Commence Corporation has moved beyond traditional Customer Relationship Management software programs that are primarily focused on managing the sales cycle to delivering a solution that enables you to increase the effectiveness of your sales organization and focus on business with the greatest potential. Commence has introduced an automated business process that ranks and scores leads based a set of pre-defined criteria.  The criteria consist of a series of questions that are used to automatically score each lead based on the responses entered into the system.  The questions are completely customizable and users may create as many as required. (See sample below):

Lead Scoring Questions

The lead qualification questions and rating criteria are determined by sales management and ensure that every new opportunity is ranked according to the criteria.  It’s an efficient process that results in a high level of consistency because every opportunity is scored using a standardized set of qualifiers and is no longer dependent on the experience level of the sales representative.

Each lead is then automatically color coded as highly qualified (red), requires additional follow-up (yellow), or not qualified (blue).  (See diagram below)

Lead Qualification

The value here is twofold:  First, there is no question with regard to where the sales team should be focusing their attention.  The leads coded red are the most qualified opportunities based on the company’s lead qualification criteria and need immediate attention.  Secondly, sales management can quickly view the most qualified opportunities and assist with the process of moving them toward closure.

Part of the Commence value proposition also comes from an integrated marketing application that is directly tied to the lead qualification system.  Yellow and blue coded leads may be placed in an automated drip-marketing program that nurtures each lead with periodic mailings while your team is focused on the most qualified opportunities.

The Commence lead scoring capability provides critical intelligence and has proven to deliver measurable results.  It will ensure that your sales team has a laser-sharp focus on the most qualified sales opportunities.  With Commence, you’ll shrink the sales cycle and improve your bottom line results.   I guarantee it.

About the author: Larry Caretsky is the president of Commence Corporation, a leading provider of CRM software which can be deployed in a web-based, cloud-computing environment or on premise. Caretsky is considered an expert in Customer Relationship Management and has written numerous white papers on the subject, which may be accessed via the company’s web site at www.commence.com.

But sales opportunities don’t just fall from the sky.  They are often nurtured as a lead, qualified, then converted into a sales opportunity.  Who determines if an opportunity is qualified and what process is used to make this determination is an area that is often overlooked by small to mid-size businesses and can cost them dearly.

A typical sales organization consist of a few experienced sales representatives that do a pretty good job with lead qualification, a few with 2-3 years of experience that often have difficulty in accurately determining a qualified lead from an unqualified one, and some entry level staff that are honing their skills and place every one that asks for a brochure on the monthly forecast.  Your sales team represents one of the largest expense items within your organization and if they are spending valuable time chasing tire-kickers vs. qualified opportunities the cost to your business can be alarming.  What’s the answer?  Make sure that your CRM system can automate the lead qualification process.

Commence On-Demand, a web based CRM solution from Commence Corporation is helping small to mid-size businesses learn how to automate the lead qualification process via the use of an automated business process. Similar to implementing a structured sales methodology, Commence On-Demand also implements an automated lead qualification process.  The process makes each sales representative answer a series of qualification questions that are built right into the lead qualification module.  The structure ensures that each sales representative is using the same process to determine a qualified lead from an unqualified one.  The leads are then color-coded based on the responses.  This enables each representative and their management to immediately identify the top opportunities each representative is working on.

Here is an example screenshot showing a list of qualified leads:

Lead Qualification

Lead management and qualification is as important as managing the sales cycle. For more information about how Commence On- Demand can assist you with these processes see http://www.commence.com or ask for a free trial of our best in class CRM software.