When I introduce the concept of lead management to people the first response I often get is, “isn’t that what my CRM software does?” Well, let’s ask a few questions and find out:

1. Marketing is hard at work generating leads.

   Does your CRM solution receive those customer inquiries as soon as the prospective customer responses?

2. You have now received a response and the customer has taken some action to show interest–you have their attention!

   Does your CRM solution dynamic allocate that response to the sales person or process most likely to meet the customer need?

3. The customer inquiry is finally in the queue of someone that can potentially meet there intentioned need.

   Does your CRM solution make sure that the sales person makes every effort to contact each customer?

4. Okay, now we are way out on the edge of probability (are you seeing how your conversion probability is dropping off rapid through each step?). We are going to assume that the sales person contacts the customer.

   Does your CRM solution track what the sales person did with the lead after initial contact?

5. Now let’s assume all of this went well and the lead turns into a sale and a customer with which you want to manage an ongoing relationship.

   Does your CRM solution get this information from the sales person/process?

If you do a little investigation in your sales organization you will probably find out that most of what I described happens on legal tablets and Excel spreadsheets not in your CRM solution. That is because I described the step before CRM–Customer Acquisition Management–and that is what Lead Management solutions do!