CRM Leads Tutotial - Support Center

What is a Lead?

A lead is a prospective customer or sales opportunity. It could be a person you were talking to at a trade show or someone who submitted a registration form using your company's web site. Regardless of the source, a lead is someone who has shown interest in your company's services or products.

Why should I keep track of leads?

You are in business to sell your product or service. Keeping detailed records of your leads will help you to close more sales. Make a note about the best time to call them, schedule a deadline for a price quote or log details about a phone call you had. You need quick and easy access to every detail about your potential customers.

More importantly, a lead should not only be created for someone who shows interest in your products or services, but anyone who may potentially show any interest at all in your products or services. Although these leads are currently cold, they may express interest in the future. Do not let these leads fall through the cracks. Perhaps you'll add new features or expand your services to an extent that would peak the interest of a once cold lead. Now that lead is warm and a sales opportunity is born.

Creating Leads

There are two ways that you can add a new lead.

From the Leads tab page, use the Quick Addition section to quickly add a new lead without entering a lot of information. Further details can be filled in at a later time.
Click the New Leads link if you want to add a new lead with a detailed profile.

Capturing Leads from your Web Site

A potential customer named Jane Doe, who is working for a company called Acme, has just downloaded a trial version of your software. In doing so she has filled out a form you created with salesboom.com's Leads Web Capture Tool. When she submitted the form a new lead was created in your salesboom.com organization. You now have enough information to follow up Ms. Doe's interest in your product.

From the Leads tab page, click the Web Capture Cases link located in the Lead Tools section.
Click the new web capture tool link.
Fill in the Web Capture Info form and select which fields you want to include in your web capture form using the Select Fields section.
Click the Create/Update button to create the web capture tool.
Generate the HTML code for your form. Your web master will put the form on your web site.
Your web master may also modify the look of the form to match your company's web site.
Although you may modify the look and feel of the form, do not change field, variable or any other object names. For example, field display names may be changed but the field names themselves may not.

Working with your Leads

Go to the Leads tab page to view your current leads.
Use the My Unread Leads view to see a list of your leads that you have not yet looked at or use the All Open Leads view to see all your currently open leads. All open leads are still potential customers.
Use the Notes and Open Tasks section to record important information about the lead and add tasks that need to be completed to help turn the lead into a customer.
Use the Lead Source field to quickly record where each lead came from, e.g., an advertisement, a trade show, your web site etc.

Converting Leads to Accounts

Go to the Leads tab page to view your current leads.
Use the View or Key Leads section to display the lead you are interested in converting.
Once displayed, click the lead name to view the details for the lead.
Click the Convert button.
You will now be prompted to confirm that you want to convert the lead. Click OK to perform the conversion.
An account will be created using information obtained from the lead.
A contact will also be created and then linked to the new account.

Generating Lead Reports

Easily create reports to help you manage your leads.

Use the standard reports in the Generate Reports section of the Leads tab page. For more reports see the Lead Reports section on the Reports tab page.
The Neglected Leads report helps you to see which leads require immediate attention.
The Leads By Source report helps you to determine the effectiveness of your lead sources.
You can also create custom reports to help you view the lead information that is most important to your business growth.