Managing Salesforce Leads
Salesforce Leads are a bit like a bowl of business cards, a place you can quickly store and access potential sales enquiries.
Leads allow you to keep track of these types of enquiries and, when a promising one pops up, convert it into an Account, Contact and Opportunity from which you can then develop the relationship and complete the quotation process.
1. How to Create a New Lead
If you stumble upon a new Lead it's really easy to add it into Salesforce!
- Navigate to the 'Leads' tab from the Salesforce Navigation bar
- Select 'New' from the buttons on the top right of the screen
3. Select the correct lead type (the default type is St John - Sales)
You can then complete your Lead details. Please complete as much information as you can, including "Industry" and "Industry Group". The training and product requirement fields are there for you to capture some high level sales requirements for the customer. Once you are done, select 'Save'.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want to assign the lead to a particular internal team, e.g. "Sales" please tick the checkbox "Assign Using Active Assignment Rules" as per below.
The current Lead assignment rules are:-
- Lead Enquiry Type = "St John - Event" - assign to the Event team
- Lead Enquiry Type = "Marketing and Communication" - assign to the Marketing team
- Lead enquiry Type does not equal any of the above options - assign to the QLD Outbound Lead Team or Sales Team
If you DON'T check this box, the lead stays in your ownership.
You will notice the 'Lead Status' will default to 'New'. The other Lead Status options are 'In Progress', 'Closed - Not Qualified' and 'Converted'. You should aim to use the status field to keep track of the Lead and where it is at in the process.
It is really easy to access a list of the Leads you own. Just navigate to the 'Leads' tab from the Salesforce navigation bar and select 'My Open Sales Leads' from the list selector. This will display a list of Leads that you own that are still open (the status has not been changed to either 'Converted or 'Closed - Not Qualified').
You can also access from here the leads which are in the ownership of the teams mentioned previously (e.g. Sales Team):
2. Leads from the Website
The 'Contact Us' form on the St John Queensland website is linked to Salesforce. The completed forms integrate to Salesforce as Cases. Cases are monitored by the Customer Service team. Any Cases deemed to be a potential Sales Opportunity that the Sales team should follow up should be converted to a Lead.
Converting a case to a lead: Check the tick-box below circled in red and click "Save":
These converted cases are automatically routed to the 'Sales' leads queue. You can access the queue by completing the following -
- Navigate to the 'Leads' tab from the Salesforce navigation bar
- Select 'Sales' from the list selection:
After accessing the list, you can review the incoming Leads and assign ownership. To do this -
- Select a Lead
- Select the 'Details' tab
- Select the little person icon to the right of the 'Lead Owner' field
- Search for who you would like to assign the Lead to
- Select 'Change Owner'
If you would like the new owner to receive a notification, be sure to select the 'Send notification email' box'.
3. Follow Up
You can keep track of your activities against your lead. Under the 'Activities' tab you will find options to log a call, create a task, create an event or even send an email to your Lead directly from Salesforce. All your activities are logged against the Lead in the 'Past Activity' and 'Next Steps' areas.
4. Close or Convert
As your Lead progresses you will reach the stage where it is either qualified or not qualified.
Unqualified
An unqualified Lead may be one where the customer has stopped communicating or have specified that they are not interested in St John's services. In this circumstance, you can close your Lead:-
- Select Closed - Not Qualified from the status bar at the top of the screen
- Select 'Mark as Current Status'
Qualified
A qualified Lead may be one that has progressed to the point that the customer would like a quote or receive further information about our products/services. At this point you can convert your Lead into an Account, Contact and Opportunity.
- Select 'Convert' from the buttons in the top right of your screen and you'll see the pop-up screen (see image 1 below) which asks for the following information:-
- Account Section - Here you have the option to either merge the Lead with an existing Account or to create a new Account. To merge with an existing account, simply search for the Account by clicking on "Choose Existing" and use the search field below it. If you need to create a new Account, select the "Create New" option instead. You'll be prompted to complete the required fields/ information.
-
Contact Section - You have the option here to either create a new contact record or choose an existing one to merge the lead with. Complete the required information if you're creating a new contact record. Contact Type:- Refer to important info below under "Converting Leads - Image 2".
- Opportunity Section - You have 3 options here: 1) Create a new opportunity record 2) Merge the lead to an existing opportunity OR 3) *Don't create an opportunity at this stage (refer to image 3 below). If you're creating a new opportunity record, complete the required information. The Opportunity will be automatically linked to the new/existing Account you selected in step 2.
- When you are done click on the 'Convert' button.
*Opportunity Creation & Adding a NOMINAL Value - It's encouraged that you convert the lead to an opportunity even if you aren't providing the customer with a quote at that point in time. This is so that the business can measure ROI (return-on-investment) that has been potentially gained/lost from that particular opportunity or campaign.
Nominal Value - If you're unsure which products the customer is interested in at the time you're creating the opportunity record, add a nominal value against the opportunity record. The value is determined by the approximate value of that opportunity (please discuss with your team lead if you're unsure).
Add the value in the field named "Amount" as shown below and click Save:
Converting Leads - Image 1
Converting Leads - Image 2: Ensure that the Record Type = Corporate:-
Converting Leads - Image 3
Once you have converted your Lead, its 'Lead Status' will automatically be updated to 'Converted'. Converted Leads are no longer accessible in the Leads tab.
After conversion, you will be presented with a pop-up screen, which provides direct links to your new records. From here, you may want to click through to review your Opportunity and start to complete the required steps to send a quotation to your new customer.
5. Additional Information
Handing over leads/opportunities to other teams - If someone takes ownership of a lead which has been passed on to them by someone else/a different team (e.g. from the Customer Contact Centre to the Community Services Team), it's important that notes are made against the lead or opportunity record to keep that person up-to-date. This can be done by creating a task against the record. You can also Chatter one another against the lead / opportunity.
Lead Types & Account Type - There are two types of leads:
1) Individual consumers (e.g. a person who's not associated with an organisation) these are known as B2C customers
2) Corporate customers - a person who is affiliated with a company
When you're converting a B2C-type lead you need to assign it to one of our internal accounts e.g. "St John Ambulance Queensland Community Services" of "Walk In Customer - Brisbane."
When you're converting a B2B-type lead, the account is the name of the organisation the individual is associated with.
6. Salesforce List Views
In Salesforce all tabs on you navigation bar have list-views with them as standard. A list-view groups records together based on criteria within that list-view. These are set up by team leaders and Salesforce system-administrators.
With leads, the list-views are self-explanatory and you can access them as per below:-
Step 1 - Navigate to the Leads tab
Step 2 - Click on the drop-down arrow to view the different list-views:
