I’ve written about this before, but I think it’s worth repeating. You can’t just rely on a CRM for all of your customer relationship management needs. But you can use the CRM as a tool — and a powerful one at that! It should be used as a way to gather and organize information about your customers and prospects, so you can provide a better customer experience. As you’re gathering information, you want to make sure you’re only following through on worthwhile leads. That means you have to be able to analyze the information you have about them. You can’t just look at a lead and decide if it’s a “good” or “bad” one based on their name! (Though, I suppose it can’t hurt to do so, if their name is Kicky McTires.)
In order for you to make proper customer relationship management decisions, you need to have scored your customers and prospects properly. How can you do that if you’re just taking a name and number at the door? So, the first step of implementing a valuable Scoring System in your CRM is to ask relevant questions in your input forms. Here are some of the questions I like to my prospective customers so I can start scoring my leads properly:
- What is your name?
- What is your company name?
- Your telephone Number
- Your Email (required)
- Do you currently have a CRM (Yes/No)?
- Number of Employees?
- Anticipated Project Start Date (mm/dd/yyyy)
- Are you the stakeholder?
These types of questions are best for my business, which provides CRM consultation. Notice how I’m trying to find out as much information about my leads as possible to be able to score them properly. In the first 4 questions, I am obtaining basic contact information, but in the next 4 questions I go beyond that and ask more specific questions about their existing CRM, who will be using that CRM, how quickly they want to get started, and who will be the stakeholder in the CRM project. These questions are directed to give me a better idea of how much they want or need my services.
Essentially, I am using this questionnaire to fill out a more detailed Customer Information Profile. I do that because I want to be sure that every lead I am following up with is a worthwhile lead. If I simply ask for their name and company, I’m missing out on leads who have a more complex buying process or need my services in a different capacity. Or, I’m leaving myself open to wasting my time contacting spammers who don’t even want my services.
I can assign number values to each answer and question, creating a rubric to grade each questionnaire entry, resulting in a final score. My CRM system can automate this process, and spit out a Lead Score for each new lead automatically!
If you want help setting up your CRM and Lead Scoring System, contact us at SMB Dynamics. We do offer a free consultation and can help you get started. Click here to fill out our New Lead form, and one of our CRM experts will reach out to chat about how we can help.
