In the era of CRM technology proliferation, how can the state of lead management be so bad? But apparently, it is. A post by Bob Sullivan, President of InfoGrow Corporation, references a recent study that backs this up, The Sorry State of Lead Management:
Getting new leads is great, but turning them into lifetime customers is what counts. The biggest challenge facing companies today is the art of turning prospects into lifelong customers and those customers into company advocates. And, the first critical step in that process is how you manage your sales leads.
Unfortunately, a recent study from the Sales Lead Management Association (SLMA) shows that many companies are ignoring their sales lead management…
Their 2nd annual Sales Lead Management Study, conducted with 144 businesses in Southern California, revealed the following results:
- 68.8% don’t qualify leads before sending them to their sales teams
- 52.4% have no formal process for compiling sales forecast reports
- 82.8% don’t track ROI for lead generation investments
- 55% rated low satisfaction with their SFA/CRM system, at 5 or less on a 10-point scale
- 52.1% use no SFA/CRM system to track the lead process
If 52% are not using a CRM system, is anyone surprised by the survey results? One would think that with all the CRM technology and sales lead management expertise available, that numbers like those above would be a thing of the past. However, after all these years, it is still the norm and not the exception.
Aren’t marketing efforts and dollars spent, whether it is direct mail, websites, trade shows, branding, or advertising, for the purpose of generating leads? How much money do companies lose by not managing those leads?
