Lead Management - CRM Software Fuctions-3

CRM Software Functions and CRM Software Features we are talking here. Till now we talk about Lead Capture and Lead Distribution as features of CRM Software.
We are going to talk about Lead Management as part of customer relationship management software features.

Lead Management is a term used to describe the methodologies and systems to manage customer prospects and inquiries, generally generated by a variety of marketing techniques. Lead management can be considered the connectivity between advertising and customer relationship management. This critical connectivity facilitates the acquisition of customers, and has also been referred to accurately as customer acquisition management.

Lead management creates an orderly architecture for managing large volumes of customer inquiries, or leads. The architecture must be able to organize numerous leads, at various stages of a sales process, across a distributed sales force.


The lead flow process can become enormously complex as customers and sales professionals begin to interact. These various interactions and subsequent actions can create a variety of scenarios, both productive and counter-productive. This exponential number of scenarios can provide for numerous opportunities to mishandle leads in such a way as to reduce their value. Managing these scenarios is the function of lead management.


ref: lead management software, wikipedia

Lead Distribution - CRM Software Functions-2

We talk about CRM Software Functions and CRM Software Features , in last talk Lead Capture - CRM Software Functions-1 we talk about Lead Capture as Features of CRM Software In this post we are going to talk about Lead Distribution as features of CRM Software.


Lead Distribution
As larger vendors work with partner organizations such as distributors (see distribution (business)), resellers, brokers and other channel partners, those vendors often distribute leads to their respective partners to provide a local contact to those prospects and also 'feed' partners with new business opportunities. Today there are two major methods for distributing sales leads to partners: Push or Pull.

PUSH The push method sends leads to specific partners assuming that those partners will follow up and work on those leads. The challenge with 'push' is the fact that often the local sales people may not be able to react immediately for various reasons: not available, busy, on vacation... Many large vendors report disappointment when asked about their lead follow-up rate through partners after the leads where pushed out to those partners.

Pull The pull method was invented and patented by a German Engineer, Axel Schultze, who was frustrated with the lead follow up results of the push method and decided to let the available and motivated sales people 'pull' leads from an online available system. Patent was granted by the US Patent Office in May 2006. http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&S1=09514997&OS=09514997&RS=09514997 The pull method became widely accepted in the high tech industry where thousands of resellers from companies including Avaya, Nortel, Juniper and others distributed leads that way. The PULL Method became superior over the PUSH method, and lead closure rates grew on average by 300% as white papers from BlueRoads indicate.

ref: lead distribution crm softare, wikipedia

Lead Capture - CRM Software Functions-1

We talk about CRM Software Functions and CRM Software Features in our previous post. In this post we are going to talk about Lead Capture as Features of CRM Software.

Lead Capturing is attracting the highest quality of targeted prospect for once business. The business can be any related with internet, direct marketing.

Lead Capturing is possible with a lead capture page. A lead capture page has input field or we can say lead capturing capacity which capture basic information like name, address, email, phone, etc. along with unique or general questions designed to qualify leads for each response profile. The form should be tied directly to an auto responder. An auto responder is basically a set of prewritten messages that goes out to anyone that fills out the form on your lead capture page. Your emails should be designed to market a product, service or anything else you desire. A good lead capture page and a good set of follow up emails are the essence to any internet marketing business.

Benefits of Lead Capture page or web base Lead Capture:-

• Track and manage leads from anywhere at anytime
• Easy integration with current electronic and traditional marketing initiatives
• Set rules for lead weighting and lead distribution
• Manage qualification questions and answers using a simple to use interface
  

ref: Lead capture & Leadorganizer software

CRM Software-Function and Features

While studying and reviewing different sites for Customer Relationship Management and CRM software Functions I find following features and functions are part of any Customer Relationship Management-CRM Software.

1) Lead capturing
2) Lead Distribution
3) Lead Management
4) Leadorganizer
5) Automated Sales force activities
6) Customer Relations
7) 360 Client Historical View
8) Document Management
9) Calendar and Scheduling
10) Tasks Management
11) Advance Search and Filter
12) Custom Reporting