{"id":13713,"date":"2017-10-23T17:10:31","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T16:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.intercom.com\/?p=13713"},"modified":"2020-07-30T12:57:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-30T11:57:09","slug":"tips-for-lead-qualification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/tips-for-lead-qualification\/","title":{"rendered":"Qualifying leads for quality not quantity"},"content":{"rendered":"

The process of qualifying leads through live chat is a bit like dating or finding the right job.<\/p>\n

What it boils down to is discovering if you are a good match for them and are they a good match for you?<\/p>\n

On the Sales Development Representative (SDR) team at Intercom, much of our time is spent talking to website visitors who engage with us through our messenger<\/a>. Our first step is to determine which of these leads to prioritize and route to a member of our sales team for additional guidance. Why is this important? Generally, we see higher ROI and close rates with leads who talk to an account executive.<\/p>\n

But we can\u2019t let every visitor through the door, so to speak. Our sales team doesn\u2019t have time to chat with everyone, nor should they aim to. As SDRs, our job is to get a sense of who is knocking at the door, and of those, who fits best or doesn’t fit at all. This process is called lead qualification.<\/p>\n

Define your ideal customer<\/h2>\n

The first, and often the most neglected, step to effective lead qualification is identifying the characteristics of an ideal lead. Of course, this will look different at each company, so set some time aside to thoughtfully narrow this down (hint: it’s not “everybody”). At Intercom we used these questions to guide us through that process:<\/p>\n