Counting the Cost of Sales Leads

Although there is no denying that "times are hard", here at Concentrix we are keeping a positive attitude and retaining focus on our core business: "helping companies and organisations improve their business processes".

The key metric that we look at to measure the success of a project is the return on investment achieved for the customer. We bang on and on about ROI and often use it as the "stick" to fend off requirements creep - "...how we will demonstrate return on investment for this development?" being a common question from our business analysts.

Sales, marketing and finance managers are always conscious of the "cost of sale" or "cost per lead", but this is often something that is difficult to manage.

During a recent "Requirement Workshop” on a new project for a large multinational, I was struck both by the lack of any current method of measuring the cost of sales and by the desire to achieve this using CRM. Indeed, one of the key requirements handed down from the board was simply to report accurately and in detail on the return from marketing spend (and cost of the sales teams). For me, this raises a couple of important question for all businesses:

  - What does each sales lead cost you?"  and, just as importantly, 

  - what is it worth to find out?"

Accurate, reliable, real-time measurement of a wide variety of parameters are a basic, key advantage of professionally implemented CRM systems. To discuss how Concentrix's CRM products and services can help you to measure, manage and maximise your investment in your business, please contact me.

John Odell - CRM Consultant