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Lead management: assigning, claiming, and ownership

To help ensure leads are managed and worked efficiently, leads have three ownership statuses: Unassigned, Assigned, and Owned. There are a number of ways that leads move to each of these statuses, including automated and manual assignment and manual claiming and releasing of leads.

Automatically assigned leads

Nightly assignment process

Sellfire will automatically assign leads to reps every night (if there are available leads under the reps’ assigned industries, sub industries, lead sources, channel, states, and custom fields) to help ensure all reps have workable leads the next day. Leads automatically assigned to reps as part of this process populate in specific reps’ Active Queues for one day. If they dial those leads prior to the end of the day, the leads move to the owned status and are owned by that rep for the duration of time set in the organization's Ownership Rules (under System Configuration > Lead Management > Rules of Engagement). If they do not dial those leads, those leads will be reassigned or unassigned and moved back to the organization's lead pool at the end of the day as part of the nightly lead assignment process.

By default, Sellfire assigns 75 leads per rep per night, but Enablement users can change this amount for their organization by contacting our Support team (support@sellfire.com).

The following fields can be used to determine the types of leads specific reps receive on a nightly basis by navigating to System Configuration > Your Organization > Sales Teams, and clicking the edit icon next to the reps' names.

  • Industry
  • Sub industry
  • Lead source
  • Channel
  • State
  • Custom dropdown
  • Custom multi-select dropdown
  • Custom boolean (checkbox)

This nightly assignment can be turned off for reps in this section by selecting Only Assign the "No Leads (No Auto Assignment)" industry.

Leads assigned in this way specifically (and not yet dialed) can be claimed by any reps as part of the self-sourcing and lead claiming processes described below.

Routing Rules

Once configured by Enablement users through System Configuration > Transfers and Routing > Routing Rules, inbound lead Routing Rules will automatically assign newly created and/or updated leads to groups of reps of your choosing based on specific criteria. These leads will be owned by the receiving reps for the duration outlined in the "Owned Leads & Ownership Rules" section below.

Salesforce and HubSpot integrations

Once the fields needed to support this are created/updated in Salesforce and/or HubSpot, the integrations are connected via Sellfire, and the fields are mapped back to Sellfire via System Configuration > Integrations > More Actions > Field mapping, leads can be assigned to reps in Sellfire based on changes made to those fields in Salesforce and/or HubSpot.

Manually assigned leads

Leads can be manually assigned in different ways by Rep, Manager, and Enablement users. When assigned in these ways, leads will be owned by the receiving reps for the duration outlined in the "Owned leads & ownership rules" section below.

Reps

Reps can reassign individual leads that are assigned to or owned by them to other reps in the following ways:

    • Click into the Lead Detail page by clicking on the business name in a Lead Card, the System View > My Leads table, or by finding the lead in the drill down table in the Performance Dashboard. Then click the REASSIGN LEAD button in the upper right corner, and select the rep to whom the lead should be assigned.

    • If the lead has an upcoming event, navigate to the calendar view of the My Schedule section in the center pane of the Dialer screen, find the event, expand the lead card for the lead, click Reassign Lead, and select the rep to whom the lead should be assigned.

Managers

Managers can assign any individual lead in the lead pool by finding the lead in a drill down table in the Dashboard, clicking on the business name to access the Lead Detail page, clicking the Reassign Lead button in the upper right corner, and selecting the rep to whom the lead should be assigned.

If organizations have given specific managers access to the System View > All Leads section via the System Configuration > Your Organization > Sales Teams section, managers can filter, sort, search, and access the Lead Detail page of any lead in the organization's lead pool and assign leads individually from the Lead Detail page.

Enablement

Enablement can assign any individual lead in the lead pool through the Lead Detail page, System View > All Leads, and .csv imports. They can assign leads in bulk through System View > All Leads, the System Configuration > Sales Teams Your Organization > Refill Queue button, .csv imports (System Configuration > Lead Management > Import Leads), and by configuring lead Routing Rules through the System Configuration > Routing Rules section.

Owned leads & ownership rules

Owned leads cannot be automatically reassigned by Sellfire (unless configured to reassign owned leads in Routing Rules) or claimed by any other reps, but they can be reassigned by the rep who owns that lead or users with Enablement & Manager Editions. Leads move to the owned status with the actions included below. The duration of ownership based on each of these is set by an Enablement user on a per-organization basis in System Configuration > Lead Management > Rules of Engagement > Ownership Rules.

Edition Type

Action

Default Ownership Duration*

Rep

Dial lead

5 days

Dial lead and contact prospect**

14 days

Claim existing lead from the organization’s lead pool

7 days***

Self-source lead not already in the organization’s lead pool

28 days

Reassign a lead to another rep

7 days***

Future specific time scheduled event (specific time callback, demo, decision call)

Until event has passed

Manager & Enablement

Assign an individual lead from the Lead Detail page

7 days***

Enablement

Assign an individual or bulk leads from the System View > All Leads section, .csv import, or individual lead import.

7 days***

Routing Rules (configured by Enablement users)

Automatically assign specific leads to specific groups of reps upon lead creation and/or lead update from .csv lead imports and third-party integrations.

7 days***

* All of these durations (except for specific time scheduled events) can be changed for an organization by a user with an Enablement Edition by navigating to System Configuration > Lead Management > Rules of Engagement > Ownership Rules.

** Enablement users are able to toggle on non-call activities counting as contacts in this setting through System Configuration > Lead Management > Rules of Engagement > Ownership Rules. These include non-call activity flows (clicking Log Non-Call Activity) that reps complete via lead cards in Sellfire and .csv imports of activities via System Configuration > Lead Management > Import Activities.

*** These durations are all controlled by the number in the Claim From the Lead Pool section of System Configuration > Lead Management > Rules of Engagement > Ownership Rules.

Resting & on-deck leads

Leads will be moved to “resting” and “on-deck” phases for periods of time based on call results and non-call activities that reps select. Resting removes reps’ ownership of leads and places them back in your organization’s lead pool after your configured resting timeframes are complete. On-deck retains reps’ ownership of leads as long as they are within the timeframes of your configured ownership rules.

Resting (removes lead ownership)

If a prospect has explicitly stated that they are not interested in your product, organizations typically wait for periods of time before reassigning those leads to a rep to attempt again. The specific lengths of time that leads are in resting can be configured by a user with an Enablement Edition by navigating to System Configuration > Lead Management > Rules of Engagement > Resting Rules, but default resting times are 60 days for “Regular Resting” and 180 days for “Long Resting.” Regular resting applies to leads where the prospect stated they were not interested prior to seeing a demo, and long resting applies to leads where the prospect stated they were not interested after seeing a demo.

During the resting period, leads remain attached to reps in the backend database to ensure that if the prospect calls back during that resting period, the call is routed to the rep who most-recently owned the lead. Reps are able to search for these leads in the search bar at the top of the Dialer section until the resting period is complete, but they are NOT visible to reps in their System View > My Leads section to help prevent them inadvertently adding them to their Custom queues to dial again.

Once the resting period is complete, the lead will be made available for reps to claim and/or will be reassigned with the daily Sellfire lead assignment process. It is possible that the same lead will be reassigned to the rep who most-recently owned it after resting is complete.

Resting leads in the lead pool cannot be claimed by reps but can be assigned to reps by users with Enablement and Manager Editions.

On-deck (retains lead ownership)

If a prospect hasn’t explicitly stated that they are not interested in your product, some call results put leads on-deck for shorter periods of time before they’re re-populated in reps’ Active Queues. Reps’ ownership of these leads is retained during these shorter on-deck periods. Using this functionality, reps are able to focus on more-valuable leads with which they have confirmed specific-time events (which will auto-populate in their Next Dial section when approaching the event times) while knowing that the leads that don't have future specific-time events will cycle back into their Active Queues to be dialed at a time when they are more likely to progress those leads down the sales funnel.

Example: If a rep cold calls a prospect in the morning and is unable to contact them, by default this lead will be moved to on-deck until the afternoon two days later to improve their chances of making contact.

If reps select call results that will place leads into resting or on-deck phases, they will receive notifications similar to the below prior to confirming that call result that informs them of the impact of that call result:

Claiming & self-sourcing leads

Reps are able to claim existing leads that are unassigned and not in Resting, Retired, or Customer phases from an organization’s lead pool, and if a lead does not already exist in their organization’s lead pool, they are able to add that lead so that they can manage it through Sellfire. Primary and alternate phone numbers are referenced to determine whether or not leads already exist in the lead pool.

Sellfire red / yellow / green Google Chrome extension

The Sellfire red / yellow / green Google Chrome extension helps streamline the process of self-sourcing leads. Once installed and activated, when searching in the Google Chrome browser, phone numbers will be highlighted red, yellow, or green based on their current availability in the organization's lead pool.

    • Red = In the organization’s lead pool but currently on a lead that is owned by a rep or in a Resting, Retired, or Customer phase. These cannot be claimed.
    • Yellow = In the organization’s lead pool but NOT currently on a lead that is owned by a rep or in a Resting, Retired, or Customer phase. These can be claimed.
    • Green = Not in the organization’s lead pool. These can be added as self-sourced leads.

Reps are able create new leads in Sellfire directly through the extension when searching online by clicking on phone numbers that are highlighted green. Once a green-highlighted phone number is clicked, that number will populate in the Primary Phone Number field on a modal that will appear on the right side of the rep's browser (shown below) where they can enter all additional required information and click Create + Claim Lead at the bottom of the modal.

How to install

      1. Find in the Google Chrome web store here
      2. Click “Add to Chrome” and then “Add Extension.”
      3. Click the puzzle piece at the top right of the Google Chrome browser (shown below) to access your extensions, and then click the pin next to the Sellfire extension to provide easy access to it moving forward.
      4. Click on the icon next to the puzzle piece to open the extension (shown below).
      5. Login using your Sellfire Rep Edition username and password.

How to update

      1. Click the puzzle piece at the top right of the Google Chrome browser to access your extensions.
      2. Click Manage Extensions.
      3. Toggle on Developer mode.
      4. Click Update.

Claiming leads

Reps can claim unassigned leads that already exist in Sellfire in three ways:

    1. When using the Sellfire red / yellow / green Google Chrome extension.
    2. By clicking on the ADD LEAD button at the top of the left pane of the Dialer next to the search bar (shown below), entering the phone number*, and clicking Claim Lead at the bottom of the form. If the phone number already exists on a lead and the lead is owned by another rep, in a resting phase, retired, or in the customer phase, the phone number will be highlighted red, and the lead cannot be claimed.
    3. While not recommended by Sellfire as a best practice for ensuring the highest-value leads get to the reps who have the highest likelihood of closing them, organizations are able to give their reps view access to all leads in their lead pool where they can claim available leads in bulk. With this access, Reps can navigate to System View > All Leads via the lead card icon in their left navigation bar, apply filters, sort, and/or search all of the leads in the organization's lead pool. From there, they can claim any unowned leads that are not resting, retired, or customers by clicking the checkbox next to the leads that they want to claim and clicking BULK ACTIONS > Claim Leads.
      This access is turned off for reps by default. To provide reps with this access, reach out to our Support team (support@sellfire.com).

      * You are able to copy/paste phone numbers with symbols and/or spaces into the phone number field in Sellfire. After you have pasted the phone number into Sellfire, click out of the field so that Sellfire can normalize the formatting and determine the number's Sellfire status.

Self-sourcing leads

Reps are able to bring new leads into Sellfire through the Sellfire red / yellow / green Google Chrome extension or by clicking on the Add Lead button in the top left pane of the Dialer next to the search bar, filling out the required information in the form*, and clicking Create & Claim Lead at the bottom of the form.

* You are able to copy/paste phone numbers with symbols and/or spaces into the phone number field in Sellfire. After you have pasted the phone number into Sellfire, click out of the field so that Sellfire can normalize the formatting and determine the number's Sellfire status.

Releasing leads

If reps have been unable to contact a lead after a number of attempts deemed appropriate by your organization, they may select the Release Lead option found under any lead card in the Dialer. This will place the lead into a resting period for an amount of time that is configured by a user with an Enablement Edition in System Configuration > Rules of Engagement > Resting Rules after which it will be made available for other reps to claim and/or will be reassigned in the daily Sellfire lead assignment process once the resting period is complete.

Reps can also unassign leads from themselves in bulk by navigating to System View > My Leads, clicking the checkbox next to the leads that they want to unassign, and then clicking BULK ACTIONS > Unassign Leads. Leads unassigned in this way will not go into a resting phase and will be automatically available to be claimed or assigned from the lead pool.

Customer & retired leads

Some call results and non-call activities move leads to Customer or Retired phases and remove them from automated circulation (though they can still be manually assigned by Enablement and Manager users or through Routing Rules if you have configured those statuses to be assigned).

For example, when a sale is made, the lead is moved to the Customer phase. If the DNC call result is selected when a prospect requests to be placed on the Do Not Call list, the lead is moved to the Retired phase. Similar to when leads are placed in resting phases, a notification will appear letting reps know when a call result will result in the lead being moved to the Customer or Retired phases and subsequently out of circulation.

Leads can also be moved to Customer and Retired phases from the HubSpot and Salesforce integrations if the phase field is mapped from those integrations to Sellfire.