Insidesales.com and the Kellogg School of Management performed a study that in had a few questions concerning the best ways to drive leads to your website and qualify and close them.
The first question was how do you generate web leads to best qualify and close those leads? In the study they found that Search Engine Optimization was the best method for obtaining leads and qualifying them. With Pay-per-Click and Outbound telemarketing not doing well at all. Meaning that leads obtained from search engines were your best bet for just being able to contact and set-up appointments. The next thing they examined was the close rates from these different aspects social network marketing was the best for close rates, with pay-per-click being the worst. There was little too no correlation with the other aspects (pay-per-click, outbound telemarketing) for close rates.
The next question was the effectiveness of different offers on websites for qualifying and close rates. First we'll look at the qualification rates from these
Price Quote—qualification and close rates there was a slight increase.
Video cast—qualification there was an increase while there was no difference positive or negative for close rate.
White Paper Library—did not qualify well and there was no difference in close rates
Ebook—closed very well.
Click to call—closed very well.
People asking for a price quote are interested but someone who reads an eBook or gets right on the phone with a sales agent are most likely very interested. Where as someone who gets a white paper or watches a video cast is interested, but not chomping at the bit to get the product.
The next thing they examined was the relationship between capturing and distributing leads to sales reps, and the relationship of these methods to qualification and close rates.
CAPTURING
Email (Having the lead fill out a personal email to you)- had better than average qualification and close rates
Web form to email - below average in both qualification and close rates
Web form to phone - didn't do very well in the qualifying and had no effect on closing.
Web form to database - was below average on qualification with no difference on closing.
This data shows that the more work the lead has to do to contact you the more likely they are to become a qualified lead, and to close.
LEAD ROUTING
Skills-based lead routing—so sending leads to agents depend on skills such language or product or industry knowledge was very effective in improving both the qualifying and close rates
Contacting via fax—sending your agents faxes to notify them of a new lead was good for qualifying, but had no difference in closing.
Contacting Via Chat—had a positive effect in the qualification rates but no effect in close rates.
Geographical based lead routing (or giving leads to reps from that area or who cover that area)—had below average qualification rates and no effect on close rates.
Email routing—had an above average effect on close but just average on qualification rates.
Phone routing—had no effect on qualification rates, and actually had a negative effect on close rates.
This data shows us that if you want to qualify and close routing your lead based on skills (language, product and industry knowledge, etc.) of each agent is the very best option. With emailing your leads to agents being your next best option. All of the data in this study can be very effectively implemented into your lead response management process for higher productivity in the sales process.
These two aspects of the study are only the beginning to get more information check the actually study out at LeadResponseManagement.com.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Push Button Phone Calls
Have modern technologies made us lazy or are we a more efficient society because of them? In todays world most things are done with just the push of a button. Cell phones do not require us to type in phone anymore. Anyone saved in our address book can be brought up on our phone screen and then all we do is press send. Close family and friends can be called by holding down one number called a “shortcut”. We use these features so much we don’t even know our house number, we have to look it up when asked what it is.
Why not use that same technology for your sales process. Phone Dialer Software allows you to triple the number of calls made in a business day with just the click of button.
Phone Dialer's allow you to just login into a dialing system and your software will automatically begin calling your contacts. Saving you the time, and money. When dialing phone numbers by hand the average phone calls made by a sales rep is 50. With phone dialer software you can make anywhere from 250 to 350 calls in one business day.
The Advantages of Phone Dialer Software:
• No Manual Dialing
• Increase calls made by 4-5 times (250-350 calls a day)
• Leave pre-recorded voice messages while moving on to the next call
• No searching for phone number, automatically dials list.
• Little to no down time between calls
• Increased contacts and more sales
Technology is a must for any business who regularly makes over the phone contacts and sales. All you need is a computer, phone, and an internet connection to access the technology.
The software also knows what time of day is best to call a certain contact based on call data. The dialer automatically calls who the best contact is for that time of day, and day of the week. Make the most of your time and the sales representatives time by being as effective as possible. The Voice Messaging technologies that often accompany Phone Dialer Software also allows to record messages that you can leave on voicemails while you are on to your next call saving you time.
Why not use that same technology for your sales process. Phone Dialer Software allows you to triple the number of calls made in a business day with just the click of button.
Phone Dialer's allow you to just login into a dialing system and your software will automatically begin calling your contacts. Saving you the time, and money. When dialing phone numbers by hand the average phone calls made by a sales rep is 50. With phone dialer software you can make anywhere from 250 to 350 calls in one business day.
The Advantages of Phone Dialer Software:
• No Manual Dialing
• Increase calls made by 4-5 times (250-350 calls a day)
• Leave pre-recorded voice messages while moving on to the next call
• No searching for phone number, automatically dials list.
• Little to no down time between calls
• Increased contacts and more sales
Technology is a must for any business who regularly makes over the phone contacts and sales. All you need is a computer, phone, and an internet connection to access the technology.
The software also knows what time of day is best to call a certain contact based on call data. The dialer automatically calls who the best contact is for that time of day, and day of the week. Make the most of your time and the sales representatives time by being as effective as possible. The Voice Messaging technologies that often accompany Phone Dialer Software also allows to record messages that you can leave on voicemails while you are on to your next call saving you time.
Lead Management Giving you the Leading Edge
Lead Management is critical in today’s competitive business world. Being effective in managing your leads is necessary for business success. Managing and contacting leads is the foundation of a sales force, and growth in many businesses.
New research by MIT and InsideSales.com shows that if you aren't contacting web leads within 5 minutes after they fill out a form then your chances of reaching them decreases by 100 times compared to contacting a half hour later, and over a thousand times by waiting for more than a day. The same principle applies with any lead you receive, the faster you contact that lead the better your chances of speaking with that lead.
As a business you need to contact and qualify your leads as soon as possible. This is what Lead Management Software can do for your organization. Hosted software connects leads to your sales reps as soon as they are received through online forms. Built-in dialers allow reps to call prospects within seconds of receiving their information. If contact isn't made with a prospect the software keeps track of that and will place that prospect into a email nurturing campaign aimed to help the prospect remember your company when they are ready. Helping you to get the most of every lead.
Voice messaging can be built into a lead management system. Allowing you to leave a pre-recorded voice mail for each contact with your contact information, while moving on to the next call.
Benefits of Lead Management Software:
New research by MIT and InsideSales.com shows that if you aren't contacting web leads within 5 minutes after they fill out a form then your chances of reaching them decreases by 100 times compared to contacting a half hour later, and over a thousand times by waiting for more than a day. The same principle applies with any lead you receive, the faster you contact that lead the better your chances of speaking with that lead.
As a business you need to contact and qualify your leads as soon as possible. This is what Lead Management Software can do for your organization. Hosted software connects leads to your sales reps as soon as they are received through online forms. Built-in dialers allow reps to call prospects within seconds of receiving their information. If contact isn't made with a prospect the software keeps track of that and will place that prospect into a email nurturing campaign aimed to help the prospect remember your company when they are ready. Helping you to get the most of every lead.
Voice messaging can be built into a lead management system. Allowing you to leave a pre-recorded voice mail for each contact with your contact information, while moving on to the next call.
Benefits of Lead Management Software:
- Built-in Dialers for faster contacting
- Lead tracking and management
- Customizable to your specific techniques
- Voice Messaging Broadcast
Lead Management software is an indispensable tool for any business that relies on over the phone sales. It will increase your sales exponentially using a few techniques and tools that give you a leading edge over your competition. Allowing you to contact, qualify and close more customers. Helping your business to thrive and grow.
Hosted CRM's
Hosted Customer Relationship Management software, is an indispensable tool in today’s competitive business environment. Hosted CRM's organize and track information on all your current and prospective customers. These are generally used by your sales and customer service, but can be used for anyone who wants to keep track of conversations. You can store relevant information such as phone numbers, mailing addresses, unique request and needs, etc.
What sets Hosted CRM software apart is you can access this information from any location where you have a computer and an Internet connection. Allowing you to have access to your information from anywhere around the world. You also don't have to worry about losing your information because of errors with your computer because it is stored on a secure database.
Here are a few things that help you manage your customer relationships:
What sets Hosted CRM software apart is you can access this information from any location where you have a computer and an Internet connection. Allowing you to have access to your information from anywhere around the world. You also don't have to worry about losing your information because of errors with your computer because it is stored on a secure database.
Here are a few things that help you manage your customer relationships:
Calendar
- Keep track of appointments
- Schedule callback times
- Reminders for routine calls and task
Sales Lead Tracking
- Tracks lead status and information
- Tracks when and how many contact attempts have been made
- Keeps you organized so you do not lose any leads and make the most of each one
Reports
- Provide detailed reports of the effectiveness and productivity of your sales strategies and campaigns
- Can provide reports on each individual agent, such as calls and sales made, people contacted or whatever or specific needs are
- They also come equipped with, or with the option of integrating Sales Tools listed below
Dialers use software integrated with your CRM to make calling people easier and more efficient. By taking a call list and eliminating the time spent manually dialing and the “downtime” between each call. Simply they keep sales agents calling people by calling someone whenever they are available. There are a couple different variations with Predictive Dialers and Power Dialers, being the most popular.
Email Marketing- Uses pre-formatted emails to stay in contact with potential and current clients and alert them of new products, special offers etc. Using emails sent out at specified intervals.
Voice Broadcast-Uses an Auto Dialer to call are large list of contacts and play recorded messages instead of having an agent call each person the auto dialer just plays a message to a live person or an answering machine. Often used for reminder calls of appointments. Letting people know about new products and special offers. Also allow you to leave pre-recorded message when contacting leads if you get an answering machine you can just leave a message while you are already calling the next person.
Overall, Hosted CRM software, allows being more efficient in the sales process, and in managing your current customers. Helping you to maximize your productivity and efficiency.
Auto Dialers
Auto Dialers, what are they and how do they work? Have you ever picked up the phone and gotten a recorded message telling you about a new satellite TV plan or reminding you of your next doctors appointment. Well, that magical experience was brought to you compliments of an Auto Dialer.
How Does it Work?
Auto Dialers are known as “computer telephony software” that simply takes a call list and a pre-recorded message and calls everyone on the list. It plays the message to a live person after a slight pause from when it detects their voice or they will leave a message on an answering machine. They can also be set-up for contacts to press a pre-selected button such as “press 1 to speak to an agent” and be connected to a live agent. They can also be integrated with most Customer Resource Management software (CRMs).
What are They Used For?
Auto Dialers are used for administering surveys and polls. Notifications to customers of billing, promote new products, special offers, emergency notifications, reminding clients of appointments etc. Improving your customer satisfaction and retention.. They can be used to automate any number of tasks these are just a few of the most common uses. They are used for business-to-consumer communications, however they do not work for a business-to-business company.
Advantages
• Allows for maximum contact in minimum time
• Lower Cost, little preparation work by agents needed with a low cost per minute rates, and less time spent of the phone by agents doing busy work.
• Easy reporting and tracking the dialer keeps track of who was contacted and when so you can contact everyone and not duplicate calls
• Prospect more efficiently by qualifying accurately and sending them directly to agents
• Agent efficiency lets agents focus on higher quality customer interaction
Disadvantages
• Lag time between when prospect says hello and when message begins to play
• Often people are annoyed at getting recorded messages
•
Summary
Auto Dialers are very useful tools that can automate many tasks, help cut cost, and increase efficiency. They have a lot of advantages such as contacting a lot of people and getting a quick, simple message to them quickly. They are amazing tools for notifications, reminders, prospecting, and should definitely be considered as a time saving and cost cutting tool by anyone who spends large amounts of time doing any of these tasks.
How Does it Work?
Auto Dialers are known as “computer telephony software” that simply takes a call list and a pre-recorded message and calls everyone on the list. It plays the message to a live person after a slight pause from when it detects their voice or they will leave a message on an answering machine. They can also be set-up for contacts to press a pre-selected button such as “press 1 to speak to an agent” and be connected to a live agent. They can also be integrated with most Customer Resource Management software (CRMs).
What are They Used For?
Auto Dialers are used for administering surveys and polls. Notifications to customers of billing, promote new products, special offers, emergency notifications, reminding clients of appointments etc. Improving your customer satisfaction and retention.. They can be used to automate any number of tasks these are just a few of the most common uses. They are used for business-to-consumer communications, however they do not work for a business-to-business company.
Advantages
• Allows for maximum contact in minimum time
• Lower Cost, little preparation work by agents needed with a low cost per minute rates, and less time spent of the phone by agents doing busy work.
• Easy reporting and tracking the dialer keeps track of who was contacted and when so you can contact everyone and not duplicate calls
• Prospect more efficiently by qualifying accurately and sending them directly to agents
• Agent efficiency lets agents focus on higher quality customer interaction
Disadvantages
• Lag time between when prospect says hello and when message begins to play
• Often people are annoyed at getting recorded messages
•
Summary
Auto Dialers are very useful tools that can automate many tasks, help cut cost, and increase efficiency. They have a lot of advantages such as contacting a lot of people and getting a quick, simple message to them quickly. They are amazing tools for notifications, reminders, prospecting, and should definitely be considered as a time saving and cost cutting tool by anyone who spends large amounts of time doing any of these tasks.
In today’s competitive business world there are many tools for increasing sales productivity. Customer Relationship Management software (CRM's), telephone dialers, voice broadcasting, email marketing, are just a few of the most popular online tools used to increase effectiveness in the work place. Which in turn increases sales.
Here is a breakdown of the most popular sales tools
- CRM- Keeps track of all your potential & current customers information and lets different departments the ability to access important information. They are very helpful in the sales process allowing you to track the status of your lead so you don't forget key information. When dealing with a lot of different prospects at one time this helps you remember where you left off in your previous conversation. There is also reporting in these tools allowing you to quickly see the effectiveness of campaigns and the productivity of your sales team.
- Telephone Dialer- These dialers use computer telephony software to increase call productivity by constantly dialing contacts and minimizing time between calls. This increases the amount of calls made by 3 to 4 times over manual dialing, (Usually an average of 300+ calls daily) a must for selling from remote locations. There are several variations: Predictive Dialers, Power Dialers, Ratio Dialers, which all vary slightly.
- Voice Broadcasting- Broadcast a message to a large number of people. You can record a message by loading it into your dialer and sending it to your contacts. This is used for prospecting and lead generation, and for contacting leads. If you get the voice mail of a lead you can leave a pre-recorded message while you move on to the next call.
- Email marketing- Used to stay in contact with potential & current customers by promoting products, special offers, and upgrades, through what is known as a “drip campaign”. Using an email template that is sent out at intervals of your choosing. This is one of the most cost effective ways to stay in contact with customers and prospects.
There are many options for computer telephony software; predictive dialers, auto dialers, power dialers, and ratio dialers. However, the two most widely used are predictive and power dialers.
How do you choose the one that is right for you? To help you answer that question here is a list of the pros and cons of each.
Predictive Dialer
Advantages of Predictive Dialers over Power Dialers
Very little down time for agents.
Higher rates of speaking with people
Draw Backs
Often calls are “abandoned”, meaning a prospect will pick up and no agents will be available to speak with them.
Lag time. Prospect says “Hello” multiple times with a delayed response from agent. Because agents are not switch over to a call until the dialer detects a live person.
Power Dialer
How it Works
The Dialer calls you
The Dialer Calls then calls the next phone number in your database
The Dialer bridges the two calls together before the prospect answers so you are ready to talk when they answer, no delays.
So as long as you are connected to the dialer it keeps dialing when you are available keeping you busy and productive.
Advantages of the Power Dialer over Predictive Dialers
Increased productivity make 3 to 4 times as many calls as manual dialing. An average of 300 calls a day.
Increased Messaging leave more unique voice messages for your contacts. Meaning you can leave a voice mail while you have already begun to dial the next contact.
You can make sure you tie up loose ends before moving on to the next call such as scheduling callback time, sending emails & faxes, or leaving a voice mail.
Drawbacks
Won't contact as many people as predictive dialer
The Difference
The Predictive Dialer is a quantity approach. The Predictive Dialer allows you to make more calls and speak with more people with the drawback being you are going to miss talking to some of the people you dial because of abandonment.
The Power Dialer won't make quite as many calls. However, the quality of the calls will increase dramatically, due to no abandonment. Agents are also able to tie up loose ends before moving on to the next call. There is also an ability to set up automated processes with the Power Dialer Software allowing you to automate your processes of sending emails, voice mails and much more without actually having to do it live.
How do you choose the one that is right for you? To help you answer that question here is a list of the pros and cons of each.
Predictive Dialer
How it works
The Predictive Dialer works on it’s ability to predict when the next agent will be available.
It tries to match the time that a prospect will answer the phone to when an agent will be available for the call.
The agent logs into the dialer and it starts dialing prospects until one answers the phone.
Using the averages of several key variables: talk time, rings before a customer picks up, and percentage of dialed calls answered, etc. The Dialer makes more phone calls to match the agents with new people to speak with, when they finish their current calls.
Advantages of Predictive Dialers over Power Dialers
Very little down time for agents.
Higher rates of speaking with people
Draw Backs
Often calls are “abandoned”, meaning a prospect will pick up and no agents will be available to speak with them.
Lag time. Prospect says “Hello” multiple times with a delayed response from agent. Because agents are not switch over to a call until the dialer detects a live person.
Power Dialer
How it Works
The Dialer calls you
The Dialer Calls then calls the next phone number in your database
The Dialer bridges the two calls together before the prospect answers so you are ready to talk when they answer, no delays.
So as long as you are connected to the dialer it keeps dialing when you are available keeping you busy and productive.
Advantages of the Power Dialer over Predictive Dialers
Increased productivity make 3 to 4 times as many calls as manual dialing. An average of 300 calls a day.
Increased Messaging leave more unique voice messages for your contacts. Meaning you can leave a voice mail while you have already begun to dial the next contact.
You can make sure you tie up loose ends before moving on to the next call such as scheduling callback time, sending emails & faxes, or leaving a voice mail.
Drawbacks
Won't contact as many people as predictive dialer
The Difference
The Predictive Dialer is a quantity approach. The Predictive Dialer allows you to make more calls and speak with more people with the drawback being you are going to miss talking to some of the people you dial because of abandonment.
The Power Dialer won't make quite as many calls. However, the quality of the calls will increase dramatically, due to no abandonment. Agents are also able to tie up loose ends before moving on to the next call. There is also an ability to set up automated processes with the Power Dialer Software allowing you to automate your processes of sending emails, voice mails and much more without actually having to do it live.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
