Chapter 4: Lead Management
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CHAPTER 4: LEAD MANAGEMENT
Objectives
Actively participating during this lesson helps you:
• Understand the process for using Leads in Microsoft® CRM
• Create leads using the lead form
•
Import Leads into Microsoft CRM from a file
• Qualify leads and track communication activity and convert a lead to
an opportunity
• Disqualify leads that will not result in sales and reactivate leads that
have been disqualified
• View Reports associated with leads
Overview
This lesson takes a look at a more complex sales process and discusses leads in
great detail since this is a key entry point in the sales process. It begins by
importing leads then discusses the other activities related to leads.
Microsoft CRM Sales Management
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Managing Leads
Prospects are a driving force in helping your organization to grow. In Microsoft
CRM, prospects are called leads. The most important thing to remember about
leads is the more information you have on a lead, the more likely you are to turn
them into an opportunity, and eventually make them a customer. In most
instances, leads are the start of the sales process; however, it is not necessary to
have a lead prior to creating a contact, account, or even an order in Microsoft
CRM. But if your sales process does start with leads, then once you have entered
them into Microsoft CRM, you can manage their status, qualify them, or convert
them to an opportunity, account, or contact. You can also disqualify them if they
are not interested, or reactivate them if they express interest in the future.
You can track information about prospective customers, and then qualify and
assign inquiries. Leads are tracked separately from customers through the sales
cycle. This lets you focus on building your customer base. Leads entered into
Microsoft CRM can be automatically routed to the correct salespeople or teams
based on rules defined by the organization or administrator. Besides routing
rules, you can track leads and clos