01What lead routing does for a small team
A lead is anyone who asks for something: a form on your site, a DM, an email, a chat message. Routing is what happens in the first seconds after it arrives. The system reads what the lead said, picks one owner, tells that person, writes the lead into the CRM and starts a clock. If the owner does not act, it moves the lead to someone else. With one person answering everything there is nothing to route. It starts to matter with two or more people, or when that one person is on a job site, on holiday or asleep. The failure it removes is simple and common: everyone sees the message, everyone assumes someone else has it, and nobody replies.
- Capture: the lead lands in one place, whatever channel it came from
- Decide: a rule picks one owner
- Notify: that person is told where they already look
- Record: the lead and its owner are saved in the CRM
- Escalate: if nobody acts within a set time, it goes to the next person
02Round-robin or rules: which one to use
Round-robin gives leads to people in turn: the first to Ana, the second to Mihai, the third to Ana again. It is fair and takes ten minutes to explain. It breaks when your people are not interchangeable. If only one of you speaks German, or only one handles commercial work, turn-taking sends the lead to the wrong person fairly often. It also breaks when someone is off, unless the rotation can skip them. Rule-based routing reads something the lead gave you and sends it by that: the service they picked, their town, the language they wrote in, the size of the job. It puts the right person on the lead first time. Its weak points are upkeep and gaps: a new service nobody wrote a rule for, or a form field left empty, means a lead that matches nothing. Most small teams end up with both: rules first, then round-robin among the people who qualify, plus one named person who gets everything that matches no rule.
- Round-robin: fair and simple, wrong when skills differ
- Rules: the right person first time, but they need upkeep when your services change
- Mixed: rules narrow the list, round-robin shares the work
- Always name a fallback owner for leads that match nothing
03Speed of the first reply
Routing exists to shorten the gap between a lead arriving and a human replying. We quote no reply-time statistics here. We have not measured response times for any client, and a precise-sounding percentage we cannot trace to a source we opened ourselves is not worth printing. The logic needs no number: an enquiry that sits with nobody cannot get a faster reply than one assigned to a named person. What shortens the gap in practice is listed below. Our post on follow-up messages that do not feel robotic covers how to word the automatic acknowledgement.
- One owner per lead, not a shared inbox
- A notification in the app that person already checks
- A time limit, then reassignment (30 minutes in opening hours is an example, a number you set, not a benchmark)
- A rule for out-of-hours leads: who picks them up at opening time
- An instant automatic acknowledgement, so the lead knows the message arrived
04What to settle before you automate
A rule can only read what the lead gives it. A form with one free-text box and no service field leaves the rule nothing to match on. Before anyone builds anything, settle four things: who takes leads and in which hours, which fields each channel collects, who is the fallback owner, and where the lead is recorded. The last one is where our post on whether you need a CRM or just better automation picks up: a CRM nothing feeds is an expensive spreadsheet, and routing is one of the automations that feeds it. Many CRMs have their own assignment settings, so check yours before paying anyone to build a rule.
- Who takes leads, and in which hours
- Which fields every channel fills in, so the rule has something to read
- Who gets everything that matches no rule
- One place where the lead lives, with its owner
05What AUTOMATE covers
PROOF48's AUTOMATE plan costs 2,997 EUR a month. Its feature list includes an AI website chatbot that qualifies and books, AI DM and email auto-responders, booking automation with a CRM, and two custom automations a month. Routing is not a line of its own. Our post on what two custom automations a month means gives routing a specific kind of lead differently as an example of what one of the two can be. Whether your rule fits is a scoping question, answered with your real channels and your real team. AUTOMATE does not cover WhatsApp or phone, so leads that arrive there sit outside it.
- AI website chatbot that qualifies and books (plan list)
- AI DM and email auto-responders
- Booking automation with a CRM
- Two custom automations a month; routing is not a separate feature
- WhatsApp and phone: outside AUTOMATE
06Where PROOF48 is the wrong choice
We are the wrong choice in four cases. If you answer everything yourself, you have nothing to route. If your CRM already has assignment rules, switch them on and stop there. If most of your leads come in by WhatsApp or phone, we are the wrong choice as part of AUTOMATE, which does not cover those channels (PROOF48 builds WhatsApp assistants as a separate piece of work; see our automation page). And if you want one rule and nothing else, 2,997 EUR a month is a price for ongoing automation work: standalone automation builds are scoped and priced on request through the start page.
- You answer every enquiry yourself: nothing to route
- Your CRM already assigns leads: turn that on first
- Leads mostly arrive by WhatsApp or phone: outside AUTOMATE
- One rule and nothing else: ask for a scoped build instead of the plan
One record, one console
ATP Spedition's transport system, built by PROOF48, has a public booking page and a web dispatch console, and one job model covers courier, moving and freight, each with its own rules. The case study does not describe automatic assignment, so we claim none. What carries over to any small team is the shape: a request enters one record and shows up in one place, so you can see who has what. We publish no reply times for ATP.
See the build: ATP SpeditionQuestions, answered
Do I need lead routing with only two people?
Often a plain rule is enough: turns, or a split by service. It earns its keep when you notice leads waiting because each of you assumed the other had them.
Round-robin or rule-based for a team of three?
If the three of you do the same work in the same language and area, round-robin is enough. If skills, language or area differ, start with rules, add round-robin among the people who match, and name one fallback owner.
How fast should the first reply be?
We give no figure, because we have not measured it for any client. Set a limit you can keep, notify the owner where they already look, and reassign the lead when the limit passes.
Does PROOF48 set up lead routing?
AUTOMATE lists no routing feature of its own. It includes two custom automations a month, and routing a type of lead differently is one example in our post on them. Tell us your channels and team and we say whether it fits. WhatsApp and phone are not covered.
Where PROOF48 fits
Lead routing is one rule that gives each new enquiry a single owner, records it in the CRM and moves it on if nobody acts. Use round-robin when your people do the same work, rules when they differ, and always name a fallback owner. We quote no reply-time statistics because we have not measured any. PROOF48's AUTOMATE plan, 2,997 EUR a month, lists no routing feature of its own and does not cover WhatsApp or phone.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.