Assigning leads to the right person

Shared leads are nobody's leads

When a new enquiry lands in a shared inbox, everyone assumes someone else will reply. Sometimes two people call the same customer; more often nobody does. One owner per lead removes the guessing. The owner does not have to do all the work, but they are the person who makes sure it happens.

Ways to decide who gets a lead

• By source: Google Ads leads to the person who handles paid campaigns, walk-ins to the front desk.
• By service: tag leads by the service they asked about, then route each tag to the specialist.
• By location: for a business with two branches, tag the branch and route to the branch manager.
• By stage: when a lead becomes Qualified, a senior person takes over from whoever made the first call.
• By hand: for a small team, the owner simply picks someone each morning.

How assignment rules work in the app

A rule has three parts. The trigger is when it runs: when a lead arrives, or when a lead changes stage. The conditions are optional filters: the lead's source, its status, its stage, or a tag it carries. The actions are what happens; one of them can be Give to a person.

Rules run in the order they were created. If a rule gives the lead an owner and adds a task in the same go, the owner is set first, so the task lands with that person.

Built-in safeguards

• A rule never replaces an existing owner. If someone already has the lead, the rule skips that step.
• If the chosen person has left the team or lost access to this business, the rule skips the step instead of giving the lead to someone who cannot see it.
• A change made by a rule never starts another rule, so rules cannot loop.
• Every rule that runs is written in the lead's history, so you can see why a lead went to a certain person.
• Only people who manage leads for that business can create or switch off rules.

Setting up your first assignment rule

• Open the pipeline settings for the business.
• Add a rule named, for example, Ads leads to Priya.
• Trigger: when a lead arrives. Condition: source is Google Ads.
• Action: give to Priya. Add a second action if you like: add task Call within the hour, due today.
• Save and switch it on. The rule shows how many times it has run and when it last ran.

When not to automate

If you have two or three staff and a handful of leads a day, assigning by hand is often clearer. Rules shine when leads arrive at odd hours or from many sources. Round-robin sharing between several people is not offered; each rule names one person.