Should a sales floor chase more contacts or convert more of the ones it has?
Both matter, and they hit different limits. More contacts means more or better leads and more dial time, all inside do-not-call lists, consent and calling-hour rules. Converting more of the people you already reach needs no extra contacts: it depends on who has each conversation and how it goes. In our experience, on floors that close a small share of their contacts, conversion usually has more room.
New to BestPair? See what it is and how it works
Two levers, two different limits
| More contacts | Better conversion | |
|---|---|---|
| What it needs | More or better leads, more dials, better timing | The right agent and a good conversation on each contact |
| What limits it | Lead supply and cost, do-not-call and consent rules, people who do not answer | How far apart your agents are on the same kinds of leads |
| What it costs | Lead spend, dialer time and agent hours | Little or nothing in extra contacts |
| Where you see it | Dialer reports and lead source reports | Sales per contact, by type of lead and by agent |
When contact is the bottleneck
If most of your leads are never reached, conversion work has little to act on. Better lead data, calling at the hours people answer, caller ID and dialer settings come first. BestPair does not work on contact rates, and says so.
Contact also has a ceiling you do not set. Every extra contact has to come from a lead you were allowed to call, at an hour you were allowed to call it.
When conversion is the bottleneck
If your floor reaches people but most conversations end without a sale, the revenue sits in the conversation. The contacts are already paid for: the lead, the dial and the agent’s time have been spent by the time someone says hello.
The two levers also multiply. Sales are contacts times conversion, so a gain in conversion is earned again on every contact you add later, and every lead you buy afterwards is worth more, as long as new leads convert like the old ones.
Who has that conversation is a lever that changes nothing about contact volume, scripts or offers. Predictive pairing works on that lever alone, by deciding which agent works each lead from your own call and sales history. How lead routing to the right agent works.
How to tell on your own floor
- Take the last year of contacts and split them by type of lead: lead source, product, lead age, region, new or existing customer.
- For each type, compare conversion and sales per contact between your agents, on the same kinds of leads.
- Ignore any comparison built on a handful of contacts.
- If the spread between agents is wide, conversion has room that lead routing can reach. If your agents close at about the same rate, the room is elsewhere, and BestPair will tell you so.
What conversion means here, and why sales per contact is the better score, is on what contact-to-sale conversion is.
Common follow-up questions
Does better conversion mean calling leads more often?
No. Matching leads to agents changes who works a lead, and leaves how often anyone is called alone. Do-not-call lists, consent, calling hours, scripts and offers stay exactly as your floor runs them.
Should we buy more leads, or pricier ones?
Check conversion by lead source first. A costlier source that converts no better adds contacts and cost together. If your agents already reach plenty of people on the leads you have and most of those conversations end without a sale, more leads feed the same leak.
Which should we fix first?
If most leads are never reached, start with contact: lead data, call timing and dialer settings. If your floor reaches people but most conversations end without a sale, start with conversion.
Where to next
How it works
See what BestPair does
Which agent works each lead or account, decided from your own floor’s history. People make every call; the dialer, scripts and offers stay as they are.
Read the overviewProof
How to prove a routing change worked
Split leads at random, run both ways in the same weeks and compare. Written for collection floors; the method is the same for sales.
Read the methodYour floor
Talk it through
A fit call, not a demo. If your floor is not a fit, you will hear it on the call.
Book a fit call
Would it be a bad idea to spend 45 minutes finding out?
If your shop does not qualify, you will hear it on the call, not after you have paid for a report.
Book a 45-minute fit call