If I were to ask you what came to mind when you heard the phrase “lead generation” you would most likely respond with things like landing pages, blogs, signup forms, and contests. These, of course, are all popular methods of lead generation. And they all have one thing in common – communication.
As you already know, constant communication with customers is absolutely essential for lead generation and customer conversion. It is what ties customer service, sales, and marketing teams together.
Catchy taglines, insightful calls to action, or even creative blog posts all utilize communication to connect with customers successfully in the inbound marketing sphere. These forms of communication are key to sharing your brand’s values and engaging with your prospective audience.
Most importantly, however, customer service allows businesses to connect directly with consumers, record their data, and hopefully convert them into qualified leads.
Now, you may be wondering, what is a qualified lead?
Qualified leads are leads that have shown a certain degree of interest in your company or product. This interest is gauged depending on how much information a lead has chosen to share with you — the amount of qualification can vary.
Let’s explore a couple of scenarios:
New Customer Discount: A person who has never done business with you in the past might come across an offer for a “new customer” discount. To access this discount, they would have to provide their name and email address. If the discount is valuable enough to them, the person may share this information with your company. While this amount of information may seem small, it is certainly enough information to know that this customer has interest in your company.
User Account Creation: A customer who is willing to create a personal account on your company’s website would be required to provide even more information. Name, email, home address, and phone number. This amount of information would also qualify the lead by their willingness to share their information and display a clear interest in your company.
Of course, the more data that can be collected the better, but the two scenarios show that even smaller amounts of information can be used to qualify leads.
Lead generation differs from company to company and from customer to customer. The key is to collect enough information to measure whether someone is really interested in your product or service.
How much information is enough? That is up to you and your company to decide.
The 3 Types of Qualified Leads
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) – Marketing qualified leads are prospects who have responded and engaged with your marketing campaigns but may not be ready to receive a sales call just yet. An example of an MQL would be someone who fills out a landing page form for a specific offer, like a discount coupon.
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) – Sales qualified leads are prospects who have directly indicated that they are looking to become a customer of your business. One example of an SQL prospect would be a person who fills out a form to connect with your company questions they have about your product or service.
- Product Qualified Leads (PQL) – Product-qualified leads are consumers who have been able to use your product and have taken actions that show their interest in becoming paying customers. An example of a PQL would be a prospective customer using a free trial and indicating that they intend to continue their patronage after the trial is over.
Now that the links between customer service and lead generation are clear, you must be wondering how you can get qualified leads.
Look no further!
The key to generating more qualified leads is efficient customer service. And we’ll show you how to achieve this in the following 5 tips:
- Utilize Live Chat
Technology creates an ease of use for many users who consistently choose online communication over traditional means like phone calls. Live chat allows customers to get immediate assistance online without waiting on hold to be connected to someone.
When implemented properly, live chat can allow your customer service agents to connect with prospective clients at lightning-fast speeds and help your company generate more qualified leads. By the way you can use Customer relationship management tools to track your leads.
Pre-chat surveys are effective in gathering information about a person before their live chat conversation even begins. By requesting their name and email before the conversation, you can be sure to establish a relationship with them early on.
- Use Chatbots
Chatbots can generate leads when no live chat agents are available. By having a chatbot that works 24/7, you can continue to collect information from customers passively while your agents are offline. This is an effective way of gathering information even when your business is technically closed. The information gathered while your agents are off can be used to pursue these qualified leads during regular business hours.
Offering deals to existing customers can be accomplished easily with live chat or a chatbot. By recognizing a user is returning to your website, the chatbot can offer a special offer or discount. In order to receive the offer, they are prompted with an email or phone number request. Even if they don’t redeem their offer, it is still an effective method of acquiring contact information to build a relationship later.
Use chatbots to personalize a prospective customer’s experience. Get to know your customer by having chatbots ask questions about their personal preferences. These preferences can be used to recommend products or services more suited to your qualified leads’ individual needs.
- Harness the Power of Social Media
Modern customers use social media to connect with brands constantly, whether they are expressing their love, hate, or just asking questions directly from the source. As a modern company, your goal is to stay on top of these interactions and to utilize your social media following by turning it into sales opportunities.
Creating an online presence should be your first step in growing your brand’s online community. Create a group on Facebook and create polls on Twitter and Instagram so you can begin to connect with users over their preferred medium. These methods are not only easy, but, if done right, can allow you to gather mountains of information about users who will readily share their data with you.
Be sure to use social media monitoring to your advantage as well. It lets you be notified when your brand or products are mentioned online so you can quickly respond to whoever is reaching out. In addition to providing quick feedback, it allows you to market your customer support teams so you can provide even greater assistance to your community.
Being tuned in to the fast-paced social media sphere allows your company to stay ahead of changing trends and always be in the loop with customers.
Almost everyone uses social media, why should your company be exempt?
- Collect Feedback
Ask for feedback whenever you can, whether it’s from existing customers or simply from users who stumbled upon your website. If someone is willing to share their information and their opinion with you, you should listen!
If a customer is willing to share their feedback with you, it could be a difference maker in the generation of new leads. Some customers will have feedback for you that can give you more information about things they like and don’t like about your company.
Determining a customer’s goals and desires can be as easy as just asking them. At the end of live chat conversations, ask them to fill out a quick survey. If they just purchased something, ask them how they enjoyed your service. Email can be used as a way to communicate with customers who may not have interacted with your company in a while.
Some customers will have a bad experience with your company, and they will give you feedback detailing the reasons they won’t continue as your customer. If you can collect and use this feedback, you can make changes that will prevent this from happening in the future. Use one customer’s negative feedback to ensure better qualified lead generation in the future.
- Always Collect Data
Data collection is the key to any successful lead generation. Without data and information about possible customers, you have no way of establishing a line of communication with them.
If a customer is willing to share their data with you, make sure you are collecting it! Once you have an email or phone number, you can begin your process of pursuing the leads and turning them into sales.
The Bottom Line
Customer service is the backbone of every business and is linked to all aspects of a company’s success. When done properly, customer service can easily be used to generate qualified leads for your business.
If you follow the tips you learned here today, you will be able to use customer service in a way that will directly translate into increased lead generation and sales. Your company and your customers know how important customer service can be, make sure you use it to your advantage!
