Lead leakage can account for between 10% and 15% of your prospect pipeline
Eliminate lead leakage and ensure Sales Teams service the leads passed across to them in a timely fashion.
There must be a mechanism or set of processes/protocols within each business to address what can be a fundamental break in communication between Sales and Marketing, that increases the risk of any business not achieving its growth targets!
It is not uncommon for Sales personnel to try to progress a new lead up to 5 times and then give up because of other, hotter prospect or other time intensive commitments.
It is also not uncommon for Sales personnel to ‘sit on a lead’ rather than pass it back to Marketing for continued nurturing and development.
If your business has a policy whereby Sales people make the appointments for themselves - make sure that if Sales cannot reach the contacts of a new lead within a week, that after that week lapses, the lead is passed back to Marketing to make the appointment for Sales.
I know of one client who fined their Salespeople £50 for each lead not handed back to their Marketing team after one week if they had not been able to reach the company in question.
It made sure that Sales treated each hot lead from Marketing with greater priority and respect.