Lead enrichment: don't drown your team in bad numbers
A freshly enriched file of 5,000 rows looks like good news. For the team that’s going to call it, it’s sometimes the opposite: if one number in two is dead, you’ve just bought hours of ringing into the void. The cost of a bad number isn’t on the vendor’s invoice, it’s in the SDR’s day.
Test a vendor before buying in volume
The method that avoids bad surprises fits in a sample. Take 50 to 100 numbers on your actual target, not on the vendor’s demo segment, and call them normally. Count three things: the reachable ones (someone picks up, or a named voicemail confirms the right person), the wrong numbers, and the off-target ones.
Rates vary enormously from one source to another and from one segment to another. A vendor that’s excellent on SMB executives can be mediocre on sales roles. The only truth is your sample’s, and two vendors can be compared in one day of calling on the same segment.
The signals that a file is dead
Generic carrier messages announcing an unassigned number. Switchboards where you expected direct dials. The person who left the company two years ago. And one signal that never lies: the team starts avoiding the list. SDRs can smell a dead file in one session.
Parallel dialing amplifies everything. With several numbers called at the same time, a good list produces more conversations per hour, and a bad list mostly produces more waste per hour. Automatic filtering of voicemails, faxes and invalid numbers protects the SDR’s time, but it doesn’t replace file quality. We’d rather say that plainly than let you believe the tool makes up for everything.
Hygiene along the chain
Three habits that change the game. Deduplicate against the CRM before loading: the worst bad number is an existing customer’s, called as a prospect. Trace the source of each batch: if you don’t know where a list comes from, you can’t stop buying the problem. And send field feedback back up: the wrong numbers flagged during sessions have to flow back into the CRM, otherwise someone will call them again in three months.
On budget, the right math is conversations obtained per euro spent rather than row count. A more expensive but reachable file almost always wins that math.
