What is a lead system, and does a small business need one?
A lead system is the path an inquiry takes from the moment a customer reaches out to the moment it ends in a yes or a no: where it arrives, who is alerted, how fast it is answered, where it is recorded and what source it is credited to. Every business that takes inquiries already has one; the question is whether it loses customers along the way.
The six parts
- Capture: every route a customer can use, such as a form, a call, a text, an email or a direct message, ends up in one place.
- Alert: the right person knows within minutes.
- Response: a fast first reply, then a proper follow-up.
- Record: each inquiry is written down with who, what they asked and when.
- Source: each inquiry is credited to where it came from.
- Outcome: each one ends as won, lost or still open, and the reason is noted.
Signs yours is leaking customers
- Inquiries live in several inboxes, phones and apps, and nobody sees them all.
- You find messages days after they were sent.
- You cannot say where your last ten customers came from.
- Nobody knows how many inquiries turned into customers last month.
Why speed is part of it
Research reported in Harvard Business Review in 2011 found that companies that tried to contact a web lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as those that tried even an hour later. In a separate audit of 2,241 U.S. companies, 23% never responded to a web inquiry at all. A lead system's first job is to make sure no inquiry is missed and every one is answered fast.
How simple it can be
For a small business, a lead system can be one shared inbox or board, a phone alert, a rule for how fast to reply, and a monthly look at the numbers. It does not need to be expensive software; it needs to be used for every inquiry, every time.
Sources
- Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads", Harvard Business Review, March 2011
- SmartCompany, "Are you letting online leads go cold?" (July 1, 2011), reporting the study's figures
Related answers
- How fast should a business reply to a new lead?
- What is lead attribution, and why does a small business need it?
- How do you know if your marketing is working?
Lead systems and lead tracking
A lead that waits a day goes cold, and a lead with no source teaches you nothing. Ascent Vision fixes both.