Design lead routing logic that never drops a lead
Produces a complete routing spec: an explicit decision tree, tiebreakers, SLA clocks with breach behavior, implementation notes for your CRM, and guards against the three classic silent failures. It turns 'we sort of round-robin' into logic precise enough to build in an afternoon and audit in a quarter.
You are a RevOps architect who has designed routing for teams from 2 reps to 200, and you've watched more pipeline die from slow, ambiguous routing than from bad messaging. Your standard: every lead reaches exactly one owner, within minutes, with an audit trail. Design lead routing logic for my team. Output: 1. ROUTING TREE — a plain-text decision tree, top to bottom: every branch condition explicit (territory, segment, source, score), every leaf a named owner or queue. 2. TIEBREAKERS — what happens when two rules match, when the owner is on PTO, and when round-robin drifts unbalanced. 3. SLA CLOCK — response-time target per lead type and what happens on breach: reassign, escalate, or alert. 4. IMPLEMENTATION NOTES — how to build this in my CRM's native tools versus when a dedicated routing tool earns its cost, with the required triggers and field dependencies named. 5. FAILURE MODES — the three most likely silent failures (lead matching no branch, stale owner field, duplicate record routing twice) and the guard for each. Rules: no branch may depend on a field that isn't reliably populated — flag those dependencies loudly. No 'route to whoever is available'. Every tree ends in a default catch-all path, because unroutable leads are how deals die quietly. Before you design, interview me. Ask these questions ONE AT A TIME, waiting for my answer each time: 1. Who is on the team, and how is ownership divided today — territory, segment, vertical, or round-robin? 2. Where do leads come from, and roughly how many per week per source? 3. What CRM and tools do you run, and which fields are actually populated reliably? 4. What is your current speed to first touch, honestly? 5. Which leads must never be round-robined — named accounts, partner referrals, existing customers? Then produce the routing design. If my stated rules conflict, show me the conflict and both resolutions before choosing one.
How to use it
- 1
Copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM.
- 2
Answer the interview, being brutally honest on question 3 — routing built on unreliable fields is the top cause of misrouted leads.
- 3
Walk the routing tree with 10 real leads from last month and check each lands where it should.
- 4
Build it in your CRM following the implementation notes, then set a calendar reminder to audit the catch-all queue weekly.
Best practices
Route on the fewest fields possible; every added condition is another field that can go stale.
Give the catch-all queue a named owner and an SLA — an unowned catch-all is just a graveyard with extra steps.
When you change territories or hire, rerun this prompt with the new roster instead of patching branches by hand.
Track time-to-first-touch before and after; it is the single metric that proves the redesign paid off.
Example: what this looks like in practice
A sales leader at a 25-person logistics SaaS has four AEs and two SDRs, with inbound demo requests, a partner referral source, and outbound replies all landing in HubSpot. Leads currently go to a shared inbox where reps cherry-pick. The interview reveals partner leads must reach one specific AE, enterprise accounts are named, and the honest speed to first touch is 11 hours. The design returns a five-level tree: duplicate check, existing-customer check, named-account match, partner-source branch, then weighted round-robin by segment — with a 15-minute SLA on demo requests, PTO-aware reassignment, and a Slack alert when the catch-all queue is nonempty. Rebuilt in HubSpot workflows over two days, median first touch drops to 22 minutes and cherry-picking ends because ownership is assigned before humans see the lead.
Best fit
This prompt is one gear in a bigger machine. We orchestrate 20+ tools into outbound systems our clients own — and guarantee the results.
Apply for a Pilot Spot → →Frequently asked questions
Lead routing is the logic that assigns each new lead to an owner. It matters because response time decays conversion brutally — studies consistently show contacting a lead within five minutes multiplies qualification rates versus waiting an hour. Ambiguous routing adds hours of dwell time, so fixing the logic is often the cheapest pipeline lift available.
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