Intelligent lead assignment for Salesforce organisations is already a big challenge for most firms. This gets more complicated as organisations grow internationally and want to assign leads across different time zones or assign Salesforce leads based on region. The default Salesforce options for distributing leads globally and managing international lead assignment are unfortunately lacking. That’s why more and more companies who are scaling up are coming to Ortoo for something more sophisticated, and which allows greater controls for dealing with different business units or territories.
Assigning Salesforce Leads Globally
If you are in the process of defining your lead assignment rules by territory, below we have several examples of how different companies have approached regional & international lead assignments – and also for what purpose.
Stateside Assignments To Regional Offices
When operating in sprawling countries like the United States, a lot of Salesforce organisations want to operate lead assignment rules by territory – based on where their physical office locations are positioned. Even if a central HQ exists (with a bigger team of agents), assignment rules will still be able to pinpoint the location of a specific lead and map that new lead to the closest physical business location. If there aren’t any offices in a given km radios then contingency plans could route that lead elsewhere or to HQ.
Why – there are several reasons, assigning Salesforce leads based on region helps ensure potential new customers speak and interact with people local to them. This makes future sales visits in person much easier, and people like forming relationships with people who have similar stories to themselves.
Multi-Nation Support Assignments (Every 24 Hours)
Large enterprise organisations may have different english-speaking (or non-english speaking) support teams spread out across several different continents. For example, countries renowned for technical support bases include the United States, Poland, India & Australia. By operating support teams in different countries, you always have the opportunity to assign leads across time zones which are active.
Why – this is great for businesses as they will always have one support team who are ready to help, no matter the time of day. Being able to assign leads across time zones also enables the workforce to work sociable hours rather than being online during after-dark, it’s also a contributing factor for being able to hire the best available support staff.
Assignments Based On Regional Product Focus
For global businesses, it’s likely that different geographic locations have completely different business focuses. For example, an auto manufacturer may have several premises in the US which deal with distribution, it may have its primary customer call centre stationed in the UK and potentially a headquarters in Germany where design is a core focus. In this instance, depending on what type of query a customer has – you may want to automatically distribute your lead or case to a location where staff are specialised in that given area.
Why – managing international lead assignment in this way, ensures that leads are routed to the physical departments & locations which have the specialised knowledge to help. The more defined a new lead is, the more the customer expects someone to understand their problems and have the required experience to come up with viable solutions. If some has a specific problem or is interested in a specific product, businesses are now understanding that it’s better to distribute that lead to the business team closely linked to that area – rather than a generic catch-all option.
International Lead Assignment Based On The Customer Profile
Another strategy for consideration if there are multiple assignment options, is to think what best suits the customer. When a new lead comes in, what key information do we have about the customer? Can lead assignment rules by territory then ensure leads are distributed to the physical locations best placed to act. For example, if someone is ordering product from a European website but the delivery is scheduled for Japan which sales team is best placed to pick-up this lead – the European office of the Asian? Additionally, if a previous customer is thinking about engaging in some new business – should the business follow the usual channels or could your international assignment rules kick-in & route that lead to the Salesforce contact who has previously dealt with that very same customer.
Why – just because a new lead has come into Salesforce, it doesn’t always mean that lead is guaranteed to convert. The organisation needs to be priming itself for success, which means distributing the lead to the best matched team – even if that is across borders. Lead assignment rules by territory can easily be matched with intelligent assignment rules based on the customer, this can have various benefits from ensuring continuity, utilising existing knowledge or making sure the customer deals with someone who has better knowledge of what they are hoping to achieve.
Above are just four examples, but there are literally hundreds of ways you may want to manage your international lead assignment in Salesforce. Whether you want to assign leads based on region or you want to assign leads across time zones, having a flexible solution which can be configured to your unique business use case is the way to go. Take a look at our intelligent assignment engine Q-assign, for more information.
