Channel

A channel is the way a customer reaches you: a phone call, a messenger, email, a website form, a referral. Channels differ in speed and in the kind of customer they bring, and each one often has its own person watching it. Once you know your channels, you can see where inquiries come from and where they get lost. Start by listing every channel that brought at least one inquiry last month.

In a CRM the channel is a field on the inquiry or the deal. A form or a messenger integration fills it in automatically. For calls, a seller fills it in by hand. Keep the list short and fixed so sellers do not invent new names. For a small team, phone, messenger, email, website form and referral is a reasonable start. Add a channel only when it brings regular volume.

Of 40 inquiries, 25 came by phone and 15 from a messenger: two channels.

In a team of 2 to 10 sellers, each channel needs one owner and one backup, named by first name, not by job title. A response standard sets the reply time for each channel: a customer in a messenger may expect a faster answer than one who sent an email. Choose your own times, write them down and test them. Post the list of owners and times where the whole team can see it.

Each week the head of sales looks at inquiries by channel: how many came in, how many got a reply within the standard, how many reached a proposal. The owner looks at the same table once a month, next to the advertising bill. It shows where to put money and people. A channel with many inquiries and few sales needs a different fix from a channel that brings few inquiries.

Cost per inquiry and CAC can be compared by channel only if the channel field is filled every time. Lead response time often differs a lot from one channel to another. Conversion matters too: a channel that looks cheap per inquiry may turn out expensive per sale. Once a month, put all three numbers side by side for each channel.

• Leaving the channel field optional. Half the records stay empty. Make it required when an inquiry is created.
• Mixing up the channel and the advertising source. A customer can see an ad and then call. Record how they reached you as the channel, and the ad in a separate source field.
• Leaving a channel without an owner, like a messenger number that nobody checks after hours. Name an owner and a backup for every channel.
• Judging a channel only by how many inquiries it brings. Compare sales and cost per channel as well.

By Friday, the head of sales pulls last month’s inquiries from the CRM and counts how many have an empty or unclear channel. If there are more than a handful, make the field required and give the team a fixed list. Example (invented numbers): of 40 inquiries, 25 came by phone and 15 from a messenger. If the messenger owner works until six, check who answers at seven.

CRM rules the team follows and a forecast review you can run every week.