Cherry Picking is the terminology used by the Lead Generation, Distribution, Routing and Sales practitioners to represent the choices provided to the sales agents or lead buyers while choosing their leads for purchase or active followup. Comprehensive Lead Distribution and Routing Software systems such as LeadPro247 includes Cherry Picking method as an option for sellers and lead generation businesses.

Businesses can also provide choices for their inside sales or field sale representatives to cherry pick leads available in the distribution queue. This is generally used in the Lead Pull method of the assignment process. Sales reps can pull the prospects when they are ready for next follow up. However, businesses have the option to specify if the reps can choose their prospects or accept without any choice. If the reps can review and accept or reject the prospects in the Lead Pull method, then the process is referred to as cherry picking leads.

When the term Cherry Picking is used in general by the Lead Generation industry, it refers to the usage in the Lead Selling scenarios rather than the internal distribution scenario within an organization.

Why Allow Cherry Picking Leads?

The process allows the lead buyers to evaluate the conversion probability of the prospect and then decide to purchase or reject the same. This helps the buyers to pick and choose the prospects suitable for their specific requirements. Hence this process is generally not feasible when hundreds or thousands of  leads are purchased at a time.

Also, Lead Filters used in the automated lead distribution processes (by setting up an order or profile) can only filter quantitative properties. Where as the Cherry Picking process allows the buyer to apply qualitative decision making based on the available lead parameters.

Lead Filters Vs Cherry Picking

Lead Filters and Cherry Picking are used as complimentary distribution procedures. For example, if thousands of prospects are generated daily and available in the sales / distribution queue, it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to cherry pick individual leads manually. In such a case, the potential buyers will specify one or more lead filters or criteria based on lead profile properties to zero in specific group of leads. This is carried out by setting up a Lead Order or Buyer Profile (depending on the database / software system that you use) and passing the leads through the criteria.

For instance, in the case of Mortgage Leads, the buyer could specify the basic criteria such as geography (i.e. State) and type of leads (mortgage, refinance, credit range, etc.). When the user (buyer) logs in, the system will filter the records and display only the leads meeting the specified criteria.

When to Allow Cherry Picking for Lead Sales

As a thumb rule, picking and choosing selectively works well in the scenarios where the individual lead prices are reasonably high. While there is no hard and fast rule to determine the threshold for the lead sales value, a per lead price of $50 or above will be suitable for allowing cherry picking.

It is also noticed that the number of leads purchased by individual buyer is quite low, when cherry picking is employed. As mentioned earlier, if the lead buying volume is very large, cherry picking leads is a cumbersome process and hence generally avoided.

For example, specialized financial services leads sold to investment / financial consultants are good candidates for this method. The buyer can look at the available lead properties and then decide to buy the lead.

Notice that the critical information such as prospect’s name, physical address, phone number or email address will never be revealed (or displayed) to the buyer looking to cherry pick. Other meaningful data which would be useful for the buyer’s decision making process will be displayed by the system in the pick list screen.

Each business has to weigh the pros and cons of allowing the freedom to the buyers to choose their records. What  works for one business may not be suitable for other businesses. Also, some high value verticals work well with this method leading to higher customer satisfaction, while other verticals do not.

Online Lead Verification is the most valuable and intensive quality assessment and improvement process which comes to the aid of online lead generation companies and lead distributors. Lead Verification can be employed in both B2C and B2B scenarios, though it is most useful in consumer lead scenarios. You may take a look the primer / my earlier post on Lead Scrubbing, Validation and Verification processes.

Again, this is a post-lead-capture process and hence you can not prohibit the bad leads hitting your marketing / leads database. However, by deploying a suitable Online Lead Verification Service you can verify the lead parameters and then make a decision whether to pass on the lead to the lead buyer or your sales team.

The lead verification is carried out generally online and hence it can be used in real time lead generation and distribution situations. Once the lead information is received from the landing pages, the lead management system will subject the key data elements to dozens of tests and determine the quality of the lead.

Lead Verification Properties

The following lead profile parameters are used to verify the lead. Obviously, if the lead captured does not contain all these data elements, then the quality assessment results will be less accurate.

• First name
• Last name
• Email Address
• Address
• Phone Number
• Gender
• Date of Birth
• IP Address

Based on the input values, the verification process will return the corrected values as well as a set of useful quality parameters (which may vary from system to system).

Most of useful results from Lead Verification process will be:

• Overall Quality score
• Overall Quality Result
• Type / technology of telephone numbers

It may also provide alternate telephone number and address.

At the highest level, the Overall Lead Quality Score can be used to take an instant decision and treat the lead accordingly. For example, if the score is less than 50, probably the quality may not be very high and hence you may avoid selling it to your high value customers.

Benefits of Lead Verification

Adding a Lead Verification service feature in the lead capture and tracking system will be a great boon to those dealing with mortgage leads, debt settlement leads, financial services and other consumer (B2C) leads. There are several advantages and benefits of using an online lead verification process in your demand generation and distribution efforts. Here is a check list. These benefits are self explanatory. However we will revisit these in future posts.

• Increased Customer Satisfaction
• Increased Lead Conversion Rate
• Decrease in Wasted Time and Efforts by your Buyers / Sales Team
• Decrease in Lead Cost in the long term
• Identification of poor quality lead sources and providers
• Increased ROI
• Decrease on Price (for Lead Buyers)

Verification Services

Since Lead Verification involves comparision and mathcing with millions of public and proprietory database records, the verification services are generally provided as a per transaction fee based service. The typical cost per transaction varies from 25 cents to 35 cents based on volume of leads verified on monthly basis.

There are a number of verification service providers in the market place. The services include TargusInfo, ServiceObjects, LeadQC, and AccurateAppend among others. You may directly contact the data service provider and request your technical team to establish the interface for online verification.

On the other hand, Lead Distribution and Management service providers, such as LeadPro247, include Lead Verification as an optional service in their lead management and distribution platform. These services use one or more of the database service providers as their back-end partners and hence you can not only get the same benefit as going to the primary provider but better service and more choices. Choosing such a lead management platform might solve a lot of technical issues and maintenance efforts for your team. And your lead buyers and sales team will be happy that you addressing their pain points!

Welcome and thanks for stopping by.

This blog resource will serve as a resource focused on sales lead capture / acquisition, lead distribution, routing and assignment domains.

The phrase “lead distribution”  means different things to different industries / verticals / professionals. In this respect, I hope to discuss and cover as widely as possible. Though I will be referencing to LeadPro247 lead distribution platform in many examples, the underlying concepts, strategies and implementation processes can be used in other best of breed software or in your home grown solutions.

Also, as the internet matures and web 2.0 strategies take a stronghold in organizations, particularly in small / tiny businesses and medium sized organizations, the application of technology is bound to grow exponentially. This will result in new processes and innovation in technology. As we go forward, we will try to revisit the concepts discussed in older posts and update the new developments in the industry.