The use of third party vendors for lead qualification is always a hot topic! I am hoping I can shed some light on it for you.
There are literally dozens of vendors in this space both domestically as well as off shore. Before you engage with them, you must clearly define your objectives and requirements. So many companies let the vendor implement a "vanilla" model and process that treats every client the same and then wonder why they are not getting the results they desire.
Let me list just a few of the questions you should ask a vendor:
- How many years have you been in business?
- How many employees do you have?
- What is your attrition rate?
- Who are your 4 largest clients and what is their size and the number of employees you have dedicated to their project?
- What is your supervisor to representative ratio?
- Do you provide remote monitoring capabilities?
- Do you provide web based reporting?
You get where I am going...you have to ask them as many questions about their business as they should ask you about yours.
If you are not getting the results you desire, you need to ask yourself the following questions:
- Did I clearly define my Ideal Customer for the vendor?
- Did I provide them with a list that targets that Ideal Customer?
- Did I provide them with a succinct elevator pitch?
- Did I provide them with sales tools in the form of must have and nice to have questions?
- Was the training provided appropriate for the program?
- How much remote monitoring and coaching have I done?
- Are the objectives of the program realistic?
In summary, if you choose to out source your lead qualification, understand that you must do so wisely and invest time, effort and energy in making it successful.
We would love to hear about the results you received from out sourced projects and what you learned along the way so feel free to post comments!