Design lead routing and SLAs that actually get built.
“Leads are falling through the cracks and nobody can say who was supposed to call them. How do we fix routing?”
The assignment rules, round-robin or account-based logic, SLA timers, and fallbacks, written as a spec.
What this skill does
Takes your team shape and your rules and produces a routing and SLA model written to be built. It lays out how a lead gets matched to an owner, whether by round-robin, territory, or account ownership, sets the SLA clock for first touch, and defines the fallbacks for the cases that quietly break every routing setup: the rep who is out, the lead that matches nobody, the account already owned. The output is a spec, not a suggestion.
Inputs
- Works today with: a list of your reps and territories, your segment or ICP definition, and a sample of recent inbound leads with the fields you would route on.
- More powerful connected to a CRM: it reads live account ownership, rep capacity, and territory fields automatically, so routing respects who already owns what.
- Sharper with an enrichment tool: fills the firmographic fields (size, industry, geo) that routing depends on before assignment, so fewer leads fall to fallback.
- Sharper with an activity tool: measures real first-touch times so the SLA is set against reality, not hope.
How it works
- 1Match logic
Define the order rules are evaluated in, because order is the model. Typically: existing account owner wins first, then territory or segment match, then round-robin within the matched pool. Print the precedence so there is no ambiguity about which rule fires when two could.
- 2Round-robin and capacity
Within a pool, assign in rotation, and state how capacity is handled: flat rotation, or weighted so a ramping rep gets fewer. Define what "available" means so leads never route to someone out of office. Capacity without an availability rule just routes leads into a void.
- 3SLA timers
Set a first-touch clock per segment and state the business-hours rule. Define the escalation: what happens at the SLA breach, who gets notified, and whether the lead re-routes. An SLA with no breach action is a wish.
- 4Fallback paths
Name the destination for every lead that matches nothing: no territory, no enrichment, no available rep. A holding queue with a named owner beats a lead sitting unassigned. Every path in the model must terminate at a human.
- 5Implementation spec
Output the rules as an ordered, buildable list: field checks, pool definitions, rotation logic, timers, and escalations. Written so whoever configures the CRM can build it without guessing what you meant.
Output format
LEAD ROUTING MODEL · 3 segments · 14 reps
Precedence:
1. Existing account owner -> that owner (skip all below)
2. Enterprise (size >= 1000) -> Ent pool, round-robin, weighted by ramp
3. Mid-Market -> MM pool, flat round-robin
4. SMB -> SMB pool, flat round-robin
5. No match / missing fields -> holding queue (owner: RevOps lead)
SLA:
Hot inbound (demo request): 5 min first touch, breach -> notify rep + manager, re-route at 15 min
Standard inbound: 1 business day, breach -> notify manager
Fallbacks:
Rep out of office -> skip in rotation, do not queue to them
No enrichment -> route to holding queue, flag for enrichment, not to a rep
Illustrative structure. Your run reflects your real team and rules.
Tips
- Every routing path terminates at a named owner or queue. No lead can fall through.
- Rule precedence is explicit. No two rules can fire ambiguously.
- Every SLA has a breach action, not just a timer.
- Account ownership is checked before any new assignment. No poaching by routing.
Turn a messy CRM into a ranked cleanup list.
Finds the hygiene problems that break reporting first: missing fields, stale records, duplicates, and bad stages, before the cosmetic ones.
Build funnel metrics the meeting will actually trust.
Conversion by stage, velocity, and win rate with every definition pinned, and the leak named.