Let the Data Guide Your Company’s Inside Sales Performance

Problem

We all know how important speed is when it comes to handling highly time-sensitive incoming leads. Prior to implementing a new lead management approach, the average lag for an incoming lead was measured in hours and sometime days, thus greatly diminishing external lead ROI.

Actions taken

Phase 1: The Shark Tank Rather than doling out leads one-by-one in a round-robin fashion, we started presenting them to the entire sales team all at once on a new interface, so that anybody available to react to that lead can now pick it up. Each rep ends up contending for new leads, a system our sales pros affectionately dubbed the "Shark Tank." In the first week Shark Tank has been in place, reaction time has significantly decreased. Borrowers got their deals processed much faster and more efficiently, and the ROI of external lead sources greatly improved. Phase 2: Machine Learning We learn from our data (or, more precisely, we want our predictive models to learn from data, and keep learning from it) and see, from the borrowers we previously converted, which ones ended up as customers and which leads took up considerable time, only to be abandoned. The goal is to use machine learning to help determine the relative value of leads in real time, moments before they reach our sales team. We can also monitor individual performance characteristics — even factored by time patterns — of our reps, and allocate leads according to each representative's strengths and skills.

Lessons learned

External sales sources are flooding us with thousands of borrower leads, a rate that allows us to make intelligent determinations. Likewise, we diligently monitor data in all stages, from sourcing to converting. That way, we can cross-reference every single new lead with all the data we've accumulated to improve performance for funding, servicing and completing great real estate projects. By using our technology to add value to our residential debt product, we strove to incorporate data into every facet of business operations. Improving lead response was a natural step in our mission to give investors and borrowers the best experience possible. Source: https://medium.com/realtyshares-newsroom/improving-response-to-customer-leads-a1e17120e0f0