5 benefits of using CTI Screen Pop with Autodialers for Remote Sales Reps

Screen pop is a useful tool for sales reps that make outbound calls and receive inbound calls.

Screen pop is a form of CTI – computer telephony integration. This refers to any technology that enables a computer and a telephone work together. CTI includes a large number of telephony tools.

Screen pop is a feature of lead management CRMs and telephone dialing systems. Screen pop is especially useful when inbound/outbound call blending is being used.

Inbound/outbound call blending works as follows; first, the sales rep becomes available to receive incoming phone calls. The sales representative then signs in to an outbound autodialer initiative. The autodialer will continue to route new leads for the sales rep to call whenever he is available.

When an inbound call is received by the call center, and the sales rep is between calls, he is automatically marked as unavailable in the outbound autodialer initiative. The inbound call is then routed through to the sales representative.

When this call is routed, CTI screen pop is activated. The screen pop creates a live data link between the company CRM and the incoming call. Key information from the call is immediately captured within the CRM. The caller ID of the incoming call is compared to those stored in the lead management CRM, and the information stored on the incoming call is displayed on screen for the answering sales rep. If there are no records available within the data base a blank screen is displayed. The sales rep can record more contact information and notes on the phone call directly into the screen pop and those changes are saved within the CRM.

There are several important benefits from using CTI screen pop:

1. Sales reps can answer inbound calls knowing much more about those callers. This could include what search engine they visited the company website from and which keyword they had searched for, their company name, their phone number, and more.
2. Sales reps have instant access to prior conversations and the dates and times of those previous calls.
3. Sales reps can immediately capture inbound call data and mark the record for future use.
4. Sales representatives can appropriately response to calls coming from multiple inbound initiatives because of the relevant information presented to him at the start of each call.
5. All information gathered is stored within the lead management CRM’s centralized database, allowing any sales rep to have instant access to all relevant data on any specific caller.

Key features of a Lead Management CRM

A lead management CRM allows sales representatives to effectively use other telephony tools. The CRM is able to triple sales productivity by integrating there numerous telephony software tools into a single, easy to implement, software platform.

The simple interface of a lead management CRM allows sales reps to easily complete their required tasks. Everything a sales representative needs to do can be done within one computer window. From here he can choose to disconnect from the phone dialer, move on to the next call, schedule a call back appointment, view call reports, send an email, and a number of other key tasks.

The technology used by a lead management CRM also helps a sales rep know the best time to contact a web-based inquiry in order to contact, qualify, and close a sale. It uses what is known as web form callback technology to do this. The web form on any website can be programmed to capture the data from the form and transfer it to the CRM. Once in the customer relationship manager, the phone number is immediately routed to a sales rep. The CRM also makes the newly generated and captured lead a high priority for the sales rep to call, ensuring that the call is placed within minutes of the lead submitting information and demonstrating interest. According to a study with Insidesales.com and MIT, when leads are contacted that quickly, the contact rate increases upwards of 800%.

Lead management CRMs add further time saving features with automated voice messaging technology. During the calls when a lead is unable to be contacted, prerecorded messages can be left by the dialer while the sales rep moves on to the next call. Prior to making calls sales representatives can create a whole library of prerecorded voice messages, and have these messages checked for quality control. When a voice mail machine is encountered the sales rep only has to click a button on their screen to have one of those messages left while he moves onto the next sales opportunity. This keeps sales reps talking to live leads, not dealing with machines that can’t make a purchase.

Lead management CRM is a powerful productivity enhancing software solution that is suitable for both B2B and B2C remote sales. Users need very little training before using a CRM for their sales calls, and it has an immediate impact on any remote sales organization.

Lead Generation, Web Form Callback

Companies succeed best when they have a lead generation plan. Web form call back is a powerful CRM and power dialer feature that can easily help any lead generation campaign be even more successful.

Many remote sales companies purchase a large number of unqualified leads for their sales representatives to cold call. Cold calling is the practice making unsolicited calls to potential customers. These cold calls have a very low rate of success, but the list of unqualified leads is often the cheapest to purchase. Companies who exclusively cold call often fail to realize that the money saved by purchasing cheap leads rarely equals the cost in time and money spent on calling these leads.

Another common, but ultimately unproductive, system for gathering leads is to expect sales reps to find their own. Companies who engage in this kind of practice frequently find their sales reps spending upwards of forty percent of their day trying to find a person to call.

An effective marketing campaign designed to generate leads is by far the best method of lead generation. These leads are pre-qualified by the marketing process, and significantly more likely to convert into a sale. The most successful businesses target many different outlets in their lead generation campaigns: radio, television, newspapers, and the web. Such marketing campaigns produce both scalable and sustainable sources of new and qualified leads.

The internet serves as a powerful tool in gathering the leads generated through marketing campaigns. The internet is currently the fastest growing and least expensive source of leads for almost every business. Web form callback technology makes the creation of an effective lead generating website even more important.

Web form callback works like this: First, a web form is created a posted on the company website. Interested prospects fill out the web form. The information on the form, such as name, phone number, and email, is instantly captured and transferred to a CRM. The accompanying dialer then routes that newly created contact to a sales rep. The rep then places a call to that lead. Within minutes of submitting the form online the lead is contacted.

Web form callback technology not only produces leads that are interested in the company’s services, it enables the sales rep to contact that lead while the company is still top of mind. This lead generation strategy yields much higher returns than any campaign that focuses on mass amounts of unqualified leads or on sales reps solely responsible to find their own.

Steps for Tracking Sales Leads

Sales lead tracking analytics makes sure that all leads are given the care and attention they need to become a profitable client. Software available with CRMs (customer relationship managers) aids greatly in the sales lead tracking process.

It takes both time and money to gather leads. The internet is a powerful resource for lead generation. Company websites are frequently developed to lead visitors to fill out and submit a web form. With the submission of the form that visitor becomes a new lead for the company’s sales representative to contact. Alternatively, companies can purchase leads from third party lead generation businesses.

Sale lead tracking for these newly captured web leads or purchased leads begins by having these leads imported into a CRM database. The CRM qualifies these leads based on the information gathered and converts these leads into “prospects” within its system.

These prospects are then routed through to sales people who move them through the sales process. The specific actions that the sales people offer the prospect are predefined within the CRM, and as prospects progress through the sales process that is recorded within the database. Based on defined probabilities that of a sales closure for each step of the sales process, sales lead tracking software can then give a prediction of sales revenue for the week based on prospects within the sales pipeline.

Visibility reports can easily be created in various formats with sales tracking software. These reports allow managers to evaluate the individual, team, or company return on investment. Added to this, forecast reports give important insights to the rest of the operational and support teams to stage the resources necessary to support the sales and marketing efforts.

These steps of sales analytics are important in maximizing ROI, and making sure each sales person is doing their part for the sales team.

Sales Lead Tracking

Sales lead tracking is a very important part of the remote sales process. Without it, it is impossible to ensure that the most amount of contacts and leads convert into profitable clients. With it, a remote sales organization can really flourish. There are many B2B software solutions available to help with sales lead tracking. This includes Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems that track and calendar all of the processes associated with lead tracking.

Sales lead tracking starts with importing sales leads from the CRM to prospecting teams. These individuals are responsible for qualifying leads before they are handed over to the men and women on the sales teams. Power dialers help with this process considerably by increasing the number of leads each member of the prospecting team can contact and qualify. Often this number is three or four times greater than what any particular sales individual can call manually. Once these leads are qualified they are transferred from leads to prospects in the CRM.

These prospects are then routed through to available sales representatives. The customer relationship management system can be set to record any or all of these phone calls. These can be saved with an individual’s contacts information within the CRM for future reference, or can be reviewed for quality control. Each action that a sales agent takes with the contact is recorded within the CRM as well, tracking where in the sales process each lead is. Future tasks that need to be completed concerning that lead, such as a follow up call, can be calendared by the CRM. The CRM will automatically remind the sales representative when that scheduled item needs to be completed.

Real time statistics and analytics are an important part of a CRM’s sales lead tracking functionality. These reports are highly customizable so the configuration can be altered to best suit any remote sales organization. The sales lead tracking software built into a CRM can import, export, organize, format, and forecast all of the data it collects through the sales process. By creating visibility reports for management, individuals, teams, or companies can each be accurately evaluated based on their return on investment. By using forecasting reports, in both graphical summaries and detailed sales deal records, sales representatives can accurately forecast revenue flow and prepare the organizations support teams to adequately support the sales and marketing efforts.

Even sales leads that do not instantly convert should be kept track of by the CRM. These contacts often become valuable clients in the future. Sales lead tracking software can make sure that these individuals are kept in regular contact with the company.

Use telephony software to make remote sales profitable

Telephony software grants the ability to effectively accomplish many of the different tasks within a business that sales remotely. By combining the different telephony software solutions out there any company can dramatically improve how they accomplish sales tasks.

All sorts of good telephony software and solutions are used for lead management. This includes: power or predictive dialers, blended inbound call routing, voice messaging, faxing and emailing. A suite of these tools is able to fully track the metrics and analytics involved in tracking contacts, qualifying leads, and all the other tasks associated with sales lead tracking. Above and beyond simply tracking sales, these telephony tools increases the number of calls, contacts, faxes, emails, leads, follow-ups, proposals, and closes. These tools help you increase sales.

The reason telephony software solutions are able to increase sales is because they increase the number of quality interactions a lead has with the company.

Beginning with lead generation, potential clients are given a unique experience when a company is utilizing telephony lead management solutions. Any web form submitted by an interested lead automatically gets converted into a lead. This lead is then qualified, and routed through to the telephone dialer. Within minutes of that lead first submitting the request online a live sales agent is on the phone with them. In addition to the speed of this routing, new leads are assigned to the sales agent that has been identified as the best one for those types of calls. This assignment may be based on such things as which web form is submitted, or the area or zip code of the new lead.

This automatic call routing is designed to blend perfectly with outbound calling. The newly created lead will be held until the current outbound call is complete, and then be pushed through to the sales rep. This allows sales professionals to be engaged in outbound calling while waiting for new leads to generate and not to worry that new leads will be missed or current calls will be interrupted. Also, inbound calls are routed to these same sales reps allowing sales professionals the ability to use their time as effectively as possible.

Once a call is answered, the sales agent has many telephone software solutions at his disposal. Email and faxes can be sent instantly from the dialer interface. Often sales agents spend 5 or 6 hours a day on the phone, and a huge 2 to 3 hours following through on those calls by sending emails or faxes with additional information. Email or fax software solutions shorten those 2 to 3 hours to minutes.

Telephony software solutions continue to aid in the sales process on through closing the deal and following up with repeat customers in the future. With so many different business tools available it is worth the time and attention to research the options.

Lead Response Research

Lead response management is the combination of business practices and software solutions to guarantee that all newly generated leads are contacted as quickly as possible after that lead is generated. It also entails the effective contact and conversion of that lead into a valued customer.

The driving economic principle behind lead response management is ROI. ROI stands for return of investment. Synonymous terms are rate of return (ROR), rate of profit, or just the return. The return of investment is the ratio of money gained, or lost, in an investment relative to the amount of money lost. The profit or loss calculated as the ROI is what motivates all business decisions.

Lead generation is an investment for a company. It takes time and effort to gather or create leads, not to mention money. Thousands of dollars may be spent on Marketing, SEO, and purchasing leads to give organizations the contacts they need to make sales. Related to lead response management, this return of investment becomes important in determining if the leads generated are worth the amount of money invested in them. Lead response management is designed to increase the return of investment and increase overall profit.

Lead response management includes numerous different responsibilities within lead management. These include lead generation, lead capture, lead scoring, lead routing, lead distribution, lead qualifying, and lead tracking. Because lead response management is encompasses so much, and since it is influential on the overall success of a remote sales business, the independent research company Incoho performed a in depth research of web site response practices.

Incoho made inquiries, using a fabricated identity, on five hundred and twenty-six web sites from four hundred and sixty-nine separate companies through web-based forms. They tracked all responses they received.

Incoho used the initial findings of a joint study between InsideSales.com and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as the ideological framing of their research. The MIT study found that odds of contacting a lead increased one hundred times if the attempt to contact that lead happened within five minutes that the lead was generated as compared to contacting them with in thirty minutes. It likewise found that those leads contacted in the five minute window were also twenty-one times more likely to be qualified. A third relative finding by MIT is that each attempt to contact a lead after twenty hours of generation became increasingly less productive.

In Incoho’s study each web form submitted was filled out and submitted five separate times on five separate days. Their goal was to observe what percentage of businesses would follow the lead response practices that MIT identified as being the most efficient at increasing ROI.

When the results were compiled 45.1% of companies never responded to the web form submissions. Of those who did respond nearly all of them (47%) responded by email, and on average not until fifty-four hours after the initial web form was submitted. Only 15% of the inquiries were responded to within the ideal five minute time frame.

Lead response management software aids inside sales companies in being one of the few businesses to respond to leads within the optimal first five minutes. Lead response management software assists in all of the tasks previously mentioned that are associated with lead response management, but they’re especially useful in three ways:
1. Automatic lead qualifying
2. Automatic lead routing
3. Effective lead tracking

Automatic lead qualifying recognizes a potential lead. This is done by having all forms on a company web site upload into the CRM. Within seconds of filling out a form the software checks to see if proper contact information is provided and compare the query against other leads in the system. The management software separates duplicates from new sales leads, and allows sales agents to call the leads that are most likely to become a conversion.

Automatic lead routing is the process in sales lead management where those newly acquired and qualified leads are sent straight to available sales agents. This prevents leads from becoming uninterested during the hours they wait for a representative to call them. It also insures you contact the lead before a competitor within the important first five minutes.

Effective lead tracking is required for those leads who do not convert immediately. By keeping in touch with those leads it increases the chance of a conversion from that lead in the future. This is called lead nurturing. Lead management software tracks previous contact attempts, the results of those contacts, and can automatically perform a long-term email campaign with those unconverted leads without taking more man-hours from the organization.

Lead response management can be simple with well designed lead response management software. The research shows it’s incredibly effective and produces a high return of investment on leads generated. Remote sales companies using lead response management software see increased profits compared to those who do not.

Get the most out of your Web Forms

Web form callback technology enables sales reps using dialers to reach leads as soon as they are generated. This telephony tool can increase the productivity of a sales team, and it does so in elegantly simple ways.

This whole business solution starts with a web form. This application is placed on a website and encourages those interested in the organizations services or products to fill it out and submit it. The data from these web forms could sit, filed away on some computer, for a long time before an agent gets the time to look at them. Web form callback technology captures the information submitted and converts them into a lead in the company’s CRM (customer relationship manager). This quick and automated lead capturing assures that all new leads are looked at in a timely manner. Additionally, it provides a way to disqualify potential leads that do not submit all of the requisite information, or who have already been added into the CRM. This stops sales agents from wasting time qualifying leads when they could be on the phone talking to contacts.

A web form callback dialer solution will then ensure that the newly captured lead is routed to the best possible sales representative. This can be determined by several factors: which agents are available, which agents are responsible for specified geographic regions, and which agents are responsible for different toll free numbers.

The call to the new lead is routed through the dialer to the sales agent within minutes of the web form first being generated. The speed at which this call is made enhances productivity by increase the number of leads that are successfully contacted by the sales team. This contact ration increases because the lead is most likely still in a position to be thinking about the company and to be able to receive a telephone call. After all, it was within minutes of the call that the lead was filling out the form on the company website.

Web form callback technology has another important benefit. It increases the confidence that potential clients have in an organization. By reaching a lead quickly the message sent is that the company will fulfill all of its promises that quickly. This feeling of trust allows a lead to feel safe when purchasing a product or service. Because of this automated web form callback increases the ratio of leads contacted to leads converted.

Increase Sales 800%

Lead response rates greatly influence the ratio of leads contacted to leads converted. The purpose of lead response management software or solutions is to aid sales team professionals to make more contacts, close more sales, and increase revenue.

Lead management software creates contact lists for sales representatives to call. One way it does this is by exporting contact lists from the Customer Relationship Management system. This is generally easy for the sales rep to do, often with only a few mouse clicks. These lists can be generated from a number of parameters, such as their geographic location, their response to the last successful contact, or whether or not they’ve ever been in contact with a sales agent. These lists are then called through by whatever dialer the sales professional uses in conjunction with their Customer Relationship Management system.

Alternatively contact lists can be generated by web form capture solutions built into the lead response software. This business solution utilizes the web forms on the company website. When potential clients fill out and submit a form including their name and phone number that information is automatically captured and stored within the Customer Relationship Management system. These leads are then routed by the lead management software immediately to the best sales agent for the call, usually based on the agents designated responsibility over that particular web form, website, or the leads geographic location in addition to the agent’s availability. These newly captured leads are given high priority by the lead generation software, allowing sales representatives to attempt to contact newly generated leads within minutes of when they enter the Customer Relationship Management system.

This rapid response rate may be the largest contributing factor to the increase in successful lead contacts, successful conversions, and successful sales. The rate of contact and conversion decreases dramatically as the amount of time it takes to respond to new leads increased. By using lead response software in conjunction with a Customer Relationship Management system to contact new leads in minutes, companies who sell remotely have reported upwards of an eight hundred percent increase in sales.

This sales solution is one of the few business implementations that bring immediate results. Within 24 hours of implementing software that captures and redirects newly created leads sales representatives will see an increase in the amount of sales closed. A lead management software solution is an important improvement for any sales team.

Why should you be using Lead Management Software?

Organizations act wisely when they utilize ways of bringing potential clients to their websites. Most successful businesses spend large amounts of time and resources on driving those clicks exactly where they want them. In addition, landing pages and entire websites are optimized to convert those visitors into leads. As an organization gains prominence, and as it streamlines its marketing campaigns, the flow of leads has the potential to overwhelm sales teams.

Lead management software provides businesses with several tools to help them take good care of their leads. The most basic function of any sales lead management system is tracking where the lead came from. This provides useful information on what marketing strategies are working well, which ones need some work, and which endeavors should be dropped.

Lead management software does not stop at this most fundamental function. In addition to simple tracking, sales lead management allows you to contact your leads more efficiently. Finding well designed lead management software should have a direct impact on the number of sales you are making. Sales lead management has the potential to double and quadruple an organization’s sales that previously did not use such software.

One way lead management software accomplishes this is by helping your sales team representatives contact those new leads within the first few minutes that they enter into your lead pool (such as when they fill out a form on that newly optimized company website). This is often referred to as lead response management. Because it is so crucial to conversions to contact leads quickly and efficiently, a lead management system worth its price must facilitate rapid response.

Lead management systems do this best when they incorporate other telephony software used in remote sales. Power dialing, automated prerecorded voice messaging, and embedded ties to company websites are all valuable features in lead management software. A sales lead management system that already features these tools will remove the need for additional software and will streamline the process of making more calls and contacts, sending more emails and faxes, and having more demonstrations, proposals, and sales. Ultimately, if your lead management system does not lead to more closes, it is not living up its promised role in the sales process.

Companies that will host your lead management system will not only make installation and maintenance easier for you, they will also save you the cost of purchasing hardware and developing software yourself. Since lead management systems have so much potential to increase productivity, the pay as you go fees available from system hosts are well worth the investment.

These Software Solutions will Increase your Lead Nurturing Success

Lead generation practices can produce a large volume of leads for a sales team agent to contact. Even with the best of sales reps not every lead contacted becomes a conversion. But not every lead that does not convert is a lost cause. Lead nurturing is the process of preparing contacted, but unconverted leads, into profitable sources of revenue in the future. Unconverted leads become not-yet-converted leads when lead nurturing is implemented.

A potential client needs to think and feel several things about a company before they will purchase their product or service. The lead needs to be familiar with the company and what it does. He or she needs to perceive the company as a group of experts in their field. The lead needs to feel like his or her specific problems are understood. Lastly, the company needs to be well liked enough for the lead to consider doing business with it.

This gradual changing of a lead’s feelings or attitudes cannot be accomplished by a monthly phone call asking if he or she was interested in the product yet. Instead, the lead needs to become comfortable with the organization and the employees there. Much computer telephone integration (CTI) software has been designed to manage the consistent and meaningful communication during the lead nurturing time. These telephony software solutions also incorporate several media formats to be used in the process.

Task management systems, such as an electronic labor force (ELF), manages lead nurturing from one source. These integrate with customer relationship managers (CRMs) to keep track of callbacks, events, and other tasks. These systems also control the various marketing solutions: email, voice broadcast, fax messaging, direct mail, and others.

Fax or email messaging campaigns can be particularly useful during lead nurturing. Faxes or emails can be designed previous to their sending, and cover topics that the majority of leads would be interested in. Many fax or email messaging systems also contain templates made by the host company to help in lead nurturing campaigns. These messages can then be automatically distributed to individual leads that are being nurtured periodically throughout the process. In addition, these emails, or original ones, may be sent by using the straightforward features of the ELF. The interspersion of these text based messages between phone calls from sales reps fosters a feeling of trust with the lead.

These are only a few of the software solutions available to aid the remote sales team to increase sales and customer loyalty through lead nurturing. Sales marketing tactics become more effective and more leads become conversions as lead nurturing becomes an important part of the sales process.

Sales Force Automation

Sales force automation systems (SFA) are a part of a companies customer relations management (CRM) system . Sales force automation is a system that automatically records crucial data at all stages of the sales process. Utilization of a well designed SFA brings the possibilities of increased productivity and customer satisfaction.

The idea behind sales force automation is that when analytical data is shared between departments and sales stages that sales professionals will be able to ensure that they are productive as possible.

An SFA allows successful lead management, and promises that no lead will ever be lost. This allows a sales agent to contact a lead as soon as it comes in, never stored in a file where they could be forgotten about. Leads are able to be imported in from a variety of sources including spreadsheets and web captured forms. As leads are converted into customers you can view trends and analyze the trends in your SFA, showing how individual employees and sales teams could improve.

SFA also consolidates all company information into one place. This includes contacts, product purchases, and communication histories. This information facilitates collaboration across an organization and allows the coordination of sales campaigns.

Having an SFA helps you track the communication history of individual customers which is important in keeping clients happy. Well designed sales force automation systems provide easy templates to be used in creating effective emails or print mailers for customers. They also provide tools for personalization, allowing companies to reach the individual needs of their clients while providing them a good experience with the organization. By tracking communication with individual leads and customers annoying repetitive emails can be avoided, and all contact with the customer can be rewarding. They also provide information for an organization of whether emails sent are opened or not, and how long it took after they were sent for them to be opened.

A sales force automation system should integrate with all other telephony systems an organization uses. This allows the SFA to be as accurate and useful as possible in its analytic business reports. Because an SFA receives information constantly from sales agents, it can provide the exact status of a business at any given moment. This increases an organizations ability to make informed decisions on sales practices. An SFA that can produce graphs or charts of sales performance quickly and easily will show underlying trends, and will allow sales managers to quickly relay important information to their sales teams.