Where is conversion opportunity hidden in the leads you already work?
Your CPL looks fine. But does your connection rate? The Index shows what the brands winning right now are doing differently.
A research initiative by Customer Solutions Group
The Connections Index
The first benchmark that measures how likely consumers are to connect with a brand, and how that likelihood is moving quarter over quarter.
Connections Index, latest reading
Trending down
67.9
indexed to 100 at baseline
Connectivity has fallen to 67.9. The decline is market-wide, not a symptom of any one brand's execution.
Curve shown is illustrative. The full quarterly series, with cuts by use case, media type and connection type, is in the report.
What the Index is
A new measure of connection health.
For years marketers have optimized cost per lead at one end and sales conversion at the other, with no benchmark for what happens in between: the connection layer.
The Connections Index is the first benchmark of its kind. It measures how likely consumers are to connect with a brand over time, culled from three decades of outreach data and more than 100 million relevant lead records. It draws on the most recent three years of comparable campaign data to isolate the signals that matter now.
When conversion softens, the question becomes: is it us, or is it the market? The Index is the answer.
What it measures
Change in connection rate. Not what you paid for the lead, but what you actually got from the lead.
How it is segmented
Multiple data cuts by use case, media type, connection type and more.
Who it is for
Marketing, sales and retention leaders who must convert leads into customers.
Where it comes from
Three decades of CSG outreach across insurance, education and financial services, read through the last three years of comparable campaigns.
Why it matters now
Consumers are changing the way they connect.
Warm transfers are giving way to callbacks and SMS tap-to-connect. The connection is moving to the consumer's timing, not yours. The Index shows how the connection mix is shifting across every motion, and what that means for how brands need to reach them.
Acquisition
Cross-sell
Retention
The old default
Brand-initiated warm transfer
You decide the moment. The consumer is expected to be available for it.
Where it is heading
Consumer-initiated callback and SMS
The consumer sets the terms of engagement, and increasingly picks the channel and the hour.
Who it is for
Built for the people who answer for conversion.
The Connections Index is built for the leaders who own what happens between a lead and a lasting customer.
What connection types drive the most conversions to customers?
When conversion softens, sales leaders ask whether it is them or the market. The Index answers by use case, media type and connection type, and shows where to move next.
How do combined outreach channels outperform single channels?
Phone alone and SMS alone each leave connections on the table. The Index shows the incremental lift when they work together, and where the mix is shifting as consumers take control.
What signals should retention teams be watching?
Motivating a customer to act is different from selling a prospect, and it moves on its own curve. The Index shows what separates brands with high renewal rates from the rest.
A preview of what is inside
13 quarters of data. One clear pattern.
Winning brands have always watched cost per lead and sales team conversion rates. The Connections Index gives you visibility into the connection layer between the two.
01
Connectivity is down, and it is the market, not execution.
02
Initial sale holds up best. Cross-sell and QNS take the bigger hit.
03
Consumers are increasingly setting the terms of engagement.
04
Combined SMS and phone drive meaningful lift.
Inaugural edition
The Connections Index
From connections to conversion: unlocking the yield in your leads.
Customer Solutions Group
Future editions go to the list first.
Reveal the yield
From connections to conversion.
Marketing, sales and retention leaders invest heavily in the two ends of the funnel: acquiring the right leads, and building and staffing the sales forces to work them. For some brands the connection layer, the step between acquisition and conversion, does not get that same attention.
This is not solved by better lead sourcing or a larger sales force alone, even in tough market conditions. It is solved by treating the connection as its own discipline: planned, staffed and measured with the same rigor already applied to lead acquisition and agent strategy. That discipline is what unlocks the yield already sitting in the leads you have paid for.
67.9
Where connectivity now sits, against a baseline of 100
2.7x
The connection rate of coordinated phone plus SMS, versus SMS alone
60%
Consumer-initiated callbacks. Consumers are setting the terms of engagement
About Customer Solutions Group
The Connections Company
CSG creates the human moment at scale. For over 32 years we have converted lead data into qualified connections for major brands in insurance, education and financial services.
Most vendors specialize in a single channel. CSG unifies human agents, AI-powered phone calls, automated dialing and AI-powered SMS onto one platform, fed by one data stream and optimized together, because no single tool converts every lead. The right connection depends on the right mode, at the right moment.
Upstream
Lead generation
They create and sell the demand signal.
The gap CSG owns
The connection layer
CSG turns demand potential into qualified sales, upsell and feature conversations.
Downstream
CRM and sales teams
They manage pipeline and close.
Early access
Want ongoing access to the Connections Index?
Download the inaugural report and be the first to receive future editions. We will share the data, the methodology, and what it means for your campaigns, along with what the highest-converting brands are doing differently.
The full 13-quarter connectivity series
Cuts by use case, media type and connection type
Every future edition, before it goes public
Download your copy
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