3 Problems in your Sales Process that Cause Lead Leakage (& the solution)

Today, both customer-facing teams and field staff need to convert leads remotely. Facilitating this can be difficult due to various reasons. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the top three challenges faced by sales teams and explore solutions for them.

1.  Delay in first contact 

A sales rep is 450 times more likely to get a response from the customer in the first hour than even in the second hour! In fact, industry experts say that leads decay in 4-8 hours. 

Yet, today, the average time an employee takes for establishing the first contact with a lead is about 2-3 days. This is primarily due to delays in seeing the leads that are assigned to them, inability to prioritise efficiently, lack of infrastructure to make calls immediately and so on.

Cloud telephony can solve this problem. Once a lead is assigned to an employee, whether by Salesforce or a similar CRM tool, all the agent has to do is ‘click to call’ directly from the CRM screen, to speak to the customer. The call will be connected to the customer through an API securely, without the agent even seeing the customer’s personal information.

With Exotel, it is also possible to choose virtual numbers that resemble local contacts ensuring better pick-up rates.

2. Failure in following up after first contact 

Even if a sales rep establishes contact within the first hour, it can take up to 6 calls for a lead to convert into a sale. 78% of sales reps give up after the third call. This is one of the main reasons that fewer leads progress into profitable deals. 

Cloud telephony can help make follow up more effective.

• Organisations can use call recordings and analytics data to understand the best time for follow-up. 
• This information can be used to set up trigger notifications for sales reps and nudge them into action at the right time. 
• You can also set up notifications based on SLA linked rules that are triggered by TAT breaches. 

All of this can be achieved by integrating your CRM with Exotel. With timely reminders and automated follow-ups, the sales agents wouldn’t have to worry about the risk of losing a potential customer due to lack of contact. 

3. Low conversion rates

In spite of giving everyone the same access, training and resources, some salespeople perform better than others. While this is natural, and companies invest in various training and development programs to close this performance gap, it also bears heavily on lead conversions.

Cloud telephony can help bridge the performance gap.

• Managers and supervisors can use the data and recordings of top performers to train low-performing employees.
• They can motivate employees with leader dashboards for numbers of calls, number of attempts, response time to leads, number of calls connected, number of leads converted etc. 

Call recordings can also be used to identify techniques that work and operationalise them throughout the organisation.

Convert better with cloud telephony

Even as the world is evolving, the merits of work-from-home and work-from-anywhere can not be discounted. It not only offers flexibility but also opens up many opportunities. With cloud telephony, businesses can convert their leads faster, better and more efficiently without compromising on security and privacy. 

Talk to our experts to find out how your business can use cloud telephony. Set up a call today.