By use case: Lead routing
Lead routing automation, so no enquiry waits.
Every form, inbox and ad lead captured in one place, enriched, checked for duplicates, scored and assigned to the right person in the CRM, with the first reply already on its way.
- First workflow live
- Web form to CRM, usually inside the first sprint
- Usually owned by
- Sales managers and heads of sales
- Built on
- HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM
- Judged on
- Speed to lead and Unassigned leads
In short
Lead routing automation captures enquiries from every source, enriches them with company data, checks the CRM for duplicates, scores fit against your rules, assigns an owner by territory, product or round robin, and starts the follow-up. AI can qualify and draft replies, while rules decide ownership, and anything unclear goes to a person.
Who this is for
The people who usually own lead routing.
- Sales managers and heads of sales
- Revenue and sales operations
- Marketing teams who own the forms
- Founders still answering every enquiry
Is this you?
If three of these sound like your week, this page is about your team.
- Leads arrive in more than two places
- You cannot say how long the first reply takes
- Reps argue about who owns a lead
- The CRM has the same company several times
- Some enquiries never get a reply
What it costs today
Where lead routing loses the hours.
Leads arrive in too many places
Website forms, a shared inbox, marketplace enquiries, ad forms and WhatsApp. Some never reach the CRM.
Nobody owns the new lead
Leads sit unassigned, or two reps contact the same person, because routing depends on who saw it first.
Duplicates clutter the CRM
The same company entered three ways, so history is split and reports overcount the pipeline.
Follow-up is slow and uneven
The first reply goes out hours or days later, and depends on how busy the rep is that week.
For sales teams
Every enquiry owned within minutes.
Show us where your leads come from and who gets them today. We will map the path and show where they wait.
Map your lead path
By company size
Lead routing at 10 people, and at 1,000.
- 1 to 10
Enquiries in the founder’s inbox, answered when there is time.
- 11 to 50
A few reps, a shared inbox and leads claimed by whoever replies first.
- 51 to 200
Territories and products, a CRM full of duplicates, and arguments about whose lead it was.
- 201 to 1,000
Several regions and teams, routing rules nobody can explain, and reporting that double counts.
What we build
What we build for lead routing teams.
- 01
Single capture point
Every source feeds one automation that normalises names, emails, phone numbers and company names before anything touches the CRM.
- 02
Enrichment and dedupe
Company size, industry and location added from enrichment providers, then matched against existing contacts and accounts so new activity joins the right record.
- 03
Scoring and AI qualification
Rules score fit from the data you trust. An AI step reads free-text messages to pick out intent, product and urgency, and flags anything it is unsure of.
- 04
Routing and first follow-up
Owner assigned by territory, product, account or round robin, notified in Slack or email, with a first reply or booking link sent and a task set if nobody acts.
The workflows
The lead routing workflows, and what sets each one off.
- 01 Web form to CRM
When a form is submitted
ThenContact normalised, enriched and checked for duplicates
- 02 Inbox lead capture
When an enquiry email arrives
ThenAI extracts name, company, need and urgency
- 03 Round robin assignment
When a qualified lead with no existing owner
ThenAssigned by territory and product, then in rotation
- 04 First reply and booking
When owner assigned
ThenReply sent with a booking link, owner notified in Slack
- 05 SLA escalation
When no activity on a new lead within the SLA
ThenReassigned or escalated to the sales manager
The numbers we move
How a lead routing build is judged.
Every build has a number written into the blueprint. These are the ones lead routing builds are measured by, and how we measure them.
| Metric | Before | After | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed to lead | Hours or days | Minutes | Time from enquiry received to first reply sent |
| Unassigned leads | Sitting in inboxes | None older than the SLA | Leads without an owner, checked hourly |
| Duplicate records | Common | Held for review before creation | Possible duplicates flagged per week |
| Lead coverage | Some sources missed | Every source in the CRM | Leads by source compared with form and inbox counts |
Built on
The tools you already run, where we can.
Every tool we connect has its own page in the integrations directory.
Proof
Proof from builds like this.
- Customer story
Lead enrichment and sales automation
The full inbound path automated for a B2B sales team: capture, enrichment, AI qualification, CRM sync, follow-up and meeting booking.
Read the story - Customer story
AI outbound sales platform
An outbound platform that handles replies and bounces and hands interested prospects to a person, the same human handoff a routing build needs.
Read the story
How it starts
An audit of the lead routing work your team still does by hand.
One to two weeks. We map the workflows, put an hours-a-week figure on each, and give you a costed blueprint in order of payback. The audit is credited in full to the build.
- Week 1 to 2Audit. We sit with the people who do the work and map it.
- Week 3Blueprint. Fixed scope, fixed price, the first build chosen by payback.
- Week 4 onBuild in two-week sprints, working software every second Friday.
- After go-liveSixty days of hypercare, then a care plan or run it yourself.
What this does not do
So the scope is clear before the call.
- Cold outbound at volume. That is a different build, and lead routing assumes the person asked to hear from you.
- Replacing your CRM. It stays the system of record.
- Fixing a lead quality problem that sits in your marketing.
Terms, defined
Lead routing terms, in plain English.
- Speed to lead
- The time between an enquiry arriving and the first reply from your team.
- Round robin
- Assigning leads to a group of reps in rotation so the load stays even.
- Enrichment
- Adding company and contact details from data providers to a lead that arrived with only a name and email.
Questions
What people ask about lead routing automation.
Does AI decide who gets the lead?
No. Ownership is decided by rules you can read: territory, product, existing account owner, then round robin. AI reads the message to work out what the person wants and how urgent it is, and that feeds the rules. When it is unsure, the lead goes to a named person to assign.
Will it work with our CRM?
HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho CRM, Salesforce and most CRMs with an API. If your CRM already has assignment rules we use them, and build only what it cannot do, such as dedupe across sources or enrichment before routing.
How do you handle duplicates?
By matching on email, domain, phone and normalised company name before creating anything. A confident match joins the existing record; a possible match is held for a person to confirm rather than merged automatically.
What does lead routing automation cost?
Routing forms into one CRM with a follow-up is around $2,500. Several sources, enrichment, dedupe and AI qualification usually land between $5,000 and $15,000. See /guides/how-much-does-ai-automation-cost/ for how scope drives price.
Reading
- Systems
Stop building Zaps. Start building agents.
Fifty disconnected automations are a liability, not a system. How to move from triggers and actions to agents that hold state and handle exceptions.
- Strategy
Does an AI agent still need Zapier?
A widely shared post argues agents will take Zapier to zero. We run both daily. Where the argument is right, where it is wrong, and what we use for each job.
- Operations
Who noticed when the workflow stopped?
Most automation failures are silent: the run shows green and nothing happens for weeks. How it happens in Zapier and n8n, its cost, and the four checks we add.
Related
- Function
Sales and RevOps
Reply to every lead in minutes, keep the CRM right without typing, and hand won deals over with nothing missing.
- Function
Marketing
Send the right message because something happened, keep every list honest, and see which spend turned into revenue.
- Use case
Customer onboarding
The moment a contract is signed, the account is set up, the documents you need are requested, the team has its tasks and the customer has a welcome with clear next steps.
- Use case
Quote generation
Enquiries read as they arrive, items matched to your catalogue or item master, prices and margins applied by rule, and the quote approved and sent the same day.
By use case: Invoice processing, Customer onboarding, Employee onboarding, Quote generation, Order to cash, Ticket triage, Document extraction, Approval workflows, Inventory sync, Weekly reporting, Client portals
Lead routing
Get the lead routing hours back.
Bring the one lead routing workflow your team still runs by hand. You leave the call with a yes or no on fit and the first thing we would build.
Book the call