Part 1: The Process
Companies in the door-to-door industry with a higher price point and longer sales cycle often have canvassing reps in addition to their closing sales reps. A canvasser’s job is to set qualified appointments for closing reps, and believe it or not, their job is actually pretty difficult. Think of them like SDR’s or BDR’s in an inside sales organization, who have the toughest job and get the least credit in the entire department.
It’s your canvassers who go out and pound the pavement, often knocking 100 doors per day or more during the dog days of summer to make sure that your closing reps have quality appointments to go to. Many don’t get paid an hourly rate, just a commission per appointment set.
Because of this, leads are gold to canvassers – So what happens once a canvasser sets an appointment? What process do you follow to make sure these leads get to the correct sales rep and ensure they’re actually being worked?
The Very First Thing You NEED To Do
How many companies are still using the old and outdated method of lead sheets? Don’t answer that, I’ll tell you… A LOT. If you’re not using lead sheets, you’re probably having canvassers call, text or email you the information. The problems with these methods:
- You’re waiting until the end of the day to collect lead sheets
- Lead sheets often get lost or ruined for a variety of reasons
- You’re creating more work for everyone & lengthening the sales process (Canvasser texts appointment to manager > Manager texts appointment to sales rep > Sales rep texts manager to confirm appointment > Manager texts canvasser to confirm accepted appointment > One person involved always has additional questions)
- You’re not collecting all of the necessary information
- There’s no way to verified these leads are being worked
The number one thing you can do to improve your process, save time, and not have leads slip through the cracks is to start using a door-to-door sales tracking app.
The highest rated app in the app store is SPOTIO, and as technology continues to advance, you need to stay ahead of the curve.
Think about when smart iPhone phones were released; how many people refused to get one? Mostly the older generation, right?
Well, look now. Everyone has a smart, or almost everyone.
The technology in a sales tracking app is going to do nothing but help you in every way. This technology is so revolutionary that companies are using it as a recruiting tactic. I see job ads for door-to-door sales reps all the time that advertise using a sales tracking app.
Behind The Numbers
- 80% of leads get lost, ignored or discarded [Marketo]
- 73% of companies have no process for re-engaging leads
- Long-term leads represent 77% of potential sales opportunities, but are ignored by salespeople [Marketo]
- On average, companies take 46 hours, 53 minutes to respond to a lead [Forbes]
- Only 27% of leads ever get contacted [Forbes]
The Handoff Process
**Note: You may need to set up certain statuses for this. More on that can be found here**
1. a) Canvasser Collects & Eners All Required Information
A sales tracking app like SPOTIO allows for complete customization. All of the fields you had in your lead sheets for canvassers to fill in can now be done right from a mobile app. It will allow you to collect and pass all information and notes from that conversation to the sales rep in a matter of seconds.
It will also save the canvasser time because they’re able to enter this information while they walk to the next house and they can type a lot quicker than they can write.
1. b) Canvasser Books Appointment for Sales Rep Based on Their Availability
Many door to door sales organizations allow the canvasser to directly schedule the appointment for the sales rep. It’s often a far less efficient process than the canvasser calling it into the office.
Not properly equipping your entire sales department with all of the tools they need forces them to waste time in the field when they could be selling. This is a massive inefficiency in door to door sales as reps spend more time on administrative tasks (23%) than they do actively selling (22%)!
SPOTIO’s appointment calendar gets rid of that ridiculousness and puts canvassers back where they belong – in the field knocking doors. Canvassers have the power to see the availability of every sales rep on their team, including when they have other appointments booked, and schedule the appointment directly onto their calendar.
The best part? It literally only takes a matter of seconds! Canvassers will have access to a wealth of information they didn’t have previously, and can even schedule an “on the spot” appointment for a sales rep who is in the area.
Last but not least, SPOTIO’s planner gives canvassers an exact number of sales reps that are available at any given time. Empower your team to be more efficient, knock more doors and generate more leads by using the powerful tools available at your fingertips.
2. Canvasser Changes Status & Assigns Lead to Manager / Office Administrator
Once all of the notes and fields have been completed, the canvasser needs to change the status of the pin to whatever your organization has designated to represent an appointment set. This will allow the lead to easily be found if the canvasser needs to search for it and will update the dashboard to reflect current KPI’s.
Some organizations will set up notifications when the status is changed to appointment set, others will still want the canvasser to notify the manager. The canvasser should make the manager the new owner of the lead. Whatever this process looks like for you, it can all be done within SPOTIO through an integration for notifications or the in-app chat.
3. Manager / Office Admin Verifies Appointment
Many companies have a verification process to not only ensure the prospect is interested, but also make sure the prospect is qualified for the product or service being offered. This, again, allows whoever is verifying this information to enter any additional notes directly into that lead, giving the sales rep as much background information as possible.
4. Status is Changed by Manager / Office Admin
For companies that want more oversight, this step is critical. It shouldn’t be avoided, but it can. Once the prospect has been qualified, the status should be changed to “New Lead”, “Canvassed Lead”, “Hot Lead”, “Inbound Lead”, or something along those lines. Use these statuses only to verify that a lead has been assigned to a sales rep.
5. Appointment is Re-assigned to Sales Rep
Now that the status has been changed to something easily identifiable by color and name, assign this lead to the sales rep. Leads are often assigned to reps based on territory, day or win rate. This all depends how your organization has set up sales process.
6. Sales Rep Confirms Appointment & Reviews Information
When the rep pulls up their SPOTIO app, they’ll see they have ‘x’ number of new leads. On their map the pin color for a new lead (or whatever you’ve assigned the name of that status to be) will be different than any of their other pins.
The most important thing to remember is that these pins should not have the “New Lead” status for very long because the entire purpose of assigning the pin to a rep is to confirm they’ve seen and received it. It’s a way for them to acknowledge they have a high priority lead to work.
7. Sales Rep Changes Status to Accepted Lead
Just putting a pin in a rep’s name isn’t enough. As mentioned, you want to make sure these leads are being worked and they can’t be worked if a sales rep doesn’t know about it. Create a status in your account titled “Accepted Lead”.
This is where the lead status can stay if the appointment is a few days away. It places full accountability on the sales rep and lets everyone in the organization know that the lead has been accepted by the sales rep. Now there’s no excuse if the lead isn’t worked properly.
8. Use Reports to Make Sure Leads Are Being Worked
You’re at the point where sales reps now have their assigned leads, but you’re not sure if they’re being worked or not. Create a historical report in SPOTIO to track this information. Historical reports allow you to see all of the status changes that have happened on any pin and you can use filters to sort for specific information.
These leads are going to have your highest closing percentage. You shouldn’t be left to guess whether your reps have followed through like they should have.
There’s 3 metrics you must know with all leads; if you don’t you’re just reducing your profitability and increasing your customer acquisition cost due to a lower closing percentage.
It’s understood that not every company is going to have the same process and the above model can be adapted.
Next Up:
The Lead Handoff in Canvassing: Part 2 will cover how to ensure a high show rate and the steps you can take today to start increasing that number
The Lead Handoff in Canvassing: Part 3 will cover how to identify why your show rate is low and the steps you can take to correct it
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