What is lead

Not so long ago, in one of the projects, I had to tell the client in detail what the lead is and why it is needed in the CRM system in particular, and for the work of its sales department as a whole. As practice shows, this case is far from being isolated. Our businessmen understand what a client is, what a contact is, but the word lead confounds so many people. And those who are familiar with this terminology, very often mean by the word "lead" something of their own, different from basic concepts.
The absence of reference books written in simple and understandable language is also to blame for the creators of various business systems, who often introduce their own terminology or use common terms to refer to structures whose functions may differ from the basic concept of “lead” .
In this article, I decided to summarize my, in fact, very extensive experience in this matter, and to understand in detail: what is a lead, why is it needed in sales and how it is used in CRM systems.

Lead: definition

Lead (lead, target lead) - a potential client, one way or another reacted to marketing communication. The term lead has become customary to designate a potential buyer, contact with him obtained for the subsequent managerial work with the client.

Lead (lead) is translated from English as a lead, evidence, binding. In Russian, the closest concept to the word lead is a potential client, i.e. a person who, on his own behalf or as a company representative, shows some interest in products / services and may in the future conclude a deal with the seller.

I believe that the lead is the contact details of a person who has shown a real interest in the goods and services of the company and in the future may become a real customer. Any sales manager knows that to work with potential clients it is necessary to have at a minimum contact details of a specific person with whom you can work further (identify interest and needs, form a proposal, discuss the terms of the transaction, etc.). That is why I emphasize that the lead is not just an interest, but contacts of a particular person.
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For example, interest can be either a request through a feedback form or an incoming call, or a simple comment on social networks. “Interest” is any attention shown, including anonymous. It is also wrong to call a lead a set of data "company and corporate phone number." But if the full name of the person who has the right to discuss your interests on behalf of the company and shows interest in your products or services is attached to this phone number, such a set of contacts is already a lead. Even better, the manager will have a personal phone number and email of the person with whom he can negotiate.

Those. A lead is a set of contacts of a specific real person who, on his own behalf or on behalf of the company in which he works, shows interest in your goods or services and is authorized to negotiate and make certain decisions.

Lead in the CRM system

So, we figured out what a lead is in principle, but how and why to work with it in the CRM system? In this very popular question, we now will understand.

Practically in any CRM system, the contact data of potential and real buyers fall into three categories:

1. Interest;
2. Lead;
3. Customer.

About what user interest is, I wrote in the article Social CRM. Collecting the interest of Internet users . And here I will not dwell on this category in detail.

Customer data can be stored in different ways, depending on the characteristics of the customer (organization or individual), as well as the selected CRM system. This may be the data of the Counterparty (company) and the contacts associated with this record (persons representing the company), may be Clients and Contacts (similar functions, but other names), there may be some other version of the release. There are indeed many options already implemented, and it’s hard to say which one is better and more convenient.

The lead stands between interests and customers, i.e. this is a potential client who has already shown a clear interest in a much more specific and substantive interest than just interest, but is not yet a client, i.e. the company has not made a deal with him yet.

For example, many companies communicate with “interest” in social networks. This communication is largely anonymous, as the manager does not know either the phone or the email, and often even the name and surname of the person who has shown interest. And at this stage it is very difficult to say who is “at that end of communication” - really a potential client, a representative of competitors, just curious. And the manager has almost no connection with the “interest”, except for the possibility of correspondence in social networks or on some other Internet resource.

But if “interest” appears, it gives at least some minimal data, for example, a work phone or email to receive a price list and other information, and also, if the person who showed interest in products and services, immediately gave at least minimal data for feedback and outlined the scope of their interests, this is already a potential client, i.e. lead

And when this lead starts negotiations on a specific transaction, the manager sends him a commercial offer, concludes an agreement, the lead becomes the Client.

Work with lead

It is very important to properly organize work with the leads in the CRM-system, only then this tool will be really effective. How does this happen when properly implemented? This is important to talk more.

Getting lead

Depending on the situation, the CRM system can be either manually entered by the manager or automated lead generation based on requests from the site, incoming letters of inquiry from potential customers, etc.

The main sources of obtaining lead:

1. Request through the site feedback form;
2. Incoming email;
3. Phone call;
4. Getting contact information from third parties (business partners).

For high-quality work with a lead it is very important to determine and indicate the source of the lead. This is important for analyzing the effectiveness of various channels, as well as for understanding where the request came from and how to work with it.

Next, be sure to check the correctness of data entry. It can also be automated. For example, an email address must be entered in Latin letters, with an obligatory @ symbol, etc. Phone number must belong to the contact person. If the lead indicates the corporate number of a large organization without any additional numbers, such a lead cannot be considered full, rather, it’s just an interest. And he needs additional verification and a slightly different approach than working with a lead.

The best option for setting up CRM is as follows: all incoming requests from the site or via mail are automatically entered into the system. If a lead or customer already exists in the system, this request is attached to his card, and the responsible manager receives an alert. If there are no customers or leads with the specified data, a new card is automatically created. Manual data entry is desirable to minimize, it is needed to create a lead based on incoming phone calls, work at the exhibition and other options for obtaining contact leads offline.

Check for doubles

It is done automatically by name, phone number, email, and possibly other parameters. Moreover, the check is carried out both in the database of leads and in the database of clients, which guarantees the absence of duplicates in the system.

For correct work with clients and potential buyers, it is very important that all inquiries be timely from the person in charge, it is also necessary to eliminate the situation in which two managers independently communicate with one company.

In addition, due to the appearance of doubles of leads, the database grows in size, sometimes very much. The system becomes cumbersome and inconvenient. Therefore, it is necessary that the lead cards are correctly filled, all contacts that belong to the same organization are merged with each other, and that duplicates should be searched for in all directories and parameters.

Assignment of responsibility

It can be made automatically according to the customer distribution scheme adopted by the company, or manually (the responsible person is indicated by the manager himself, who took the lead or appoints the manager).

The most common schemes are:

1. "Who is the first, he took." Lida after entering into the common database is available to all employees of the sales department. Lead goes to the one who first took it to work (indicated that he was a responsible person).
2. Distribution based on certain traits. In this case, the system distributes leads, taking into account certain parameters. For example, requests for different groups of products are sent to different managers. Either the division is on the basis of a retail or bulk order. Or a lead is added to the manager who has the smallest number of leads and clients in work, etc.
3. Leader manually distributes leads. In this case, the manager personally looks through each lead and appoints a responsible person.

Setting goals

The first tasks usually look like a “call lead” or “email response to a request”, etc. In the process of work, after each completed, a new task is set. So, in the process of a telephone conversation, an agreement can be reached to call in a few days. The manager indicates the result of the task and immediately sets himself a new phone call. And then on that day he simply cannot forget about the agreement, the system will remind itself of the task set. Details about working with communications and setting tasks, depending on the result of the previous one, I wrote in the article Communications in CRM .

In the case of a lead distribution, the task of “assigning a responsible person” may turn out to be the first. Also, the head of the sales department may additionally set the task manager associated with the lead. For example, make a commercial offer in writing and send it by email, or make other adjustments to the process of working with a client if necessary.

Lead processing

This is the work of the manager, which is conducted using CRM as an auxiliary tool (fixing interest, setting goals for each step, etc.). There may be a wide range of actions:

• Phone calls;
• Email correspondence;
• Sending lead advertising printing;
• Sending commercial offers or price lists;
• Meetings at your office or on its territory, etc.

Any work with a lead until the moment he becomes a client belongs to this stage. The manager must identify the interests and needs of the lead, draw up a proposal, discuss possible options for cooperation and, as a result, prepare an agreement for signing and / or issue an invoice for payment. By the time of the appearance of the contract and the account, the lead becomes a client, and these actions are already underway with a new element - the Client's Card.

It is important that all methods of interaction with the lead are recorded in a timely manner in the CRM system as tasks and reports on their implementation, in this case the manager will always be able to see in real time what stage each lead is in, assist the manager, correctly distribute the load by department specialists, etc.

Lead transformation to contact or customer

After receiving the consent to cooperation, a separate element is created on the basis of the lead - the Client or Contact, with which the current work then continues. This is the next stage of work with the client, in which other people may be involved, maybe another person in charge, to correctly fill out the card, you may need information that was not needed to work with the lead (TIN, OKPO, company registration certificate number, etc. .d.)

At the same time, the Client (Contact) must be “connected” with the lead and in case of need, you can always quickly transfer from the client's card to the lead card, for example, to clarify some data from the history of negotiations at the initial stage.

Why separate Lead and Contact?

The question of why in CRM divide the lead, customer, contact, I get asked very often. It would seem that work is being done with one company or an individual, in whatever capacity they may have performed, their data does not change. And in the CRM-system there are several different directories, and when the status changes, the information is copied or transferred from one directory to another.

And indeed, some CRM systems have followed the path of a single directory of counterparties, in which only the sign on the card changes - “lead, contact, client, etc.”. In fact, this approach is not the best, since it greatly limits the capabilities of a CRM system.

1. The lead and customer may have very different contact information. For example, the company could get the lead at the exhibition. And it says - what was the exhibition, with whom they communicated, the contact phone number of this person. And by the time when the lead becomes a client, the manager is already in contact with completely different people, has a lot more information about the company, and therefore the cards differ significantly in the end.
   
   
2. There are tasks, for example, sending out an auction offer, which will be of interest to the leads, but not needed by customers. Conversely, some alerts that are important for customers are useless. And this separation helps them conveniently sort.
   
   
3. Storing history and analytics. Separating leads and clients allows you to keep a history of working with a lead and a client separately, to see exactly when the lead became a client, to receive detailed reports on working with leads and clients, including for previous periods. This allows you to analyze the quality of the sales department and each manager, as well as the effectiveness of working with each specific lead and client.
   
   
4. Control of occupancy of the lead card and the client. The quality of the manager’s work can also be assessed by the quality of the card’s filling and the amount of information received when interacting with a potential client. And if for a lead, filling in 3-5 fields will be normal (full name, telephone, interest, company, etc.), then for a client, the normal number of filled information fields can reach 10-15 pieces. And it will be wrong if they all appear in one general report, the manager will have to manually look through each card that raises questions to make sure it is filled correctly.
   
   
5. The lead and the client may have different responsible persons. For example, a telemarketing employee could work with a lead. And the client is already working with a sales person. And it is also important to maintain, both for analysis in the future, both states so that the heads of these responsible persons can at any time conduct an analysis of the quality of the employee’s work, including for a long period of time.
   
   
6. Control the transformation of leads into contacts. After a lead requests and receives a commercial offer, enters into a contract or makes a first purchase, it is transformed into a Client in the CRM system. At the same time, the link to the lead remains in the client's card, i.e. These cards are “connected” to each other. And the manager at any time can see what percentage of leads have transformed into customers, how quickly the leads pass or do not go through this transformation.

Thus, the separation of the lead and the client provides many more opportunities for analytics and quality control of work than the use of a common contact card.

What is lead generation?

When it comes to leads, another concept is often mentioned, it is lead generation. In essence, if a lead is a goal, then lead generation is the process of getting leads. Therefore, I also decided to say a few words about lead generation in this article.

Lead generation (eng. Lead generation) is a marketing tactic aimed at finding potential customers with certain contact details.

Those. when ordering lead generation, the performer (company or individual) undertakes the obligation to find a certain number of leads (potential customers) for the company-customer, and either to collect their contact information or send them to the site where they leave their contact data and etc.

How it works? For example, a manufacturing company participates in an exhibition where it collects data from potential customers, after which these data are distributed among the dealers of the manufacturer by their regions.

One more example. Forum organizers, for example, programmers play a prize. To participate in the lottery, you must leave the card with your contact information to the organizers and allow the forum organizers to process and use them. Further, all these cards are transferred to headhunters, with whom a contract for lead generation was concluded.

Lead generation is even more common on the Internet, where contact information of stakeholders is collected very actively with the help of various questionnaires, prize draws, interesting subscriptions, etc. In most cases, companies that require contacts of potential customers do not deal with these issues themselves, but hire specialists to do this.

Also, the “lead generation” is often called work on the contact database of potential customers. Personally, I think that this method is closer to spam, and you should not call it full-fledged lead generation. The essence of the method lies in the fact that the company buys a database of enterprises that by the nature of their activities may be potential customers. Then they hire people (often freelancers) for “cold ringing”.

What is the result? For example, from a database of 1,000 phones, 10 or 20 potential customers show real interest. Employees take contact information from them and pass it on to the sales department for further processing. It would seem, leads are received. At the same time, the base was quite inexpensive, usually only lead leads pay for freelancers, and not every call. Profitable and convenient.

In fact, it's not at all like that. Such “telephone spam” is a low-paid job, which means that people who do not have high qualifications also take on it. As a result, one has to spend his time and energy on strict control of their activities, which can also be safely considered as costs, since the manager at this time cannot engage in other, more useful activity for the company. In addition, it is important to understand that you get 10 customers, but the remaining 990 for you are lost for at least a few months, if not forever. People “telephone spam” annoying, and the low level of training of people who agree to such work, and even aggravates the unpleasant impression. Therefore, I personally believe that such work is not a full-fledged lead-generation, and often hurts a business a lot more than it helps.

Lead reprocessing

In addition to lead generation, i.e. attracting new leads, and current work with existing leads, there is such a thing as re-processing leads. In this case, leads who refuse to cooperate for one reason or another are not removed from the system, but receive the “rejection” label.

What can be done after this?

1. Send a “farewell letter”. This letter expresses regret that the client is leaving, a short questionnaire is offered that will help clarify the reasons for the refusal, perhaps also some alternative solution is offered unobtrusively, and so on. In some cases, after the farewell letter, if it is made correctly, of course, the potential client returns.
   
   
2. Collect as much information as possible about the reason for the refusal and postpone the lead for the future. Perhaps the refusal is due to changes in plans or lack of funds at the moment, but, in principle, the lead is interested in your products and services. Leave it in the database with all the information collected. Congratulate him on calendar holidays by email, after some time the manager may return to re-communication. Perhaps by that time the lead will be ready for cooperation.

Summary

I believe that in order to build a high-quality sales system using CRM, it is very important to separate Lida and Contacts (Customers). This is necessary both for the convenience of current work with different categories, and for high-quality detailed analytics and quality control of each employee of the sales department.

Lida is the very first stage of any sales, without leads it is impossible to imagine any business. And how well the work with leads will be built, how actively they will be involved, and how well each of them will be worked out in the sales department, the profit of any company directly depends.