The Funnelholic

I am writing this blog from one of my customer’s conference rooms.  They are demand generation marketers supporting a 19 person call center that follows up on their leads.  They brought up that a couple of their lead sources had developed acute “Negative-Call-Center-Reputation” and they can’t resuscitate  them.

What is “Negative-Call-Center-Reputation?”

That is the reputation propagated by the people responsible for following up on marketing’s leads.  (This could be defined as a call center, sales, lead development, etc).  Successful marketers and lead generation vendors are constantly gauging and managing call-center reputation.  Not all leads convert, but a rash of really bad leads combined with a streak of non-conversion can simply kill a lead source or even in some cases, kill  a whole marketing department.  Getting negative call-center reputation is crippling, and that is the truth.  There are a couple variations:

1. Lead Sources – a bad reputation can kill a lead source.  Once the reputation hits, the lead source gets less effort, less enthusiasm, then a slow death.  You can send good leads, but your metrics will be horrible as the Negative-Call-Center-Reputation virus overcomes you.
2. Marketing Departments – That’s right, Negative-Call-Center-Reputation can kill an entire marketing department.  We were at a Top 50 software company, where the head of Inside Sales basically said he told marketing that they will not call their leads. INSIDE SALES!  They would rather cold call than call marketing leads…that is the ultimate curse.

How do you avoid “Negative Call-Center-Reputation?”

1. Marketing Automation–that’s right, even lead development teams have feelings too.  Work some magic by gathering more dispositional data via email and web habits, give it a score, and avoid harassment by having guys call leads more likely to be receptive to talking about your solution.
2. Set expectations - Do the math.  Most companies can live off single digit conversion rates.  So, if you have a 9% conversion rate from lead-to-opportunity, then that means for every 100 names, 91 will be thrown in the garbage can. If people are not on the same page, that means you have 91 opportunities to inflict irreparable harm to your leads.

You have a “Negative-Call-Center-Reputation” problem, can it be cured? Yes, but it is tricky:

For Lead sources:

1. Some people change the name of the source.
2. Pass troubled leads to reps you can trust and have them help you rebuild reputation.

For Marketing:

1. Announce you are getting marketing automation and that you will be only sending highly scored leads to be called. (They love that)

Just remember: Beware the curse of negative-call-center-reputation.

Written by Craig Rosenberg - The Funnelholic
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