tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34368959.post5566311655819109176..comments2024-03-25T04:32:02.396-04:00Comments on Customer Experience Matrix: Salespeople: One Question Matters MostDavid Raabhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03489754392712536104noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34368959.post-41116473644166694812009-01-21T10:07:00.000-05:002009-01-21T10:07:00.000-05:00Thanks Steve. I suppose it's true that prospects ...Thanks Steve. I suppose it's true that prospects often won't provide accurate timeframe information, presumably for fear of being pestered by salespeople. This is a sad commentary on what a poor job many salespeople do in helping their prospects, but that's a topic for another day. <BR/><BR/>The utility of behavioral data is a many-layered issue. High activity levels could indicate strong near-term purchase intent, but they might also have other causes. So you need a pretty sophisticated scoring model to isolate the people you really want. Then, you have to convince salespeople that you've done this correctly--which probably will happen only when they find out for themselves how those leads perform. Finally, you need a feedback mechanism based on actual results to improve the accuracy of your scoring technique over time.<BR/><BR/>It's also worth pointing out that the few prospects who openly admit they are going to buy soon are almost certainly the best of the best. So, from a salesperson's perspective, answers to that question are indeed the most useful measure of a good prospect. What the salespeople don't see are the prospects who are going to buy soon but don't say so. Behavioral analysis should help to identify these, but it takes some convincing to get the salespeople to accept the behavioral-based scores as valid. I suppose, as you write, that having accepted this is what makes high performing teams stand out from the rest.David Raabhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03489754392712536104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34368959.post-45522421992252503722009-01-21T09:18:00.000-05:002009-01-21T09:18:00.000-05:00David,I think you're seeing a bit of a "p...David,<BR/>I think you're seeing a bit of a "people wanting faster horses" situation, if I can steal a bit from Henry Ford. You're right that the key indicators to look for are those that govern purchase intent/timing. Everyone agrees with that. The real challenge is that it's hard to solve. Prospects are far too intelligent to fill out the "purchase timeframe" field with anything remotely accurate.<BR/><BR/>To succeed, you need to understand purchase intent, and the only realistic way to do that is through behaviour. You are absolutely right that sales generally doesn't care about the nuts & bolts like raw opens and clickthroughs. All the activity metrics need to be boiled down into the best approximation for purchase intent and timeframe.<BR/><BR/>That's where we're seeing high performing sales & marketing teams really stand out from the pack.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for bringing up a great topic.Steven Woodshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06376596253100522418noreply@blogger.com