Why Use Lead Distribution Instead of Just Random Lead Assigning?

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Some people may ask why lead distribution and lead routing is important when it comes to handling leads. This question often pops up when some agents get to handle the more lucrative leads than those in their team or company. The answer to this is simple: it is done to generate sure sales for the company. Leads are pretty tough to come by and qualified leads even tougher. If you waste a lead by simply handing it to a random agent in your team, you stand a chance of losing such a lead, and what a waste that would be if the lead were a qualified one.

You can compare this strategy of lead assignment to a real store where you see a customer walking in. When you see or sense that the customer is a sure buyer who is simply indecisive as to what they want to purchase, you do not send your most inexperienced sales clerk over to assist them. You would probably have one of your best sales clerks or even the store manager to assist them. This is usually true when the buyer is a returnee who is known to be a big spender. These kinds of customers usually want their usual quality service, and they often want the same clerk that handled their purchases before to handle them again.

The same strategy applies to taking care of leads. With a lead distribution system that allows a company to hand over leads and return customers to those agents that know how to take care of them, a company rests assured that a sale or a positive result is in the offing. While this may seem unfair to some new sales agents who want to be able to convert a lead into a sale or who want to better themselves, this kind of a movement, when it comes to lead assignment, is a tried and tested technique that keeps the company in the blue and keeps people employed.

Creating More Qualified Agents with Lead Distribution and Assignment Strategies

How a company can create more agents who can face up to the challenge of such a demand from customers is easy. One of the ways that can be done with the use of lead distribution or lead assignment to top agents is to pair these agents with the newer, less experienced sales agents. These new agents can “shadow” these top agents and learn the tricks of the trade from them. Once they have learned enough to assure that they have a fighting chance to turn a qualified lead into a sale, then lead routing can send a few of these types of leads over to them to test their mettle, so to speak. These new agents will get to see the proper way of handling leads and how to convert them from those who have been doing it for a longer period of time and have perfected a certain strategy to close a sale.

This kind of a strategy of pairing up agents, a neophyte and a veteran, can work well in a company where commissions are not individually earned but rather distributed evenly among colleagues. It can also work in an environment where commissions are earned according to teams or pairs achieving certain sales quotas and such. With a pairing off of a new agent and an older, more learned one, the company ensures that they have a steady stream of knowledgeable agents taking care of their customers and the number of learned agents will increase with the “shadow” technique. Once these “shadows” know the ropes and can handle customers as well as their senior counterparts, the company ends up with a very strong workforce that is now capable of getting more prospects to convert into revenues for them.

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Introducing the Other Methods of Lead Distribution

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Perhaps you’ve heard of round robin and FIFO/LILO. You may have also practiced giving your leads to the best producers or agents of your sales department. However, there are also other methods of lead distribution that you have to know. This doesn’t mean that they are the most effective. The key here is to be able to find one that will allow you to maximize your time, effort, and money you spend on every lead while generate the highest possible return on your investment.

Giving Same-source Leads to Specific Agents

Normally, sales agents are trained to handle any kind of lead. This means that he is well-experienced in dealing with online leads as well as those that have been derived from trade shows, exhibits, and other forms of marketing ploys by the company. However, this special type of sales lead distribution means you’re only giving a set of leads that may come from only one source. For example, sales agent A may be working with sales leads that were gathered from the mailing list, while sales agent B have to track and work with leads that have come from product testing.

This is efficient since your sales agents will be able to specialize working with leads from one source. The only problem is that it may take a while before he will get used to working with leads that come from other sources. It may also not prove to be fair, as other sources may generate more number of leads than the other. For instance, sales agent A will be working with twice the number of leads than that of sales agent B, because the online marketing promotion is working more effectively.

Random Choosing of Your Sales Agent

The concept may confuse you with the FIFO method, but it’s actually totally different. The FIFO method means that the first lead should be the first one to be dealt with by any sales agent who is not at the moment handling anything. With the random choosing, however, the sales leads become up for grabs. You just need to wait for someone who is willing to take on such lead and make sure that he’s going to be able to close a sale in the end.

When you know that your sales agents are the most assertive and aggressive people that you’ve ever met, this method will surely work. They don’t make any standards—they just do their work. However, there are also sales agents that are actually very choosy. They love to handle those that appear to be much easier to convince than the others. If your agents fall on the latter, then you’re in deep trouble.

Sales Leads to Product Experts

There are some sales agents that are trained to handle a specific product or account. For example, if you’re the owner of Apple, you may have those that are well-versed in mobile phones, while others in other electronics like iPods. Because the information they contain are more concentrated, you can expect them to be able to communicate well with your target leads. They can easily discuss the benefits and features of the products, and usually, they know how to position the brand that it becomes easy for them to convert sales leads to customers.

The dilemma starts, though, if wrong sales leads fall into their hands. The leads may be passed on from one sales agent to another, and worse, the amount of time that the sales agent may have spent on a misplaced sales lead will never be get back.

You can use a lead routing software to help you out in distributing your sales leads. But be ready of the fact that it may actually be a trial and error at first. Nevertheless, along the way, you’re going to learn some essential things, which will help you determine the most ideal lead assignment scheme for your business.

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