Being sensitive to the needs of your prospects is the way to turn them into customers. It’s always important when talking about prospects or leads to remember that they are not the same thing as customers. Everyone knows that providing quality customer service is a critical component to the success of every business. Customer service should be thought of as a set of best practices for satisfying customers to maximize the chances that they become or remain repeat customers. Similarly, prospect service should be thought of as a set of best practices the goal of which is to maximize the chance that a prospect becomes a customer.

From a sales reps perspective, being sensitive to the needs of prospects involves contacting the prospect quickly and following up with them consistently. Establishing the kind of relationship with a prospect that leads to the prospect becoming a customer depends on nothing more heavily than prompt professional communication.

From the perspective of the sales manager or small business owner, being sensitive to the needs of prospects means quickly assigning the right lead to the right sales rep. When one sales rep has expertise that equips him to provide better service to a certain segment of prospects, that rep should be given the opportunity to provide service to those leads.

Sales managers must also be able to spot trends in performance metrics that indicate which campaigns, agents, and lead routing strategies are performing. Matching prospect to rep quickly and intelligently is work that must be done continuously and automatically in order to make sure that sales reps can provide the best possible service to prospects.

Using a lead management system, all of the pieces of prospect service fall into place and more prospects become customers.

Tags: Lead Management