InformationWeek

Sue Stitt, a customer-relationship management project manager for Compaq, which is evaluating the software, says lead management is critical. "Opportunities are not [regularly] delivered to someone who can do something about it," she says. As a result, sales leads, such as those garnered from trade shows, are wasted because no one follows up quickly enough and the leads become stale. "You spend big money to get a booth, and the list is still sitting there a month later," Stitt says.

The software is designed to help salespeople get those leads almost instantaneously and contact potential customers within 24 hours. It lets companies transmit leads electronically to the appropriate salesperson-via front-office and contact-management packages such as Siebel 99, Symantec Act!, and Microsoft Outlook-rather than through slower telephone, mail, and fax services.

For instance, when prospects swipe their badges at trade shows, the data can be sent to a MarketSoft server, which will route the lead to an appropriate salesperson in the customer's region or product area. The software can also flesh out leads with order forms, price quotes, and customer information from Dun & Bradstreet. It can then track the leads, letting managers see what a salesperson has done with them and which salespeople are most effective.

MarketSoft says eLeads-which works over the Web-is particularly suited for companies with large indirect sales channels, where it's more difficult to determine what salespeople are doing with their leads. Stitt says the software could help Compaq, which has a huge indirect channel, manage leads generated from campaigns run by the company and its distributors.