In general we tend to view the Lead Management platforms as the best way to observe the evolution of a customer from the first step; acquisition (registration, visits, etc) to the moment of the sale. This is true, for these platforms allow us effectively follow up the evolution of any lead:
- From the first contact, such as a form registration or phone call (Hot Lead)
- Assigning a value to the lead in each step, according to an algorythm applied by the company (lead scoring)
- Including the lead in a workflow, which will determine each of the steps to follow up, (lead nurturing) according to the lead’s response in each of the different media (phone call, email, SMS, whastapp message, etc).
- Closing the workflow with a sale.
…. And all of this in real time, tracking the lead independently of the media where he/she acted.
The previous bullet points show us the ideal process usually followed using a lead management platform during the acquisition process, but in many cases what happens later is that the lead, now being a customer, goes to the company’s CRM platform for future communications, normally SMS or emails.
If the purchased product is more complex, either because is not possible to cover the demand in real time or because there is a flaw in the product or simply because the sale process itself is more complex it is advisable to involve Customer Service.
Ideally, the interactions of the lead while moving along the sales funnel, should feed the workflow so we not only gain knowledge of the interaction, but also to avoid disturbing a sale.
The reality is that occasionally this is not the case, especially when the customer gets in touch with the point of sale directly and for whatever reason the incidence is not reported to the Lead Management platform (the customer goes directly to point of sale or makes a phone call that is not connected with a Lead Management platform), and most importantly, the customer service has no further knowledge of that incidence.
Imagine a customer who has to make a regular annual purchase (E.g. textbooks):
- The customer fills out a form or goes directly to the sales point to reserve the books.
- Given that the bulk of orders come in during a very short time span, they cannot be shipped before a month’s time.
- The customer receives an SMS or email saying that their order is not complete and he/she decides to buy the available part of the order.
- For the missing books, the customer calls the sales point periodically and because there are many similar orders, either the bookshop does not reply to the call or the customer has to be kept waiting just to be told that the books have still not arrived.
- After 15 days, the customer purchases the missing books from another supplier who is able to ship them in just one week.
- The customer never receives any communication from the initial point of sale about the status of the order.
- As a result the customer leaves the first supplier and shares the experience with others (speaks well of the second provider and negatively about the first).
So, we see there has been a partial loss of a sale and a total loss of a customer for future purchase, plus whatever damage the sharing of the negative experience might bring. All for not having a proper customer service in place and because there have been interactions outside the lead management Platform.
Had a lead management platform and customer service been involved from the start, every call from the customer would have been tracked and improvements to be made at the point of sale could have been detected. For instance the lead could have received a video call (Click2video) from customer service.
Delio-lm allows the integration of state-of-the-art Lead Management technology, under the DIY concept, not only for the traditional acquisition process but also in complex processes where the involvement of customer service would have been desirable.
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