Automate load-balancing to maximize productivity
In any lead management scenario, load-balancing is critical. It’s no use queuing a lead for your best rep if they’re already working on a whole heap of other leads. By the same token, you don’t want a sales rep sat idle just because they are less experienced. It makes sense for them to process the lower priority leads, maybe ones that have lower potential value, in order to take some of the pressure off everyone else. Finding the right balance is one of the keys to maximizing productivity across a sales team.
Caps and Quotas
A relatively simple way to do load balancing is to use caps and quotas. With caps in place, a sales rep would not be considered for the next lead if they’d already hit their cap for the maximum number of leads assigned to them in a given day, week or month.
Quotas, on the other hand, can be used to limit the number of “active” leads, so this has a big bearing on real-time workload. Different sales reps, with different skills and experience, can be given different quotas to reflect their different capabilities.
By using both caps and quotas, a sophisticated lead management app, like Q-assign, can distribute leads to sales reps fairly, whilst also taking into account capability and workload.
Dynamic Load-Balancing
A more sophisticated approach to managing workloads, which is prevalent amongst high-volume teams, is to deploy dynamic load-balancing. Q-assign uses Points Scoring Rules to enable the workload for each sales rep to be calculated to reflect the amount of effort each lead will require.
Load points can be calculated for each and every lead based on factors such as complexity, volume, type of product and value. Each team member can be given a different workload threshold in terms of load points (how much workload each can handle).
Calculating Active Load Points
This Q-assign feature calculates points for active leads assigned to a sales rep. Separate points for each active lead are then added together to show the Active Load Points of each rep. Based on these load points, incoming leads will get assigned to matched reps with the lowest workload first and so the workload across all sales reps is balanced dynamically.
Balance Workload across both Lead and Opportunity objects
Q-assign can even manage and balance workloads across multiple objects. For example, if reps are working on both Leads and Opportunities, Q-assign can calculate total active load points across all leads and opportunities for each and every rep, and manage the load-balancing accordingly.
Dynamic Lead Management
By using load-balancing, in conjunction with dynamic rules, sales teams can dramatically improve their results. With dynamic lead management, lead throughput increases because leads are no longer stuck in bottlenecks, waiting for a sales rep to become free. Response times decrease because queue-time is now minimized. And conversion rates increase, not only because “speed-to-lead” has improved, but also because the right sales rep is now always working on the right lead at the right time i.e. putting their skill-set and experience to the best possible use. Win, win, win!
Q-assign for Salesforce is the most advanced lead management app on the AppExchange. It is 5-star-rated and 100% native to Salesforce. If you have any questions about lead assignment, please don’t hesitate to email us at hello@ortooapps.com.
