The Challenge

Hiring the right employees is never easy for any company, and the demands placed on hiring managers have grown exponentially over the past few years.

It’s no longer a simple matter of finding qualified candidates. Hiring managers need to know that when they are reviewing potential employees, they have a complete 360-degree picture of their background and experience. They also need to identify any factors that may prevent new employees from being successful in their organization’s corporate culture.

Our client, a leading background check company, was built on the simple idea that their services can enable hiring managers, recruiters and more to quickly identify any issues with potential candidates that would create a barrier to success in the hiring process or in their career development within the organization.

Despite their leading-edge services and technology, which can elevate and accelerate the hiring process, our client’s sales team found themselves in a familiar place in the B2B marketplace: lots of demand for their service, but too many potential customers who were just “exploring their options.” Additionally, small and mid-size businesses (SMB) made up a large portion of these leads, resulting in less revenue per sale for the same amount of time.

The one nagging issue our client faced was making sure their sales team was focused on connecting with the right prospects. These SMB leads needed a better experience with more guidance to the right solution.

Our Insights

As we conducted an initial analysis into our client’s B2B sales process, it quickly became clear that their sales team was overwhelmed by the number of inquiries for their service that hadn’t been vetted. They were missing the necessary details to determine their best customer opportunities to prioritize.

We also identified a need for a self-service e-commerce platform for those smaller-value clients, adding up in volume to significant revenue. By allowing them to find the best solution on their own, it would then free up the sales team to focus on larger leads without leaving money on the table.

At Harte Hanks, we believe one of the critical keys to success for any company in the B2B marketplace is providing your sales team with the right tools and support to connect them with the right clients. Those  are the prospects who not only understand your service, but also need your service, and soon.

Our Approach

After reviewing our client’s current marketing and sales structure, we recognized the need to assemble a Harte Hanks team who could quickly integrate with our client’s existing B2B sales operation and platforms. In addition, because of our previous knowledge of their business, we were able to integrate our team and solutions cost-efficiently.

We also conducted a thorough review to examine all the touchpoints with potential customers — webinars, email campaigns, website visits, etc. — to determine if these prospects understood our client’s products and services and which ones really needed their services.

From this review we created a training and sales solution system that accelerated the sales process so that the client’s B2B sales team could focus their time and energy on reaching the “right customers” and not those who were just out exploring.

For the SMB set of those “right customers,” we developed a process to support our client’s self-service e-commerce platform. Our agents guided customers through the sign-up and registration process, familiarizing prospects with the platform and easing them into the sales pipeline.

By further qualifying leads and delegating the smaller orders, the sales team was able to focus on the right leads, and ultimately close more deals.

The Results

100%

Increase in lead conversion

In less than six months, our team was able to help the client’s B2B sales team significantly increase its ability to qualify leads, increasing the rate of MQL to Opportunity conversion from 15% to 30%.

In addition, our team was able to seamlessly integrate with the client’s sales operation and platforms to identify and qualify new customers, and to nearly double their new business sales conversion rate.

According to the client:

We were incredibly impressed by the ability of the Harte Hanks team to dedicate resources, build training and implement quickly to drive new business sales performance.