Mapping the Teleprospecting process into your CRM will help to ensure that the process is being used consistently by all parties. You need to build a workflow that manages Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL)-to-Sales Qualified Leads (SQL)-to-the sales funnel process which can be easily reviewed and approved by the Teleprospecting Manager and managed effectively by the sales team.
Additionally, this process ensures that your field or inside sales teams are following up on SQLs in a timely manner. Finally, you want to see which SQLs are approved by sales and then added to the sales funnel as well as which SQLs are rejected and sent back to Teleprospecting (for follow-up) or Marketing (nurture).
If a SQL is rejected, you need to know why. Rejected SQLs can provide important information for marketing and Teleprospecting managers. Teleprospectors whose SQLs are frequently rejected might need training. If training doesn’t help, they need to be removed from the position. Or if SQLs from a particular industry segment, for example, are frequently rejected, it might be that your messaging is off for that target.
Rejected leads provide valuable information about your employees’ abilities, messaging, sales acceptance and targets. Make sure that you capture the reasons for rejection and use this information to continuously improve the process and/or skills of your team.
Capture the Right Data
When you have determined your qualification criteria, add these as fields to your CRM. Companies often have their Teleprospectors and sales teams put information in a notes section. Most CRMs have notes fields, which are unstructured text fields where data is entered randomly by reps. Reporting on this data is extremely difficult, which prevents a company’s ability to effectively gather market intelligence to continuously improve their marketing and messaging. The randomness of information creates frustration for sales teams who need to quickly assess if the SQL is viable. When specific qualification criteria are added as distinct fields:
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Management can run reports. For example, if “Key Initiatives” is a drop down field highlighting initiatives that map to your solution, managers can get a sense of real key initiatives of prospects. As these may change over time, you are able to gain other insights from this data.
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The sales organization has a template for reviewing all SQLs. Once the sales reps get into the habit of checking the information, they will be able to easily assess the quality of SQLs prior to the first call.
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Teleprospectors can follow the information given while using their Call Guide. This way, important qualifiers won’t be missed, as they speak to prospects.
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The Teleprospector managers will have the information at their fingertips. They can quickly scrutinize SQLs for their compliance with the qualification criteria. If data is missing, the Teleprospector can go back to collect additional details. These details provide an overview of the SQL/Company landscape and are highly coveted by Sales.
If qualification data is crammed into notes, it will be very difficult for managers to validate the quality of each lead. The SQL process slows down and the sales team will grow frustrated since the sales reps are required to read through clusters of unstructured data. Add the key qualification criteria into your CRM. Your CRM will become an easy to manage prospect map that your sales teams will appreciate.