Call Disposition vs. Lead Disposition

Following the process of a lead through the sales cycle will yield numerous stages, each with it's own properties. These stages, or dispositions as we call them, are also commonly referred to as a Lead Status. This status allows a user to quickly view, report, and know how to interact with a lead in a specific status. Here is a list of common values used as a lead status:

• New
• Attempting Contact
• Appointment Set
• Appointment Held
• Needs Analysis
• Qualified
• Won / Sold
• Lost (Dead Lead)
• Do Not Contact

Each of these status' in the InsideSales.com system will typically have some type of automation around it. For example, with a lead in a "New" status there might be a number of emails that go out to the lead. These emails would be designed to target people to prepare them for the upcoming phone call. Once we do call, the user would update the lead status to "Attempting Contact." At that point the email marketing would shift phase into following up to a missed call.

Lead status' are linear. Meaning a lead should always start as "New." As a lead progresses, it would move down the list. The end point with sales would be to either create a sale, or disqualify.

A secondary idea, commonly mixed in with the Lead Status, is the call disposition. As a user attempts to contact a lead by phone, the lead would maintain a status of "Attempting Contact." During this time a lead may receive four or five phone calls. Each time the lead is called we should keep a record of that interaction, so we are more educated the next time we call. These are call dispositions. Here are a few examples:

• No Answer
• Busy
• Wrong Number
• Left live message
• Left Voicemail
• Contacted
• Set Appointment

Similar to a lead status, these dispositions keep track of interactions with a lead. Unlike a lead status, they are not linear. One time I may call and get a busy signal, another time I may call and leave a voice message, and another time I may get no answer at all. It is important to keep track of individual call dispositions to know how well your organization is contacting your leads.

Using a combination of Lead Status and Call Disposition to follow leads will allow managers to peek directly into a sales pipeline and see some interesting facts. With this combination of data you can see reports that tell:

• What percentage of leads we contact on the first call
• How many calls, on average, it takes to speak with someone
• How many times we should attempt to call a lead before giving up, because we are wasting our time
• What percentage of our leads end up dead, and how many calls it took to get there
• The optimal number of times to leave a voice message

There are many other facts available to an organization when these two tracking points are meshed together. When combined with other data points like a lead source and campaign, this information would provide an accurate ROI for your sales organization. When implementing your solution, be sure to include both a Lead Status, and Call Disposition.