Managing your pipeline
As new channels evolve for marketing opportunities, agencies are exploring their options for more targeted lead generation tactics, including organic search and paid digital ads. The best agencies are tracking sales conversions to their marketing campaigns, monitoring which sources are driving the best results. Having a full pipeline is certainly encouraging, and lead attribution can provide great data for allocating your resources. But neither of these are as strong of a success indicator as your conversion rate. Your pipeline is only as good as the management of your lead funnel, and managing that pipeline can be hugely challenging without automation.
If you are still managing leads by assigning lead owners through spreadsheets, you know how time-consuming distribution tasks can be. The manual steps of directing leads to the right contacts and territories take up valuable time that could be spent on other tasks. This process may suit small organizations, but it isn’t sustainable for growth.
Manual distribution relies on the consistency and response time of the person routing. As an agency expands, more pressure falls on leadership to keep up with their pipeline. A lead can easily go to the wrong party, which may cost that sales opportunity. When leads aren’t routed correctly, then the appropriate agents can’t act quickly on hot leads, which can cause your conversion rate to slip.
Using time more wisely
When managers are responsible for routing all leads, they become a bottleneck in their operations, sacrificing time that could be spent on other decision-making. When leaders spend so much time managing leads, they miss out on opportunities to assess greater performance needs across the agency.
Think about how much time you spend manually distributing leads. The time you spend on lead distribution could be spent on other agency operations, including staffing, training, monitoring campaigns, and other performance analysis. Every minute you spend on lead management keeps you from studying your business at a higher level, seeing the gaps, and finding new opportunities for improvement.
Improving with automation
Automated lead distribution gives you back that time in your schedule, allowing you to focus your resources on other areas. By using a platform that automates lead distribution, you can set your own business rules within your sales management system to direct all leads to the right party contacts. This provides a seamless, efficient process for routing your leads to the appropriate call center agents, captive agents, and brokers. Automation can also increase your conversion rate, consistently sending leads to the best sales channel at the right time.
Choosing a solution
To avoid losing sight of your agency’s performance, consider rethinking your lead distribution model. Automated lead distribution can help you get maximum impact from your lead generation efforts. An insurance-specific CRM solution that includes lead management and distribution will provide the most optimal experience.
Learn more about managing your lead funnel for best outcomes in your sales process.
