The round robin meeting method is a process for more rapidly distributing sales leads and fastening lead response time. Many businesses use this strategy, as it is very effective in scheduling meetings with inbound leads as quickly as possible.
Here’s an explanation of round robin meeting scheduling and how you can make the most out of it within your own team or business.
What is a Round Robin Meeting?
A round robin is defined as having the functionality, where a list of sales reps are automatically assigned leads based on their position in this list. Once all sales reps have been assigned a lead, the rotation starts again.
Yep – the idea of the round robin method is that simple. Essentially, everyone has their turn.
The Round Robin method is a way to evenly distribute the number of leads each member of your sales team receives. The process is automated so that every rep has a chance to interact with their promising leads, rather than just a few manually chosen people and determining which leads should go to which team members.
Benefits of Round Robin Meeting Distribution
- Round Robin Meetings Allow for Faster Speed to Lead
- Round Robin Meeting Distribution Allows for Fairer Lead Routing
- Round Robin Meeting Distribution Automatically Pauses Lead Routing to Reps That are Busy or Away
- Round Robin Meeting Reporting
How to use the Round Robin method
- Understand Round Robin Routing Rules
- Make Changes to Your Lead Routing System When Necessary
- Automatically Route Leads
- Use Round Robin Reporting to Gain Insights
Benefits of Round Robin Meeting Distribution
So why would you use the round robin method?
There are seven main benefits.
Round Robin Meetings Allow for Faster Speed to Lead
I hate to state the obvious and what you probably already thought, but the round robin method increases your speed to lead time.
You probably already know, the quicker your sales representatives reply to leads, the increased likelihood they have of converting those leads into sales. With that being said, speed is critical in this day and age. If you respond within one minute, the chances of conversion increases by 391%. However, if you wait one hour, that percentage drops down to 36%. And finally, if you wait one day before responding, the likelihood of converting sinks all the way down to 17%.
And to top it off, research has shown that almost four out of five deals go to the provider that responds first.
In other words, an ultra-fast sales routing system is beneficial and round robin meeting distribution provides that. Arm your sales reps with round robin scheduling aswell and the potential of your team will become limitless.
QikChat does this by going through your selected team members from their position in the team’s list, but also making sure their round robin meeting availability does not clash with other meetings in their calendar.
The sales reps available meeting times are then embedded in an email and instantly sent off. As all the calendars from the team member are integrated on sign-up, there is no need for an endless list of back and fourths, costing your team time and money.
Having round robin meeting availability enables every sales rep to connect with leads while their warm and get the most out of them.
Businesses that utilize round robin meetings can gain a significant advantage over the competition, considering it takes more than half of companies (55%) at least five business days to respond.
Round Robin Meeting Distribution Allows for Fairer Lead Routing
Although there are various lead distribution models, most can be classified into one of two groups: round robin or cherry-picking. Round robin is where leads are assigned to reps in rotational order. Cherry picking, on the other hand, involves assigning leads to reps manually according to particular characteristics like skillsets, sales history with similar leads, geographic location, and more.
Although cherry-picking has its own set of advantages and is the right distribution model in some situations, it’s not always the fairest way to go about distributing leads. For example, it inherently favors sales reps with more experience and can create an imbalance where newer reps may not get the same quality of leads as senior reps.
While cherry-picking can be advantageous and is the right choice in some cases, it’s not always the most equitable way of distributing leads. For example, newer sales reps may not get the same quality of leads because of another rep’s seniority in a team, creating unevenness both financially and emotionally fast.
In the long run, this can create ongoing tension among team members and prevent a new rep’s growth if they’re not given the right amount of opportunities of decent quality. This can become topical quickly when your sales manager reviews how many meetings you are having in order to hit your target.
This approach helps your sales reps focus on their performance and increases their productivity. It also helps eliminate any potential bias or favoritism in lead distribution. Additionally, round robin meeting distribution can foster a healthy team atmosphere and promote collaboration among your sales team members.
With QikChat, fairness in round robin meeting availability and distribution is at the heart of our product, all revolving around providing the potential for all sales reps of teams to generate round robin sales.
We do this by only assigning a lead based on the rep’s position in the team queue, with the sales manager only able to view all the leads, while the sales reps can only see the leads they have been assigned.
There’s no need to send out an individual round robin link or a separate meetings link, we’ve got you covered end to end.
If you’re looking to create a level playing field and give everyone an equal opportunity to set up your whole team for success, the round robin meeting method is definitely your best bet.
Round Robin Meeting Distribution Automatically Pauses Lead Routing to Reps That are Busy or Away
When you’re routing leads to team members, another factor that should be considered is their availability. For example, maybe a sales rep has half-day Fridays and can’t meet with new leads past 2 p.m. or possibly they are taking the entire week off and won’t be able to have any meetings during that time frame. In circumstances such as these, it’s beneficial to pause lead routing so reps don’t end up getting inbound leads they can’t manage. That way there will be no disruptions concerning meeting times and leads won’t be neglected altogether, making sure the lead experience is being put first.
Round robin meeting platforms like QikChat have you covered, we make sure this doesn’t happen by asking team members, on sign-up to connect their default calendar and select their desired times that they are available to attend meetings.
What team members would do is select a future date range by which they are available and making sure the working hours selected is matched to when they are back from being on holidays or sick.
It’s that simple.
Round Robin Meeting Reporting
Reporting on key metrics is crucial when running a successful business, it will give you the insight you need to make informed decisions that result in continuing on that successful path.
It’s usually from this point that you are able to nurture significant growth that can go beyond your own expectations, keeping in mind that the reporting of the round robin meeting method metrics are available in real time.
Ready to go, after your receive your first inbound lead, QikChat can start reporting for you on:
- How many leads a rep has been assigned
- Which rep is next to receive a lead
- The status of the leads that have been sent a meeting invite.
With this data, you can not only identify areas that need improvement in your round robin meeting assignments but also get an understanding of how well individual sales reps are performing.
How to Use the Round Robin Method
Now that you understand how round robin distribution works and what its benefits are, let’s move on to specifics about getting started with it.
While the concept itself is easy — everyone takes turns — there are many factors that need to be configured.
Luckily, QikChat provides a tool that automate this process so it’s not complicated at all.
Here are the basic steps:
Understand Round Robin Routing Rules
As your team members sign up to QikChat , whether they are invited by your sales manager or have signed up individually, the round robin assignment will begin almost instantly after signing up.
The sales manager of the account has the ability to re-assign leads, based on the distribution of leads before having signed up to QikChat.
For example, let’s say you have a new starter in your team and the sales manager wants that person to build pipeline quickly or a lead from a niche vertical comes in and it is better suited to a certain rep, this re-assignment ability solves that problem, while moving other team members along in the queue.
We are releasing details on how to further customize your assignment here.
Make Changes to Your Lead Routing System When Necessary
Over time, you will probably experience changes in your staff- this could mean adding new sales representatives, or having a change in responsibilities.
Whenever these types of changes are made, you’ll need to update your platform as well.
But don’t worry, QikChat makes it easy peasy with just a few clicks!
Not only that, but it also creates scalability so you won’t have to deal with any pesky Excel sheets.
Automatically Route Leads
After the lead clicks the ‘submit’ button from a landing page, the lead will automatically be routed to a team member based on their position in the que.
The team members’ availability will be embedded in an email, with times ready to be selected for a meeting with one click.
The calendar placeholder will populate in the leads and team members respective calendar, removing the need to accept the calendar invite again, like a lot of some former solutions.
One of the key takeaways from the round robin method is that
I should mention, It’s important to offer an advanced level of convenience as part of your sales process, so that leads can select a time to chat when it suits them. This makes it easier for your reps to convert leads into customers.
Use Round Robin Reporting to Gain Insights
It’s important to closely monitor your data in order to get a deep understanding of what is happening at each stage of the sales cycle, which is almost always broken down by a series of meetings. For example, QikChat allows you not only track on every step of the meeting process. Doing this will let you identify any patterns emerging, understand how well your inbound leads are being converted, and work out where there might be room for improvement. By making incremental changes over time, it’s possible to optimize the process and achieve an even higher conversion rate.
You can track information on:
- Number of meetings
- Meeting status
- Number of leads
- Number of leads assigned
Conclusion
Meetings play a vital role in any sales representative’s day. And yet, there’s an art to being able to schedule meetings across your entire sales team. It’s key that when a potential client wants to meet with someone from sales, they’re able book a meeting to jump into a video conferencing call or call as soon as possible. But at the same time, managers have to make sure reps are being dealt with evenly and receive the same number of meetings.
The immense logistics that come with trying to schedule your team is more horrifyingly complex than any budget spreadsheet. Unless you use QikChat, in which case the problem is fixed immediately.
