Guide to creating a lead management process

Depending on what type of moving company you run, you could have dozens of different aspects to tackle. From managing your fleet to ensuring that your customers are happy. But, if there is one thing that all moving companies need to do, and not all do properly, it’s to generate and manage leads. So, we will use this article as a guide to creating a lead management process and give you a couple of pointers to follow.

Creating a lead management process

Lead management is the gap between marketing and customer acquisition. Investing solely in marketing will leave you with a large audience. But, only a small percentage of them will actually be your customers. As you can imagine, this low rate of conversion isn’t that cost-effective. Especially if you invest heavily in your marketing, and you cannot solely rely on local customers to keep your business afloat. Fortunately, there is a fairly straightforward process we call lead management that will ensure that a decent part of your audience actually converts into customers.

Know who your leads are

The first thing to do is to outline who among your audience is a potential lead. As a moving company, you might feel the need to reach as many people as possible. But, as it turns out, this usually isn’t the best course of action. Trying to reach every customer means that most of your resources will be in vain. Instead, try to outline who your leads are and how you can engage them effectively.

We advise that you separate your leads in demographic terms to outline who they really are. Age, occupation, gender, relationship status… All of these are important when it comes to market, service optimization, and lead management.

Gather info about your leads

Even with ample research, there is only so much info you can acquire regarding potential leads. To really understand what your leads are like you need to gather declared data, and incorporate it into leads’ profiles. There are a couple of ways in which you can gather this data. We suggest that you create forms that your leads can fill out. By offering these forms, you can easily gather data that you deem valuable. Either a discount or easier access to information can be a good incentive for filling out a form. A good idea is to find out how your leads found out about your company, and what their journey on your website is like. Here it is paramount that you have good customer service software for movers. With it, your agents can focus on gathering customer data and not waste time on solving simple problems.

Score leads

Simply gathering data about your leads is useful, but not much. To truly make use of the data you’ve gathered, you need to develop a scoring system. The bigger the score a lead has, the more likely they are to turn into a customer. The easiest way to gather scores is to add a numerical value to every answer that your lead gives in their forum. By doing so, you can automate the scoring system, and quickly determine which leads are worth pursuing.

As you can imagine, time is of the essence in lead management, which is why automated scoring is so useful. But, before you start adding numbers as you see fit, try to consult with a more experienced professional. Determining which numbers are important and how much can be tricky. And a small mistake can easily cause a substantial loss in potential revenue. So, try to see how experienced professionals look at leads and the numbers that describe them.

Nurture leads

Once you’ve outlined noteworthy leads, you need to work on nurturing them. This is usually done by a customer management team, which will utilize specialized CRM software for movers. Their goal is to find the right time to make an offer to the leads and hopefully convert them into customers. If you have a direct line of communication with your leads (usually an email), this is easily done. If not, your customer relations team will have to work with your marketing team in order to place the right promotion at the right time.

For instance, if your leads are mostly college students, your best bet is to offer them services prior to the beginning of a semester. By doing so, you increase the odds that your leads will employ your services. But, you need to outline which services are most needed. And, how you are supposed to make yours stand out among the competition.

Track and measure leads

Of course, a simple conversion doesn’t spell the end of leads management for your moving company. To truly make the most of it, you need to track your performance. This is usually done by actively tracking your leads and seeing whether your efforts bring results. At any point in lead management, you can make an error in estimation, or in addressing your leads. This is perfectly fine. Just as long as you constantly strive towards improving your performance and ensuring better service.

Final thoughts

As you can see, creating a lead management process is not a quick task. To tackle it properly, you will likely have to spend months researching your audience and seeing which leads respond to your efforts. With luck, lead management will make your marketing much more effective and lower the overall cost. Keep in mind that when done properly, lead management has terrific ROI, even if you hire third-party help. But, it is paramount that you tackle everything with due care, and that you understand its value.