Perhaps one of the most challenging tasks in the B2B sales and marketing world is tracking won revenue back to its point of origin, back to where a prospect first raised their hand.
Additionally challenging? Capturing, analyzing, and acting on every single step a prospect takes along the way: every website visit, every email, every URL interaction, every call, all the way until the quote is signed..
(And if we’re being honest, it makes sense to continue tracking after a quote is signed, too, as uncovering and closing additional revenue opportunities with existing customers is an easier win than with soon-to-be customers… but we’ll save that for another post.)
How do you track a prospect from start to finish?
While quote tracking software like iQuoteXpress is central to capturing and acting on each step taken after a quote is sent to the customer, we have been in the business long enough to know about some additional ways people are tracking, and we’re delighted to share a brief tour of some of the better and lesser-known principles and practices in tracking sales.
People, please
Frankly, it starts and ends with how your people are using your platforms, especially with how they input info.
Ensure that every rep with access to your CRM, ERP, marketing automation platform, configure price quote (CPQ) system, or even Outlook has been trained to enter information in a uniform way.
Dirty data starts at the point of entry, and if everyone is doing so their own way, you’ll soon have a system that doesn’t know which way to turn. To keep your data clean, you may even need to hire armed guards.
That may sound extreme, but the principle is perfect. One company we know of has more than 50,000 employees, and more than 3,000 sales reps, but has only two people who have the system privileges required to create new Accounts and Contacts in their database — only TWO people out of 50,000!
Because they know that tracking prospects and customers is impossible if the contact info is entered wrongly or inconsistently, they entrust that task to only two gatekeepers.
Capture and consolidate every touch
Your ESP does a great job of tracking email opens and actions. Your CRM does a great job of tracking every call and every opportunity. Your marketing automation platform does a great job of capturing every website visit and social media interaction. You now only need to do a great job of merging all this information into one complete customer profile.
This is where having a system like Zoho or Dynamics can make a big difference: one system to rule them all. Yes, there are modules in each system for various business functions (sending emails, invoicing, capturing website behavior), but having them all under one roof / on one platform may currently be the only way to get a complete view of your customer as they move from “I’m interested” to “I’m all yours.”
Get extra close when you close
One of the best things about “all-on-one-platform” solutions like Zoho and Dynamics is that they come with just about everything you need. And when “just about everything” doesn’t include the one thing you really need, they can be easily extended..
Case in point: sales proposals. Both Dynamics and Zoho have some basic tools for building and sending quotes, but they don’t come close to the design and reporting tools offered in quote tracking software. And if there’s a time that matters most when you’re tracking leads to sales, it’s the time between quote sent and opportunity won / lost.
The reporting tools and automations in CPQ software give a level of insight of the steps that drive a signature that’s typically not available in a CRM alone. If you’re in B2B sales and serious about seeing which leads sources convert, adding CPQ to CRM is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
And when CPQ is fully integrated into the same technology stack where your customer insights, contacts database, and prospecting tools live, tracking sales from start to finish becomes an easy undertaking.
