Do you know what a lead is and should your business be using them in Dynamics 365/CRM?

If you are using Dynamics 365/CRM in your business, you will know that leads represent an opportunity for new business. Put simply, a lead is a potential new client (whether it be a contact/account or both) who either need to be qualified in or qualified out in order for this part of the process to progress to a sales opportunity. 

Leads can be generated from a variety of different sources such as marketing campaigns, website contact forms, click to chat or inbound phone calls. 

It goes without saying but what constitutes a lead can be different when it comes to business-to-business transactions so some of the standard fields might not be appropriate for all different situations. Therefore, some customisations to the fields may be needed to further improve the overall process. 

When you look to add a lead to the CRM, there are a number of compulsory fields that need to be completed. However, other useful bits of information such as the lead source, product interests or even email addresses which can be useful for reporting purposes are not needed.