If everyone starts using the same sales strategies, they lose their impact on the customer. That is why marketing experts keep evolving their methodologies and operations to keep their campaigns effective. Recently, companies have become more interested in sales lead routing to optimize their team’s workflow and individual rep’s performance. They want more than the traditional distribution of leads across the entire team.
In this article, we’ll talk about the 5 top methods that companies use to distribute leads to their sales team. In the end, we’ll talk about how to implement these methods in your sales strategy in HubSpot.
Here are the top 5 widely used methods companies use in their automated lead distribution process.
A robin-round lead distribution method ensures that each rep is served the leads equally. If a rep is assigned a lead, the next lead will be assigned to the second rep and so on. The system will not assign them any new leads until all available reps are assigned an equal number of leads, and the process will repeat.
Robin-round distribution is an excellent way to route leads if you have a low volume of incoming sales leads and your reps sit idle for a considerable time. In this case, you don’t have to worry about the excessive volume of leads and which reps perform better than others to route more leads to them, etc. Robin-round works excellent for companies that don’t want to do priority routing for some reason.
Performance-based routing prioritizes distribution based on the individual rep’s performance. Suppose some of your reps perform better than others in terms of more successful sales, a higher number of completed leads, better response time, etc. The routing system will prioritize them so the company can drive more revenue and close more sales.
There is no specific algorithm for performance-based routing because different companies have different factors to base a rep’s performance on. For some, successful sales indicate performance, while some companies base performance on the number of leads handled daily. If you have a large sales team, performance-based routing can be a great way to identify which reps are performing better. This method will be best executed with a bonus structure for better-performing reps.
Demographics-based routing can be for more than just an international customer base. You can also use this type of routing locally, depending on the type of product you are selling. For example, different reps could manage different territories consisting of cities or countries. Moreover, you can also use this method of routing for other parameters such as gender, age, career, etc.
In demographics-based routing, you set your reps' location and other parameters so the incoming leads will be directed to the reps that pass the evaluation criteria. Your lead must contain the information needed to check the rep’s criteria, so when the user fills your form at the time of lead acquisition, they should provide these details.
This lead routing type is effective when specialized reps manage specific leads.
Availability-based distribution is usually used in conjunction with other methods instead of standalone. As the name suggests, this method routes leads based on the availability of the reps based on their working hours set and status. Some inefficient lead distribution workflows keep directing leads to unavailable reps, which results in many leads being lost and incurs a heavy cost for the company.
This method is used alongside other ways, such as performance-based or demographic-based distribution. The system also considers the rep's availability before routing leads their way.
Companies want more than just a robin round or performance-based distribution. They want to set many parameters to route leads, which means complex HubSpot workflows that are hard to maintain and update. They need an intelligent lead distribution strategy, and that’s where the latest AI-powered lead distribution comes in.
Only a few companies have adopted AI-powered distribution, but the trend is shifting fast, partly because you don’t have to spoon-feed everything to the system by creating complex workflows in HubSpot. The intelligent system can use several parameters to route leads effectively.
AI tools such as Routera can help you get your lead distribution strategy off the ground without needing to create complex HubSpot workflows.
Automatically distributing leads evenly among the sales reps is a great initiative that saves time and improves operational efficiency. Still, companies want more than just a robin round. They need methods that will route leads based on their parameters, which sounds easy, but the list of unending parameters and changing demands make it challenging to create HubSpot workflows that cater to the sales team.
Firstly, the HubSpot workflows tool does not provide a weighted distribution feature and has to be implemented using other third-party apps. Moreover, creating an efficient HubSpot workflow requires expertise and time and will still have some functionality.
Since there are constant iterations to the marketing strategy, the routing strategy needs to change, so more time is wasted on updating the workflows accordingly.
So, what is the solution to this?
The best way to save time and cost and improve operational efficiency is to use third-party apps from the HubSpot marketplace, such as Routera, to help you manage your lead routing strategy.
Routera is an AI-based lead distribution tool that can be integrated with your HubSpot account and help you distribute leads using various models mentioned above, monitor individual reps’ performance, and get insights about the team’s overall performance through auto-generated reports.
You can connect Routera with your HubSpot in simple steps so that your upcoming leads are sent to Routera for distribution. Doing this will eliminate the need to create complex workflows and save time while improving operational efficiency.
Learn more about HubSpot sales routing on our blog!