Lead Qualification

The lead qualification process can either be performed by internal marketing or internal sales groups. This topic provides a brief overview of what constitutes a qualified lead.

Qualifying leads is an important first step in bringing the sales lead to a conclusion. At the end of the lead qualification process, you can classify the lead as a qualified lead that's ready for conversion to an opportunity. Or you can retire the lead if the purchase interest for the lead can't be validated. What constitutes a qualified lead varies from company to company.

Basic Lead Qualification

In some companies, basic lead qualification data is gathered by lead qualifiers and contains data such as:

• Customer need

• Urgency or time frame for the project

• Budget considerations such as available amount and status

The scheduled process that determines lead qualification status also takes into consideration basic lead data.

Additional Lead Qualification

In other companies, the lead qualifier or salesperson uses a lead qualification questionnaire as part of the qualification process. Based on the answers received, he or she can decide to manually set the lead to a Qualified status using the lead actions menu. Your application administrator assigns the questionnaire to your Lead Qualification Template profile. The answers entered are assessed using a weighted scoring model with instant feedback available as a scoring status bar in the UI.