TOPO’s 2019 marketing technology and sales development technology reports analyze the technology that today’s go-to-market leaders are leveraging to drive revenue. In a list of the hottest marketing and sales tech, lead-to-account matching and routing tools ranked among the highest when it comes to business impact and user satisfaction.
Based on the results of their research, TOPO says, “Lead-to-account matching is absolutely required for high-growth organizations running account-based programs.” They describe lead-to-account matching and routing tools as “the only way to organize data in the CRM into an account-centric view…and ensure leads are routed properly.”
Ultimately, the report says, “This can have a significant impact on conversion rates.”
What is Lead to Account Matching and Routing?
Lead-to-account matching facilitates both inbound and account-based strategies by matching leads with the right accounts in Salesforce. Routing then automatically assigns records based on custom rules and functionality—including territory-based assignment, round robin-based assignment, and more.
A good routing tool will perform other critical functions, too—like lead de-duplication, auto-conversion for qualified leads, user management (to ensure leads are handled during team changes and absences), and service-level agreements.
At its core, lead-to-account matching and routing works seamlessly with Salesforce to handle the nuanced data orchestration that a sophisticated account-based strategy requires. By making dozens of critical decisions automatically behind the scenes, lead-to-account matching and routing tools free up your team to focus on selling.
Decrease Lead Response Times, Increase Conversion Rates
The combination of matching and routing functionality has one primary outcome: it allows you to respond faster to leads. It’s been proven time and again that lead response speed can be critical to winning a deal. This is especially true in the competitive SaaS market. But at the same time, the increasingly account-centric nature of sales and marketing activities makes speed more difficult.
Vena Solutions is a rapidly growing SaaS startup that has been using Lane Four’s routing tool since 2018. As a result of implementing Lane Four’s matching and routing features in tandem with a sales engagement tool, they saw a sharp decrease in lead response times. While before implementing Lane Four it took days, or even weeks, to respond to incoming leads, it now takes minutes. This has helped them to significantly increase conversion rates across channels.
Vena is not alone. These results are exactly why leaders report being so happy with lead-to-account matching and routing tools.
What are your options for lead-to-account matching and routing?
We have outlined the options for matching and routing before. But in summary, you can buy a purpose-built solution, build your own solution within Salesforce, or invest in an efficient tool that provides the important functionality you’re not already paying for in Salesforce.
Purpose-built tools interact with your CRM only through an integration. If their functions match exactly what you need, it can work—but being a black box outside of Salesforce can make these tools difficult to customize as you evolve. They can also be cost-prohibitive, especially as your sales team grows.
Since Salesforce already contains critical features natively, like matching rules and flow designer, building a solution yourself can be viable for very simple use-cases. But you’ll need significant in-house admin skills and a lot of time to make this option work.
Lane Four’s matching and routing tool is a good example of the third approach—investing in pre-built automation that is highly customizable and runs on the technology you already own. This simple matching and routing solution is also cost-effective.
In Conclusion
While matching and routing tools were once the secret weapon of early adopters, their necessity is growing. According to TOPO’s research, nearly half of all companies surveyed use lead-to-account matching and routing tools.
So, chances are, if you’re not using a matching and routing tool yet, your competition probably is.
