4 elements to using pre-sales tech support as a lead qualification source
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Oct 01, 2012 @ 10:02 AM
I had the pleasure of having a couple of pre-sales technical support people in a recent inside sales training class that I delivered. They were there because the Director of Inside sales thought that they might benefit by learning more about what the inside sales team needed to make a sale. I ended up coaching one of them, Dan, on a few pre-sales teach support calls. We learned a few things during that coaching session, and they’re going to tremendously help the inside sales reps sell faster and more effectively. Here are four questions we’re now asking as part of our pre-sales tech support conversations that are really going to accelerate the sales process:
1) What’s your title?
2) What’s the name of the project for which you’re looking for a solution? (doesn’t have to be a formal name, either, just something the internal people use at the prospect site)
3) When does the solution have to be on board?
4) What are the consequences to your organization if the solution isn’t on board on time?
These are questions that pre-sales tech support wasn’t asking before, but they are now. The answers to them tell the inside sales team a little about the urgency of the situation as well as the position of the person who discussed it. In many companies, the results of discussions in pre-sales tech support calls get added to the CRM database, but without any non-tech qualification data. As a result, inside sales people don’t know which calls to prioritize. These four questions will solve that problem, and make for optimal team communication.
Occasionally, companies will ask us to train their pre and post-sales technical support teams to work better with sales reps, and we’ve got a tech support sales course that does that. Meanwhile, those 4 questions above are part of what I teach in the class, and should be part of every pre-sales tech support rep’s Best Practices Playbook.