Examples of Lead Qualification

Lead Qualification Process

Lead quality is assessed as soon as a lead is generated and is mainly based on:

The characteristics of the customer contact on the lead
The type of response which caused the lead to be generated
The type of campaign that the lead may be associated with

Leads are enriched further, typically by means of prequalification telemarketing activities performed by internal marketing, internal sales groups, or external third-parties. Qualification data is added to the lead such as:

Customer need
Urgency or time frame for the project
Budget considerations such as available amount and status

At the end of this process, the lead is either:

Classified as a qualified lead which is ready for conversion to a sale
Retired if purchase interest for the lead can't be validated

The following scenarios illustrate some of the lead qualification processes.

Rule-Based Lead Qualification

The rule-based lead qualification process requires that the value of the Lead Status attribute be set to Qualified if qualification rules evaluate to a positive answer. For example, consider the sample rule:

If this rule evaluates to TRUE, the value of Lead Status is set to Qualified.

Internal Marketing Qualification

Internal lead qualifiers or inside salespeople conduct phone conversations to gather qualification data about leads. They can use qualification templates to define consistent and specific qualification criteria for similar leads. The qualification questions are tailored to a specific product, industry, and source of the lead.

Before updating the lead status to qualified, the lead must have a valid primary product associated with it. Users can select multiple leads and select Qualify from the Actions list. Leads meeting the requirements for lead qualification are processed.

As the qualification data is gathered using the leads management user interface, the lead qualifier or salesperson can decide to manually set the lead to Qualified status. In some companies, the lead qualification data gathered by lead qualifiers is considered in the scheduled automated lead process. For example, the assignment manager engine can calculate lead score or lead rank, as well as assign sales team territories. For such companies, a simple rule to move leads to a Qualified status when the lead score reaches a specific threshold is sufficient.

A lead can be qualified when the basic attributes of the lead indicate interest in the purchase of a product. For example, basic attributes might include:

Contact attended a product event
Budget is approved
Purchase time frame is less than a year

The Additional Qualification tab displays the qualification template with questions where you can enter the answers on the same page. Most of the data required to qualify the lead is available from the Basic Qualification area of the Lead details page. Supporting data is included in the contextual area for easy reference.

Internal Sales Group Qualification

Leads are generated and captured from many different sources. Leads are created when customers are created. Leads are also generated from leads that already exist. After salespeople accept the generated leads, they can evaluate the quality of the information received for the lead. They determine if the details are sufficient to reach out to the customer and assess whether a lead is worth pursuing with the help of predefined assessment templates. If they can establish that the lead has potential and can be marked as qualified, they can then convert the lead to an opportunity. Contact is established and meetings and presentations are scheduled to move the opportunity along the sales pipeline.

External Third-Party Qualification

External third-party qualification involves using input from a third-party source to qualify leads. For example, your company has obtained a list of contacts that purchased a car in the last 90 days. You have hired a telemarketing company to call each contact to determine if there is interest in your company's auto security products. The third-party telemarketer provides weekly files of potential contacts who are interested in your products. Using the Import Management framework and qualification rules configured using the assignment manager engine, the interactions resulting from the telemarketer's activities are imported as leads. The marketing operations manager schedules the rule-based qualification process to occur as soon as the enriched lead data is imported to the lead management application. If the rules evaluation is successful, the result sets the lead status as Qualified.