The Lead Intake and Assignment SOP

Purpose

Define the standard way a new lead is captured, qualified, and handed to the right person. A standard operating procedure (SOP) is the written, repeatable process everyone follows the same way, so the result does not depend on who happens to answer the phone. A lead that gets logged inconsistently is a lead that gets dropped: no callback, no owner, no record of where it came from. This SOP makes intake identical whether the owner catches the call, a part-time clerk does, or it arrives at midnight through a web form.

Scope

Applies to every new inbound opportunity:

• Phone calls asking about service or a quote
• Web form and online booking submissions
• Referrals passed in by a customer or another trade
• Walk-ins and calls from a repeat customer requesting new work

Excludes: change requests on an already-booked job (that is a job update, not a lead) and outbound prospecting (a separate process).

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

Step 1: Capture the required fields before anything else

Every lead needs the same minimum record, entered while the caller is still on the line:

• Name and best callback number (repeat back to confirm)
• Service address and whether it differs from billing
• What they need, in their own words
• How they found the business (the marketing source)
• Urgency: emergency, this week, or planning ahead

Do not let a caller off the phone without the callback number and the source. Those two fields are the ones most often skipped and the two you cannot recover later.

Step 2: Qualify with three questions

Qualifying filters a real job from a tire-kicker before it eats a technician's day.

1. Is this in our service area and our trade? Out-of-area or out-of-scope leads get a referral, not a booking.
2. What is driving the timing? A failed unit, a closing date, or an insurance claim signals a ready buyer.
3. Have we worked with you before? A repeat customer routes faster and skips some intake.

Step 3: Log the lead in the system immediately

Enter it in the CRM or lead tracker before the next call, not at end of day. A lead living only in someone's memory or on a sticky note is already leaking. Set the status to New and stamp the date and time.

Step 4: Route by trade, territory, and urgency

Assign using fixed rules, not gut feel:

• Emergency goes to the on-call or nearest available tech now.
• Standard work routes to the queue for that trade and territory.
• Quotes and larger jobs route to whoever runs estimates.

Name a single owner. A lead assigned to "the team" is assigned to no one.

Step 5: Set the follow-up target

First contact speed is the single biggest driver of whether a lead books. Set a hard target and put it on the record:

• Emergency: immediate callback
• Standard lead during business hours: within the hour
• After-hours lead: first thing the next business morning

Step 6: Confirm the handoff

The lead is not intake's problem until closed; it is the assigned owner's. Confirm the owner has seen it (a quick message, a verbal handoff, or a system notification they acknowledge). An unacknowledged assignment sits until someone notices it went cold.

Step 7: Track to an outcome

Every lead ends in one status: Booked, Quoted, Not a fit, or No contact after the cadence. A lead with no closing status is why the pipeline never reconciles and why the owner cannot tell which marketing source actually pays.

Records and retention

Keep lead records and their source and outcome for at least a year. The source-to-booked ratio is what tells the owner which advertising to keep and which to cut.

Common intake failures

• No source captured. Marketing spend cannot be judged.
• No single owner. The lead falls between people.
• Slow first contact. The customer books the shop that called back first.
• No closing status. The pipeline never balances.

References

• SBA guidance on customer acquisition and lead management for small businesses
• FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule, 16 CFR Part 310, for callback timing and consent
• See related: Missed Call Recovery Process for Service Businesses
• Trade-standard practice for field-service intake and dispatch