Prequalification is the process of contacting prospective clients or customers to find if they will take advantage of your service or product. Usually done by phone, it may include a survey with questions such as, “Do you have an electric heater?” or “How long has it been since you last had your heater cleaned?” Questions like these are designed to lead to a foot in the door literally to give the prospective customer a taste, just a taste, of the service your company provides. Prequalification surveys are designed to peak the curiosity of the prospect, maybe make him or her feel like they really should take the action, after all any responsible homeowner would at least go for the freebie right? After the prospective customer bites, in this case, takes the free heater cleaning, the business person will go on to say something about other services offered by his or her company or maybe even wait until after he or she has completed the free service. The hope is that when they get done with the freebie, the customer will feel somewhat obliged to buy the full inspection, and viola, the prequalification has paid off; a new customer is won.
Now, heater cleaning is not the best example because someone is literally going to have to get his or her hands dirty in the prospects home to demonstrate your product. I use that example because it is a good example of the prequalification survey and, having given that survey, I have thought some about the relationship between that and prequalification of leads for more easily demonstrable services.
As consumers are bombarded with more unwelcome telephone and email solicitations, everything from the above mentioned free heater cleaning to recordings that speak of the benefits of a particular political candidate or initiative, is prequalification still useful?
Remember, when someone picks up that phone, you have no idea what is going on in that person’s life or for that matter, office or surroundings. When you get someone on the phone, you’re lucky if they are really even listening, never mind if they will respond positively.
Email advertisements have the same disadvantage. Maybe even more so because people often decide whether or not to delete a message based on your subject line.
Though definitely the more expensive option, snail mail may be the way to go. Getting into the hands of your prospects something that reflects your knowledge, maybe a well designed flyer, might be the difference between getting that customer’s attention, and therefore sale, and just becoming another annoyance in his or her busy day.
There are many ways to find prospects for you business or service such as the online service Hoover or the Gales Directory, which was once considered a necessity for all businesses that employed telemarketers to prequalify. In both cases, leads fitting specific criteria, such as home ownership, can be targeted.
So the next time you spend your time to prequalify leads yourself or spend your money on someone to sit and prequalify leads for you, consider just cutting to the chase and sending those prospects a sample of what you can do for them.