The following is an excerpt from: James Obermayer, Managing Sales Leads: Turning Cold Prospects Into Hot Customers, (Mason, Ohio, Textere an imprint of Thomson/South-Western, 2007) and Racom Books, Page 134

Inquiry Leakage

Leakage happens because most companies, unfortunately, are not counting all of the inquiries they receive, nor are they attributing the inquiries to their proper sources…When this occurs, the marketing department will lose the ability to properly credit the lead-generating campaign that caused the person to make contact. This isn't a small problem, "it's a big problem." It's a "10% to 30% problem." Most companies that gain control of the portals of sales lead entry into their company see a 10% to 30% increase in inquiries and qualified leads that can be accurately counted and properly attributed to campaign. Sales increase.

Typical Points of Inquiry Leakage

The common areas of leakage are:

• Calls to customer service. Inquiry calls to this group are often thought of as intrusions and irritants. Customer service reps are seldom trained to determine what prompted the inquirer to call. They rarely have inquiry entry screens on their computers for this purpose. Even a paper form for taking inquiry interest is better than nothing. If your toll-free number in an advertisement could end up in customer service, get the operators trained on taking inquiry calls. Tell them how important these calls are for the company. Most inquiry management programs, including CRM, SFA, and contact management programs, have a section entitled, "Enter New Inquiry." Teach customer service people how to use it. Use paper as a backup or a last resort to capture the vital information of n inquirer, including the source.
• Inquirers (usually callers) that go to a salesperson or local office. In some companies inquiries are intentionally directed to the local sales office. That would be great, were it not for the fact that few of these offices will take the time to attribute the caller to a specific marketing campaign. Instead, the calls should be taken at a central contact center where the name and information is entered and then hot-transferred to the proper salesperson.
• Calls to executives or marketing. These are often lost for accountability purposes. Sometimes they are given to salespeople; sometimes the questions are answered, but the names and sources of the inquiry are not recorded. Executives can also learn to use the "Enter New Prospect" screen.
• Trade show inquiries. Just because a sales rep speaks to someone in his or her territory during the show doesn't mean that he has the right to pocket the inquiry. Use computer lead retrieval or multiple-copy lead forms at shows and let the salesperson take a copy if it is in their area.
• Emails from "Contact Us" Web pages. Too often the emails that are generated go to someone will read them or maybe forward them – but never add them to a database. They are bit counted as an inquiry. Maybe the person's needs are met, maybe not. In the section that follows I will discuss capturing Web-page responses.
• Small local shows. After all, it is a local show. Why sent the inquiries to the home office just so the representative can get them back a week later? The reason is that a local show may not be booked next year if the marketing department can't review the total quantity of inquiries and the ROI from this year's show. In addition, the prospect may not get the literature they wanted. Again, use multiple copy lead forms so the reps can separate and keep their own copy.
• International inquiries. Too often inquiries from foreign countries are not recorded. It they are, the names are many times not passed to the local sales office in the country or region that handles the prospect. They are lost.
• Representative-generated inquiries. One of the most undercounted sources of inquiries is the category called Rep Generated. It can be 5% to 10% of your total inquiry count if you:

___Give the salespersons training on why they need to report these inquiries.

___Give them an easy-to-use system to enter the names. Again these are entered in the "Enter New Prospect" section of the inquiry management, CRM, SFA, or contact management program.

About the Author

James Obermayer is a principal in Sales Leakage Consulting, Inc., an Orange County California based sales and marketing strategy consulting company, and a principal of Cerius Consulting. He specializes in helping small to medium-size companies identify sales and marketing leakage issues that stifle sales growth and waste valuable marketing dollars.

Obermayer is also an author of  "Managing Sales Leads, Turning Cold Prospects into Hot Customers" and "Sales & Marketing 365".  He is also co-author of "Managing Sales Leads, How to Turn Every Prospect into a Customer".  In addition, he has written more than 80 articles on sales and marketing management. 

He is a frequent speaker at conferences and training seminars for such organizations as the Direct Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association and at corporate sales meetings. Obermayer speaks on range of topics from Marketing ROI to stimulating salespeople to follow-up sales leads. Read more.