How do you route enquiries to the right salesperson?

Three people can see the sales inbox. An enquiry arrives from a company in the north asking about the new product line. The northern rep assumes the product specialist will take it. The product specialist assumes the northern rep will. The sales manager sees it, means to assign it, and gets pulled into a call. It's answered on Thursday by whoever feels guiltiest.

The lead doesn't know any of that. They know they waited three days. Routing is the unglamorous fix for the most common reason a good enquiry goes cold: it had two possible owners, so it had none.

What routing rules are made of

Good rules use facts you can see in the enquiry or find out about the company in a minute. Most small sales teams need only a few.

• Region, from the address, the phone code or the company's website.
• Product line or service, from what the enquiry asks for.
• Company size, from a range looked up rather than typed.
• Existing account, from a match in the CRM, which sends the enquiry to whoever already owns the relationship.
• Source, where a campaign or a partner referral has an agreed owner.

Write them in order, because enquiries often match more than one. An existing account usually wins, then product, then region. The order is a decision for the sales lead and it should be written where they can change it.

One owner, immediately

The rule that matters more than any of the others is that every enquiry has exactly one owner the moment it arrives, and that owner knows. The owner is a person, notified, with the enquiry and its record in front of them, rather than a team, an inbox or a chat channel.

When the rules can't place an enquiry, it goes to a named person whose job that is, usually the sales lead or a senior rep. That person decides in a minute and the rules learn a new line if the same case keeps appearing. What never happens is an enquiry landing somewhere with no name on it.

What travels with the enquiry

Routing on its own saves a few hours. Routing with the record attached saves the owner's first half hour on every lead. By the time the enquiry reaches them, the system has gathered the company and what it does, any history in the CRM, a size range, and what the message is asking for, read for meaning. If a first reply has been drafted, that's attached too.

The owner opens one notification and has everything a rep used to assemble by hand. That's what makes a reply within minutes possible, and it's the same gathering step that feeds qualification. Routing, qualification and the first reply are one flow, built together in Revenue Growth.

Routing also settles an argument before it starts. When two reps both think an enquiry should have been theirs, the rules say who it went to and why, and the sales lead changes the rule if they agree it was wrong. The decision is made once, in writing, instead of every time in the inbox.

When the owner is away

Rules need a second line for absence. If the owner is out, the enquiry goes to a named cover, and the owner sees it when they're back. If nobody has acknowledged an enquiry within an agreed time during working hours, it's raised to the sales lead. Those two rules together mean no enquiry can wait in silence, whatever the week looks like.

Where people stay in it

The rules are the sales lead's, written in plain language and changed without a developer. The fallback pile is a person's daily task. And the owner can always hand an enquiry on, with a reason, if the rules got it wrong: a northern enquiry that turns out to be a national account, say. Each hand-on is recorded, and if the same correction happens three times, the rules get a new line.

An enquiry, routed

Go back to the enquiry from the company in the north asking about the new product line. This time it's captured the moment it arrives. The system checks the CRM and finds no existing account, so the first rule doesn't apply. It reads the message and recognises the new product line, so the second rule does. The product specialist is notified within a minute, with the company, its size range, the absence of any history and what the enquiry is asking for, plus a drafted first reply.

The specialist is out on Friday, so the cover rule sends Friday's enquiries to the northern rep instead, and the specialist sees them on Monday. On Wednesday an enquiry arrives from a reseller overseas asking about a product you sell only through partners. No rule matches it. It goes to the sales lead, who decides in a minute to pass it to the partner manager. After the third such enquiry that month, a line is added: resellers go to the partner manager. The fallback pile gets smaller as the rules learn.

Nobody looked at a shared inbox at any point. Every enquiry had a name on it within a minute, the reply went out the same morning, and the record of who received what is there for the sales lead to read on Friday.

Writing the rules

The rules read like this, in order, and the sales lead can change any line.

1. If the company is already in the CRM, the enquiry goes to the person who owns that account.
2. If the enquiry is about the new product line, it goes to the product specialist.
3. If the company's address is in the north, it goes to the northern rep; otherwise the southern rep.
4. If the enquiry came from a partner referral, it goes to the partner manager.
5. If none of these apply, it goes to the sales lead.
6. If the owner is out, it goes to their named cover, and the owner sees it on their return.
7. If nobody has acknowledged an enquiry within the agreed time during working hours, it's raised to the sales lead.

Seven lines, written in an afternoon, and most sales teams never need many more.

What to measure

Speed of first response, by owner. Before routing, the slow replies hide inside the team average. After, every enquiry has a name next to it and the gap between arrival and reply is a fact about a person, which is the only way it ever improves. Alongside it, count how many enquiries went to the fallback and how many were handed on, because both tell you where the rules need work.

What to do this week

1. List last month's enquiries and write down who answered each one and how long it took.
2. Write the routing rules in order: existing account, product, region, source.
3. Name the person who takes anything the rules can't place.
4. Name the cover for each rep and the time after which an unanswered enquiry is raised.
5. Write down what the owner should have in front of them when the enquiry lands.

If you'd like to check the rules before they go in, bring them to a call. We'll tell you which facts a system can find reliably and what the fallback will look like for your team.