Quality Lead Generation and Customer Retention – Case Study
It is a well known fact that you need to generate and deliver quality leads to your customers – to signup new customers and to retain the existing clients. However, it is very difficult to maintain the consistency of lead quality if you are using multiple sources and channels for online lead generation.
Many lead distribution companies and agencies, especially when they are new to the online lead generation and distribution business, struggle to survive and grow. While it looks easy and enticing from the outside world, it is often laborious and error prone, unless you understand the intricacies of the web lead sales business.
Customer Feedback
The other day, I was speaking with one of our long time customers who has branched out recently into online lead generation for a specific industry niche. Whenever I have a chance to speak with the clients, I always make sure that I inquire about their business with questions such as (1) if they are doing good, (2) how is the industry doing, (3) how their CUSTOMERS are doing, (4) their sales projections and actual sales numbers, (5) technology trends in the industry, and (6) how we could help them further by adding / enhancing our lead distribution and management software solution.
I make sure that this conversation is casual and personal, rather than formal and rigid. If you ask these questions genuinely, most of the customers respond positively and open their thoughts. It gives a chance for them to reflect on their business from a different (supplier’s) perspective. Unlike formal online surveys sent via email invites, which is a great tool to collect customer feedback and opinion, this personal one-to-one discussion can be constructed instantly based on the situation without any pre-planning. The conversation could be a couple of minutes or it can be 20 or 15 minutes depending on the customer’s comfort level and positive engagement.
Leadgen Case Study
Coming back to my specific discussion with a client, I inquired about quite a few support requests from him. He responded immediately saying that several of his customers have dropped out immediately and he had to make changes in the system configuration to alter the lead delivery flow for other customers.
When I probed further about the reasons for clients dropping out, he mentioned that they were buying leads from a new internet lead generation media agency and it seems that the conversion rates for these leads were very low.
He immediately started researching the lead sourcing practices. As you know, many leadgen companies will not give you the sources or methods of their leadgen practices. He found out after some research that the leads were generated using co-generation method! Obviously, it was not their first choice of the online subscribers. Probably the visitors were either forced or enticed into opting into the additional service categories.
Generally, the leads generated using co-registration methods will convert less. These could be used for long term nurturing or up-sell processes, but not for immediate telephone follow-up.
This scenario shows how your lead quality can be affected without even your knowledge. Hence lead sourcing (or buying internet leads) should be taken as a continuous improvement process. The quality of purchased or outsourced leads can change overnight as the affiliates and media agencies change their processes.
Solution
If you want to be successful in lead generation business, you have to leverage third party lead vendors. If you need to use vendors, you have to be proactive in doing the research on their leadgen practices and make sure that the led quality is on par with the leads generated by your own company using pay per click (PPC) or search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Also, measuring the consistency of lead quality on an ongoing balance is an essential step. As mentioned earlier, you don’t need a special measurement tool for this; just speak with your clients. Another easy check is to see if they are placing repeat orders with you. If not, you have a problem on hand and you need to diagnose the same for treatment. Happy selling!
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