Lead Routing: Sending Qualified Leads to the Right Reps

Lead routing is the process of assigning and directing leads to the appropriate sales representatives or teams based on predefined criteria.

If your team fails to send qualified leads to the appropriate representatives, this can be damaging to your sales pipeline, and ultimately revenue.

Delayed response times, low pipeline conversion rates, misallocation of scarce sales team resources, inconsistencies in follow-up, disorganized workflows, are just a few symptoms of not getting your lead routing processes right.

Effective lead routing ensures that leads are promptly and efficiently handled, increasing the likelihood of conversion.

How to do Lead Routing

There are several types of lead routing strategies, each serving different purposes in optimizing the sales process:

1. Round Robin Lead Routing:
   • Equal Distribution: In a round-robin system, leads are distributed equally among the available sales representatives in a cyclical manner. This ensures a fair distribution of opportunities and prevents any single team member from being overloaded.
2. Dynamic Lead Routing:
   • Rule-Based Allocation: Dynamic lead routing involves assigning leads based on specific rules or criteria. These rules can consider factors such as geographic location, industry, lead source, or even the current workload of sales representatives. The system adapts to changing conditions to ensure optimal assignments.
3. Account-Based Lead Routing:
   • Aligns with Account Strategies: Particularly relevant in B2B sales, account-based lead routing focuses on assigning leads based on the target accounts an organization is pursuing. Leads associated with high-priority accounts are routed to specialized account teams or representatives.
4. Predictive Lead Routing:
   • Utilizes Predictive Analytics: Similar to predictive lead scoring, predictive lead routing leverages advanced analytics to predict which sales representative is most likely to succeed with a particular lead. It considers historical performance data and matches leads with the representative who has the highest likelihood of conversion.
5. Priority-Based Lead Routing:
   • Assigns Based on Lead Value: Priority-based lead routing involves assigning leads based on their perceived value or importance. This value can be determined by factors such as lead score, potential deal size, or strategic importance to the organization.
6. Geographic Lead Routing:
   • Based on Location: Particularly relevant for businesses with a regional or global focus, geographic lead routing assigns leads to sales representatives based on their geographic location. This ensures that representatives with local knowledge and presence handle leads in specific regions.
7. Rule-Based Lead Routing:
   • Customized Criteria: Rule-based lead routing allows organizations to create custom rules to determine how leads are assigned. These rules can be based on a combination of demographic, behavioral, and firmographic factors, allowing for a highly tailored approach.

Lead scoring, qualification and routing are major steps in your revenue operations that must not be overlooked.

Tools & Software for Lead Scoring & Routing

There are a number of tools and platforms offer predictive lead scoring as a feature, allowing you to enhance your sales processes and focus efforts on the most promising prospects. Here are some popular tools that incorporate predictive lead scoring:

1. Distrobird: Distrobird’s form tracking capabilities allow you to capture & automatically qualify every website form submission. You can configure rules based on the value of form fields like company size, revenues, or industry to help your team automate lead qualification. Assign high-value leads to reps who can call them immediately, and send low value leads to multi-channel sequences.
2. HubSpot: HubSpot's Sales Hub provides predictive lead scoring capabilities to analyze engagement data and identify leads with a higher likelihood of converting.
3. Salesforce Einstein: Salesforce Einstein is an AI-driven platform integrated into Salesforce's suite of products, offering predictive lead scoring functionality. It uses historical data and machine learning to provide insights into lead quality.
4. Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM includes AI-powered sales forecasting and predictive lead scoring features. It helps sales teams prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert.
5. Marketo: Marketo Engage, part of Adobe's Marketing Cloud, includes predictive lead scoring to help marketers and sales teams identify and prioritize high-value leads.
6. Pardot (by Salesforce): Pardot, a marketing automation solution by Salesforce, includes predictive lead scoring to assist in evaluating and prioritizing leads for more effective sales engagement.
7. LeanData: LeanData offers lead-to-account matching and routing solutions, including predictive lead scoring features. It helps streamline lead management and prioritize accounts for sales outreach.
8. InsideSales.com: InsideSales.com provides a Predictive Playbooks platform that incorporates predictive lead scoring. It helps sales teams prioritize leads and take data-driven actions to increase conversion rates.
9. Lattice Engines: Lattice Engines is a predictive analytics and ABM (Account-Based Marketing) platform that includes predictive lead scoring to identify high-potential leads.
10. Infer: Infer, acquired by IgniteTech, provides a predictive sales and marketing platform. It uses machine learning to score and prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert.
11. MadKudu: MadKudu is a predictive lead scoring tool that focuses on B2B SaaS companies. It helps identify leads with the highest potential and provides insights to tailor marketing and sales strategies.
12. EverString (by ZoomInfo): EverString, now part of ZoomInfo, offers predictive lead scoring to help businesses target and prioritize accounts that are most likely to convert.
13. 6sense: 6sense is an AI-driven ABM platform that includes predictive lead scoring. It helps identify accounts showing buying intent and aligns sales and marketing efforts accordingly.