In the world of sales and marketing, lead distribution is a crucial process for ensuring that potential customers are efficiently and effectively connected with the right representatives.
One method of lead distribution that has gained popularity in recent years is the round-robin approach.
Round robin lead distribution involves distributing leads among a group of sales representatives in a circular fashion, with each representative receiving an equal number of leads.
This approach has proven to be effective in ensuring that all sales reps have an equal opportunity to engage with potential customers and can lead to increased sales and revenue for businesses.
In this article, we will delve deeper into the concept of round robin lead distribution, exploring how it works, its advantages, and how it can be implemented in different business settings.
What Is Round Robin Lead Distribution?
Why Round Robin Lead Distribution Is the Future of Sales Engagement
Is This Method Good For Your Business?
What Does the Process Look Like?
Having a Great Tool With These Features Is a Must
5 benefits of using QikChat for your business
What Is Round Robin Lead Distribution?
Round robin lead distribution means there is no need to manually assign new lead records to sales representatives. Instead, the leads are distributed equally using a rotating system, otherwise known as round robin assignment.
This process involves assigning new leads to different reps in sequence until each rep has been assigned the same number of leads, after which the cycle begins again.
Round-robin scheduling helps to eliminate any statistical bias by ensuring that each rep takes turns in receiving new leads.
For instance, imagine a card game with three players: using round-robin scheduling, the deck would be shuffled and the cards distributed in a sequence such as player 1 receiving card 1 and card 4, player 2 receiving card 2 and card 5, player 3 receiving card 3 and card 6, and so on.
Why Round Robin Lead Distribution Is the Future of Sales Engagement
Round robin lead distribution is gaining popularity in today’s business world due to the fact that focus is placed on even distribution.
The round robin meeting method of lead distribution involves evenly distributing leads among a group of sales reps in a rotating fashion.
As we have stated, each rep receives an equal number of leads before the rotation starts again, thus eliminating any bias and ensuring that all reps have an equal opportunity to engage with potential customers.
Let’s see why many experts believe that this lead distribution method is the future of sales engagement:
1. Equal Opportunity for Sales Reps
Round robin lead distribution ensures that each sales rep has an equal opportunity to engage with potential customers. This approach eliminates any favouritism or bias, which can often occur when leads are assigned manually. By distributing leads evenly, all reps have an equal chance of success, resulting in a more engaged and motivated sales team.
2. Improved Efficiency
It can improve sales efficiency by automating the lead distribution process. This allows sales reps to focus on what they do best – engaging with potential customers and closing deals. With round robin scheduling, you get to enjoy a faster process since reps no longer need to waste time manually assigning leads, which can be time-consuming and can often lead to errors.
3. Increased Revenue
Round robin lead distribution can lead to increased revenue for your business. By ensuring that all reps have an equal opportunity to engage with potential customers, you can increase the number of deals closed and boost your revenue. This approach also helps to prevent reps from cherry-picking the best leads, which can result in lost sales opportunities.
4. Improved Customer Experience
By evenly distributing leads among your sales team, you can improve the customer experience. Potential customers will be connected with the rep who is best suited to meet their needs, resulting in a more positive interaction. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, which can have a positive impact on your bottom line.
5. Scalability
Round robin lead distribution is a scalable approach that can be used in businesses of all sizes. As your business grows, you can easily add more reps to your team, and the round robin scheduling approach will ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to engage with potential customers.
Is This Method Good For Your Business?
For companies that deal with a significant volume of inbound leads, round robin lead distribution is a suitable approach to consider. This method ensures even distribution of leads among the sales reps in a rotating fashion, making it ideal for businesses with thousands of leads that require a routing system.
By implementing round robin scheduling, you can ensure that each sales rep has an equal opportunity to engage with potential customers.
This approach ensures that leads are distributed fairly among the sales team, without any bias.
Additionally, the round robin scheduling method allows you to skip routing leads to any unavailable sales reps, further streamlining the process.
What Does the Process Look Like?
Various lead routing platforms may have different processes for implementing round-robin scheduling, but there is a fundamental process that is followed by every scheduling software.
The following is what you should know about how round-robin assignments work:
Once a lead submits a web form on your website and you have round-robin lead distribution in place, the lead is created in the lead distribution software database, and the sales rep in the queue is designated as the lead owner.
If the assigned sales rep fails to make contact within a predetermined time limit, typically x minutes, the lead is rerouted and assigned to the next available sales rep.
By using a lead distribution platform, lead assignments become automated, thus eliminating the need for sales reps to exchange emails with prospects for meeting confirmation.
The automated scheduling process promotes prompt responsiveness and reduces the time between a lead contacting your business and a sales rep following up.
Even distribution
When users choose the optimization for equal distribution option, meetings are distributed evenly among team members.
If a sales rep already has several assigned meetings, they won’t receive any additional meetings until the rest of the team catches up. This option provides equal opportunities for all sales reps to engage with prospects.
Additionally, new team members have the opportunity to interact with prospects and develop their portfolios. This approach also ensures that the workload is evenly distributed among team members.
Availability
The availability feature in the software allows prospects to select their preferred time slots, and then the software automatically assigns the lead to the available sales rep for that slot.
This option enhances the customer experience and reduces waiting times. In cases where multiple sales reps are available for the chosen time slot, the software allows you to prioritise the reps who can take over the meeting.
The availability feature offers the following advantages:
- Enables prompt scheduling of meetings with available sales reps
- Prioritises sales reps based on their skills and knowledge of the industry or language.
- Enhances the prospect’s experience and engagement with the sales team.
Having a Great Tool With These Features Is a Must
If you’re seeking a tool to streamline the process of sending a scheduling link to a lead in the hopes of arranging a meeting, but find yourself having to send the same link at least 4 to 6 times before the lead chooses a time to meet either online or in person, then QikChat is the ideal choice for you.
5 benefits of using QikChat for your business
QikChat offers advanced round robin lead distribution, but what else can this inbound lead conversion and scheduling tool help you with?
Well, let’s take a look at the list below:
1. Lead distribution
The lead distribution process is fully automated with QikChat, assigning team members, where the next person in the que will receive the next lead, all visible within the QikChat dashboard.
2. Calendar sharing
Team members’ calendars are embedded in the scheduling emails to leads, to facilitate the ability for the lead to book a meeting fast.
3. Accessing lead information
The process of obtaining and using lead information is seamless, by removing the key friction points, where leads are stuck where they have completed the form.
4. Speed to lead
Your speed to lead response time can greatly improve by using QikChat, given where it sits in your tech stack, integrating to the lead form and your calendar.
5. Lead capture
QikChat captures lead information automatically through a code snippet on the user’s website or landing page builder, eliminating the need for a separate landing page where leads may lose interest.
Why Is This Important For Your Team?
In industries with high competition, the company that responds to a lead first often wins the deal.
Research conducted by Insidesales.com reveals that the odds of a lead entering the sales process or getting qualified are 21 times higher when contacted within five minutes of submission, compared to 30 minutes later.
The Harvard Business Review conducted a study that found only 37% of companies contacted leads within an hour, which was deemed a disastrous trend as delaying responses beyond an hour reduced the chances of qualifying a lead by seven times.
Additionally, if the response was received after 24 hours, the chances of qualifying the lead decreased by sixty times.
These studies indicate that in highly competitive industries, it is crucial to respond promptly to leads, as speed to lead is equivalent to speed to revenue.
Seeing that your business and the team behind it are in this sphere, this is important info that shouldn’t be taken lightly. After all, this business process directly affects your company’s bottom line.
Conclusion
Having an appropriate round robin lead distribution product is crucial to improve your conversion rate. If you are facing issues with slow lead responsiveness, the round-robin scheduling method can be an ideal solution.
By reducing the lead response time, you can make a significant difference in your sales performance. Additionally, the round-robin method can help create an equitable distribution system, ensuring that every sales rep gets an opportunity to engage with leads.
