Example of Defining a Sales Lead Qualification Template
This topic provides an example that illustrates defining a lead qualification template to assess the basic quality of a lead.
Scenario
Your company sells alternative energy solutions to small businesses. The company employs a group of people that:
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Qualify the basic information about a lead
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Gather the necessary information required by the sales team to prepare for follow-up sales calls
Unqualified leads are generated from various sources and captures when customers have requested more information from your website. Before creating the qualification template, your company evaluates the following:
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Compile a set of questions that each lead qualifier is expected to ask so as to:
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Verify the customer's intent in requesting more information
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Ensure a consistent and thorough communication with the customer
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Categorize a set of responses to help identify what leads to transfer to the sales team.
For example, once your company has gathered the initial lead information, they can set up assignment rules so that only leads with a greater potential for a sale are transferred to the sales team. The level of response assists the lead qualifier identify those leads with the greatest sales potential.
To ensure the full range of possible responses, the qualification information is categorized into four basic response levels:
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Very little information was obtained from the customer
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A high potential of the customer working on an alternative energy project
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Not applicable
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Information not available
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Perform analysis of your qualification template and model the set of question responses and questions
Question responses and questions are analyzed and modeled to effectively place the weighted score ranges into the four categories. For example, a budget that expires less than ten days may score low if the average sales cycle is greater than 10 days. However, any answer to a budgeting question has higher weight in the overall questionnaire than a question about the customer's project team. If a qualification template's weighted score is 90 or above, the customer is categorized as a high potential for an energy project. Such a lead is transferred to a sales resource to pursue.
Lead Qualification Template Considerations
Navigate to the Manage Assessment Templates page from the Manage Sales Lead Qualification Template implementation task. The following categories of qualification levels are entered as ratings of:
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Little Information Available
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Low Project Potential
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Medium Project Potential
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High Project Potential
Questions about the customer's budget, time frame, decision maker, and project drive the sale potential and resulting lead rank. These questions aren't included in the qualification template because the lead qualifier enters those directly in the Lead UI.
Use the qualification template to effectively evaluate the customer's project and prepare the sales team to progress the lead once the lead is qualified.
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Enter a set of questions and responses to qualify the time frame including what phase the customer's implementation project is in.
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Gather information to meet export policies. For example, add questions about implementation projects outside of the country.
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Add questions to determine if and when a customer's budget is due to expire.
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Identify competition by adding questions and responses about competing suppliers or in-house solutions and satisfaction levels.
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Allow a free-form response to enable the lead qualifier to capture specific customer comments about their greatest issue they're trying to solve.
Next, the weighed scores ranges are assigned to the four ratings. To provide a visual queue and feedback to the lead qualifier to guide them in their decision to update the lead as qualified, a color and feedback phrase is entered for the four ratings. The color-coded bar, score, and feedback appear at the top of each qualification questionnaire in the lead.
Lead Qualification Template Profile
Once the qualification template is defined, the template is assigned to the Lead Qualification Template profile available from the Manage Sales Lead Administrator Profile Values implementation task. Since there is only one business unit for your Company and only one qualification template, the template is assigned at the profile Site level.
As your company continues to grow into a global company with a broader set of business units and products, Qualification templates are created in different languages and assigned to business unit sets. The appropriate qualification template is assigned to corresponding lead qualification users through the Lead Qualification Template profile.