Tighten Lead Scoring, Routing, and SLAs

Why Great Leads Still Get Lost in Weak Systems

You can have sharp ICP definitions, aligned teams, strong messaging and good discovery – and still watch great opportunities leak out of your funnel.

Often, the problem is not the people or the leads. It’s the system that sits between them:

• Lead scoring that rewards the wrong behaviours.
• Routing rules that send high-value opportunities to the wrong place.
• SLAs that exist on paper but not in practice.

If you want to know how to inject more qualified leads into my pipeline, you need to make sure your scoring, routing and SLAs support your definition of “qualified”, rather than undermining it.

This article takes Step 7 of our guide on how to inject more qualified leads into my pipeline and goes deeper into how to tune the machinery of your funnel.

Make Lead Scoring Serve Your Qualification Model

Lead scoring should be a shortcut to your qualification model – not a black box that no-one trusts.

Start by revisiting the elements you defined in Step 1:

• Fit – account and buyer profile.
• Pain and intent – evidence of real problems and motivation to act.
• Potential value – scale and strategic importance.

Then design scoring rules that reflect these priorities:

• Weight fit signals heavily – ICP industry, size, region, tech stack, known roles.
• Weight high-intent behaviours – demo requests, pricing views, return visits, specific content consumption.
• De-prioritise or cap scores from low-intent actions – generic content downloads, single email opens or one-off website visits.

Keep the model simple enough that Sales, Marketing and RevOps can explain it in plain language. If no-one understands why a lead scored 97 instead of 34, they won’t trust it.

Avoid Common Lead Scoring Traps

As you refine scoring, watch out for common traps:

• Over-indexing on activity
  Treating every click or open as equal, regardless of fit or intent.
• Ignoring negative signals
  Not reducing scores for unsubscribes, out-of-office replies, student emails or competitor domains.
• One-size-fits-all models
  Using the same scoring rules for very different segments or products.
• Set-and-forget
  Never revisiting the model as your ICP, offerings or buyer behaviour change.

Build in a regular review cadence where you compare scored leads against actual outcomes and adjust weights accordingly.

Route High-Value Leads to the Right People, Fast

Routing determines who actually speaks to your leads – and how quickly.

For high-intent, high-fit leads you should be able to answer:

• Who gets notified, and how?
• How quickly should they respond?
• What happens if they don’t?

Practical steps:

• Define a clear set of “hot lead” criteria – for example, ICP fit + demo request + senior buyer role.
• Route these directly to the most appropriate person – this might be a specialist SDR, a specific AE pod or a vertical team.
• Use round-robin or weighted rules for lower-intent leads, while protecting capacity for hot leads.
• Ensure routing logic is transparent and documented so teams know what to expect.

Test routing regularly by creating sample leads and tracking what happens in real time.

Set SLAs That Reflect Lead Value and Buyer Expectations

Not every lead needs the same response time. But some leads need it to be very fast.

Design SLAs that match:

• Lead value – based on ICP fit, intent and potential deal size.
• Buyer expectations – especially for demo requests, inbound consultations and direct referrals.

For example:

• Hot ICP demo request: response within 1 hour during business hours (or faster if you can sustain it).
• High-fit, moderate-intent inbound: response same day.
• Early-stage content interactions: response within 24–48 hours, often via automated nurture.

Make SLAs visible:

• Build them into dashboards and alerts.
• Review adherence in team meetings.
• Call out positive and negative examples.

The goal is to ensure that when someone raises their hand in a meaningful way, they aren’t left waiting.

Connect SLAs to Real Behaviour, Not Just Documentation

An SLA that lives only in a slide deck won’t change outcomes.

To embed SLAs in behaviour:

• Integrate them into your routing rules – for example, reassigning hot leads if not touched within a set timeframe.
• Use alerts and reminders in your CRM or engagement tools to flag at-risk leads.
• Include SLA adherence in team and individual scorecards, especially for roles owning early-stage response.

Be prepared to refine SLAs if they prove unrealistic or if they create perverse behaviours (for example, rushed, low-quality responses just to meet a time metric).

Align Scoring, Routing and SLAs With Sales Capacity

Your system must reflect reality: who you actually have available to respond.

If you route every high-scoring lead to a small group of people without considering capacity, you will create bottlenecks and drop balls.

Work with Sales leadership to:

• Map current capacity – how many high-intent leads can each SDR or AE realistically handle well.
• Adjust thresholds for hot leads so that volume matches capacity.
• Consider specialisation (for example, inbound vs outbound, strategic vs volume) to balance load.

Revisit this regularly as teams grow, territories shift or campaigns change.

Use Feedback Loops to Refine the System

Scoring, routing and SLAs should evolve as you learn.

Set up simple feedback loops where:

• SDRs and AEs can flag mis-scored or misrouted leads.
• Marketing and RevOps review examples monthly to spot patterns.
• Adjustments to rules and thresholds are communicated clearly.

Questions to explore:

• “Which high-scoring leads consistently turn out to be poor quality?”
• “Which low-scoring leads are we glad we didn’t ignore?”
• “Where do SLAs feel helpful, and where do they feel unrealistic?”

This keeps the system grounded in lived experience, not just configuration screens.

Measure the Impact of Changes on Lead Quality

As you tighten scoring, routing and SLAs, track their impact on:

• Response times for different lead categories.
• Conversion rates from scored lead → meeting → opportunity → qualified opportunity.
• Win rates and deal value by source and segment.
• Rep feedback on the quality of leads they receive.

Compare before and after major changes so you can see whether you are moving closer to a clean, healthy, sufficient pipeline.

How Step 7 Supports Injecting More Qualified Leads

Tightening scoring, routing and SLAs is an essential part of how to inject more qualified leads into my pipeline.

It ensures that:

• Your definition of “qualified” is reflected in your systems, not just in theory.
• High-value leads reach the right people, at the right time.
• Teams trust the signals your tools are giving them.

Use this article alongside the main guide on how to inject more qualified leads into my pipeline to review how your current setup helps or hinders lead quality – and to design changes that make your funnel machinery work in favour of the right leads, not just more leads.