Lead conversion is one of the most important stages of the sales process; and for financial services organisations, it's the difference between closing a sale and losing a customer. Studies show that while financial services organisations tend to get the most visitors to their website, they have the lowest conversion rates. This suggests a clear issue somewhere along the sales process; whether its lack of access to customer data, too many unqualified leads, or a lack of communication.
One potential solution to these issues is to implement a new CRM - one that’s optimised for lead conversion. A high-quality CRM will not only reduce the number of prospects dropping out of the funnel, but it will also increase the number of conversions across your deal stages, all while improving your overall sales process.
All the information you need, in one central location
If all your customer data is stored across multiple disparate systems, it can be difficult for your sales team to access what they need to qualify and nurture their leads. However, with a CRM system, salespeople can easily access all the data they need on individual contacts or companies and focus on those leads that actually have a chance of converting.
This is because a well-implemented CRM system can differentiate leads coming from various sources (such as purchased leads) and organise them in an effective way that ensures no leads are missed or duplicated by mistake. This is extremely useful, as a leading-edge CRM will be able to identify whether a lead already exists in your database, and leverage machine learning capabilities to identify if it is suitable to follow up on; for example, the system will flag any leads that have been sanctioned or highlight traits and patterns of behaviour that indicate readiness to buy. Salespeople will have full access to this information in real-time, which supports needs analysis and ensures that your team is conducting due diligence on all contacts.
Lead qualification and scoring
If you’ve noticed that you have a lot of leads, but not enough of them are converting to sales, it could highlight that your lead qualification process isn’t working as effectively as it should be - and this is likely because you don’t have the assistance of a system with AI capabilities.
With predictive lead scoring, a CRM can assess the quality of your leads based on the set criteria of your ideal customer, using AI to score leads on a number of indicators, such as previous successful conversions. It does this by identifying patterns in customer behaviour and analysing trends throughout the sales funnel, to offer a score that shows how qualified a lead is, or how likely they are to convert.
When using this advanced technology, not only can you discard leads that are unqualified, you gain insight into what a lead requires from you to convert based on past experiences - such as certain marketing materials, for example. Therefore, when your team is educated on what their leads want from them, it will directly facilitate increased conversion rates.
Worried that your CRM may be causing you to lose sales opportunities? Find out in our free eBook: 
Faster responses from your sales team
In financial services organisations, customer requirements for quick response times are causing them to drop out of the sales funnel if they aren’t contacted as soon as possible by your team. Given how quickly these leads can go cold, it is more essential than ever for your sales team to reach out quickly, and maintain communication.
With a CRM, you can equip your sales team with the tools to respond faster. The system will alert your salespeople when a lead has taken an action that indicates they could be converted, such as downloading a product information sheet or completing an eligibility questionnaire (with which the CRM can process the information and improve the qualification process). Once this notification has been received, your salespeople can then follow up as quickly as possible, ensuring a better chance of your leads converting, and reducing the amount that drop out of the funnel.
Improved sales processes and collaboration
When it comes to converting leads into paying customers, nothing moves the sales process along like a strong, collaborative group of key team members. With a robust team, the sales process becomes smoother, and salespeople are able to build better relationships with all their clients.
One way you can achieve this is through an optimised CRM that ensures communication between key team members such as relationship managers and product specialists is never delayed and leads are never left waiting. Not only this, but the risk of human error on your side is reduced, as the CRM will highlight any missing customer information, keeping your sales team compliant and allowing your sales and compliance departments to work together harmoniously.
Leveraging strong relationships is also a differentiator that a good CRM system can support; for example through LinkedIn integration, the system can identify individuals who reside in both your and your salespeople’s networks and suggest icebreaker topics based on the latest news or common interests.
For the financial services industry, having a leading-edge CRM is becoming increasingly important. Having no easy access to customer information, not qualifying leads and a lack of collaboration across sales teams are just some of the issues contributing to stagnant lead conversion - but a CRM could be the solution.
For more information on how to identify issues that could indicate the need for a new CRM system, read our eBook 7 signs that financial brokers and service providers need a better CRM system:
