How to Qualify and Convert your B2C Leads
No matter how well you construct your marketing campaigns or how exceptional your product/service is, if you can’t convert new leads, you’re going to struggle in today’s business world. From companies that specialize in networking solutions to real estate vendors, the ability to follow up with leads from their first contact to the final sale is fundamental. Companies which fail to do that, often don’t do so because what they offer is wrong. They fail because they can’t convert leads into sales. Many tools exist to enrich B2B leads with a lot of useful information about the company, however for consumer leads (B2B) the process is totally different.
That’s where B2C lead qualification comes in. By creating tailored systems to process every lead that expresses interest, companies can prioritize high potential customers and focus their resources on the right leads. When you do that, good things follow and conversion rates increase dramatically. Let’s dig a little further to explore how lead qualification can turn your operations around.
Not all Leads are Equal: Learn How to Focus Your Energy Effectively Firstly, it doesn’t matter what sector of the economy you work in, the same thing applies. Some customers are just more likely to convert than others. The secret is to hone in on those leads and dedicate your sales resources to them. Instead of spreading your resources thinly and trying to handle all consumers in exactly the same way, it’s vital to create an interface between customers and your staff. This interface needs to have the ability to rapidly assess every lead, sorting them into categories which stretch from high to low conversion potential. That’s what we call “lead scoring” – and it’s something that very few companies develop effectively on their own. It usually requires a little investment in external expertise to get a scoring system up and running. But when the conversion stats come through, it’s almost always worthwhile.
Understand Which Consumers you are Seeking to Reach However, creating an interface between businesses and customers is just a first step in creating an efficient lead qualifying system. You’ll also need to carry out research to understand exactly what types of customers need to be targeted by your efforts. This isn’t the same as standard market research, which tries to investigate why people make purchasing decisions. Instead, researchers trained in qualifying leads seek to assess how customers feel after they have expressed interest in your products/services. They need to come up with templates for “ideal” customer profiles who are most likely to convert, and find ways of fitting actual clients into those categories when they make telephone contact, fill in online forms or send emails. It’s a specialist process, and one that has to be done well, or you can end up with categories that bear little resemblance to the customers you’ll actually be dealing with.
How You Relate to Customers is a key Part of B2C Lead Qualification When you have an idea of who your ideal customers are, and you’ve set up the interface to handle their inquiries, there’s another crucial thing to think about: how your staff talk to customers in their efforts to qualify them properly. This usually takes the form of a simple conversation, but it can’t be a rambling, open-ended discussion. Staff need to be disciplined and focused on questions that matter. But at the same time they need to have the interpersonal skills and flexibility to relate in a human way to every single customer. Like good actors reading from a script but adding their own personality, lead scoring experts have to be responsive but always working to achieve results. If they take too long, their work becomes more expensive and customers may lose interest. But if they don’t ask every relevant question, the scores they come up with won’t be as meaningful. It’s a tough balance, and one which is easier to strike if you enlist the help of experienced B2C lead qualifying professionals such as Upcall.
Speed is Essential if you Want to Convert as Many B2C Leads as Possible
How quickly staff process conversations is important, but there’s another metric that catches many businesses out – how quickly they actually respond to B2C inquiries. Take real estate companies, for example. It’s well-known that companies which take longer to respond to customer inquiries tend to lose out. People might approach various realtors and be impressed by rapid responses, even if the company they choose isn’t necessarily the best equipped to meet their needs. This means that slick lead qualifying systems have to be optimized for rapid responses. With the right infrastructure in place, it’s relatively simple to achieve fast response times – an easy win on the road to converting far more leads into sales.
Turn Customer Contacts Into a Data-Driven Goldmine
Finally, B2C qualifying systems can add even more value to organizations by generating useful feedback for the companies that use them. If you are gathering data about customer responses, response times, which sales techniques work and scoring trends over time, you may be missing out on valuable data. By bringing in expert qualifiers to handle your B2C operations, you can get a much fuller picture of how your sales efforts are performing and learn more about your target demographics. With that information, you can develop your pitches and take your conversion efforts into orbit.
Source the Right Partners for your Lead Qualification Operations
Lead qualifying and scoring are essential to many business sectors in the United States. In fact, if your staff have to field multiple B2C inquiries every day, there’s an excellent chance that you can enhance your sales figures by bringing in some expert assistance. Upcall can create comprehensive customer engagement plans for all types of businesses. Our teams are experts in assessing leads and categorizing consumers, as well as masters of B2C communications. Get in touch if you want faster response rates and higher-quality leads. We can help your business enter a whole new era of efficiency and higher sales.
Posted on April 30 at 5:00 PM
