint on a particular product or service of yours, there is a possibility that a thousand others who used that service did not complain and left your business. So there is a compelling motivation for you to address the issue so as to not lose any further customers. These issues might be in an internal process which could not have been identified otherwise. Identifying and tracking these issues will help you in creating a better product and hence more satisfied customers.

  1. Create loyal customers

As per a survey, 90% of customers say they will give a company a second chance to improve after they have a bad experience. This is where you have an opportunity to build a loyal customer. If you manage to resolve an issue on priority basis, you have higher chances of converting him into a loyal one than before the problem took place.

  1. Modify internal training process

A bad customer experience gives you a chance to train new support representatives on how to handle that particular issue. These complaints have the ability to shape the training methodology.

  1. Gives a chance to be at par or exceed competition

If a customer complains on a certain product or service, there is a hidden message. It means that the customer is expecting something which your competitors are already providing. This can provide an opportunity for your business to improve and meet the market standards and even exceed them.

How to handle customer complaints

Once you receive a complaint, handling it is a 5 step process:

  • Listen and understand
  • Apologize sincerely
  • Find a solution
  • Follow up if they are satisfied with the solution
  • Exceed expectations by providing something extra like early access to newly launched products

CRM Runner is an integrated CRM platform where you can see each of your clients or customers and the stages they are in. We provide seamless user support and communication with the help of which you can easily redirect each client call to the right team for smooth functioning. Follow up calls can be easily scheduled. We help you ensure that all your leads and customers are always satisfied with your business. Fill up our contact form on the website or mail us at info@crmrunner.com to know more about us.

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