I recently received an e-mail from El-Noor Rashid with several interesting “what-if” scenarios on what is and what isn’t a Lead and Opportunity in Dynamics CRM.  I gave him my interpretation of what qualifies, but feel free to rehash these scenarios and give your own feedback.

Q: Suppose you have a new contact from an existing customer base (already an customer Account) that has an interest in your product/service and gives you his biz card. Is this a Lead or an Opportunity?

On the one hand this brand new contact has an unqualified interest in your products/services, but you are dealing with an existing Account.  My opinion is that this would be a Lead until there is sufficient interest to make them a qualified Lead and then you can move them to an Opty to generate a Quote.

A:  The way I would define that situation is to first add the new Contact to the Account, then create an Opportunity from the Account (or Contact).  The fact that you already have an established relationship with the Account elevates that Lead instantly to a new Opportunity.  The Opportunity can start at the initial sales stage, with a modest probability percentage (even 0%).

In my view, the Lead entity in an out-of-the-box CRM deployment is really designed for those you haven’t contacted yet and have minimal information.  The beauty of CRM, though, is that it can be customized any way you interpret the sales process.

A special case would be a contact-centered organization, like a doctor’s office.  A new person you just met that is interested in your medical services would start off as a Lead, until they book their first appointment; after which, they can be considered as a Contact with a history of sales records.

Q: What if you are dealing with a existing Account AND and existing Contact (for that account). That person is interested in learning more about a specific product or service. Is this considered a Lead because the interest is still general, yet qualified or because both the Account AND Contact existing in the CRM, that this is automatically an Opty?

A:  Again, I would still say it is automatically an Opportunity, albeit at its most initial sales stage.  You already have some established relationship with both the existing Account and Contact.

Q: Similar to the above question. What if the both the Account and the Contact existed, but the Account is Prospective because the orginal Opty was Lost, everything else is the same as the previous questions. Lead or Opty?

A: Still a new Opportunity.  Though the Account hasn’t yet contracted your services and isn’t officially a customer, you’ve probably already emailed, called or met the Contact from the previously lost Opportunity.

Q: If we have a new Lead (new Account), the general rule of thumb is when the Lead is qualified, it turns into a ‘Prospective’ Account + Opportunity + Contact. When the Opty is ‘Won’ then you would set the status to ‘Customer’ for that Account; otherwise if it is ‘Lost’, keep things the way they are. Is this how you see the progression of a Lead?

What worries some people is that the Account table will be contaminated and dominated with so many ’Prospective’ Accounts? What would be the response to these people to allay their fears or is a legitimate concern?

A:  The sales process you described is what I believe the natural order of things in Microsoft CRM.  I agree that the Account table will have many Prospective Accounts, but the important factor is that you have established communication with the Account, though it wasn’t successful.  This sales process aligns with the “Customer Relationship” philosophy in CRM.

The best method to allay your users fears of a cluttered Account database is to modify the default Account view.  Simply create two different views, something like “Active Customers” and “Prospective Accounts”.  Modify the filters for both to only show those relative accounts, then set the “Active Customers” view as Default.  After these steps, your users will only see Active Customers right away instead of the whole Account database.  If they just want to see Prospective Accounts, they’d simply select that view.  From their point of view, CRM would be cleanly partitioned.

Tags: Consulting, Leads, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Opportunities, Sales Process