Filtering Crank Calls In Inbound Sales Leads

Hopefully, the professional nature of an office phone line is enough to protect it from your neighborhood crank caller. On the other hand, other types of ‘prank calls’ can go through that end up muddling your batch of raw sales leads. What are they and how do you filter them out?

When you’re using an inbound marketing strategy, it can be a bit like panning for gold. There’s a lot of dirt and debris mixed in with the dollar. You can have scammers, people trying to contact customer service, or (ironically) other marketers.

Scammers

The FBI already has a brief but useful description that identifies potential telemarketing fraud. Although brace yourself. Sometimes these signs can hit a little too close to home when it comes to some of your marketing pitches. You don’t necessarily have to change anything but prepare for your outbound prospects to put you through the same test.

Customers

Say you’ve already made the sale, you acquire the customer, and in the midst of your relationship they still call the same number on your website. This can actually mean several things:

• They still don’t know your customer service number – This would be awkward and would certainly betray a slight error on your part. See that it’s fixed immediately.


• They feel hot and bothered by customer service – This is obviously more serious and you might need an immediately re-evaluation of your customer service staff. (Here’s one article with a list of signs.)

Other Marketers

Now before you condemn yourself by saying this is a taste of your own medicine, look to what they’re offering. True, you’ve lost all right to condemn those who send pitches your way or try to set appointments with your decision makers. It’s all business but that’s exactly the point.

What if, for instance, they’re offering a service that you’ve been planning to outsource? What if they’re selling you software tools that can further improve the development of your own software? Sure you’re more likely to end up spending money than making it but at least think of the return in terms of each individual offer.

Just because April Fool’s finally over doesn’t mean you can expect fewer cases of ‘phony’ inbound sales leads. Their intentions may not entirely be humorous but you have to stay vigilant all the same.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/1fCjraR