Responding to a new lead fast
A form or a booking reaches your database in seconds. What happens in the next five minutes is partly built and partly on the roadmap, and this page separates the two.
- Capture works today
- Auto SMS and callback on the roadmap
- Source recorded on every lead
The short answer
- Available today: a website form or a Calendly booking reaches your instance by webhook, creates or matches a contact, records the source, and can create an owned task immediately.
- On the roadmap: the actions that respond without a person. Automatic SMS, an AI callback, round-robin assignment and an escalation timer for untouched leads all sit in the local-services pack.
- The part that is not a feature at all: someone has to be willing to pick up. Speed to lead is an operating decision that software can support and cannot supply.
Trigger to logged
Where each step stands today, stated plainly.
- 1
Trigger: a form or a booking
The website form posts to your instance's inbound endpoint, or Calendly fires its booking webhook. Both land in seconds. This works today.
- 2
The record is created or matched
Contact matched on email, company attached when there is one, the lead logged on the inbound channel with its source. Today.
- 3
A task appears for an owner
task_create puts the callback on a named person's list with a due time. Today, though assigning it round-robin across a pool is on the roadmap.
- 4
The human sees it
The lead in the inbound queue, the task on a list, and the thread in the shared inbox if the lead came by email. Today.
- 5
The automatic response fires
An acknowledgement SMS, an AI callback, or an escalation when nobody has touched the lead. All on the roadmap, none available.
- 6
What gets logged
The lead with its source, the task and its owner, and every subsequent touch on the timeline. The audit log names who or what did each thing.
What gets configured
Status is a column here because half of this is not shipped.
| Object | What you set | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Inbound endpoint | The webhook your site form posts to | Available |
| Calendly webhook | Booking created, cancelled and rescheduled events | Available |
| Lead source | The value written on every inbound lead | Available |
| Task rules | Who owns a new lead and how soon it is due | Available |
| Spam handling | Throttling on repeated submissions from one source | Available |
| Round-robin pools | The rota that assigns a new lead | On the roadmap |
| Automatic reply SMS | The acknowledgement sent within seconds | On the roadmap |
| AI callback | A voice agent calling the lead back | On the roadmap |
| Untouched-lead escalation | The timer and who it escalates to | On the roadmap |
Where it stops and a human starts
Today it stops early, and pretending otherwise would waste your trial. SalesCrew captures the lead, records where it came from and puts a task in front of a person quickly. The person is the speed.
When the automatic actions ship, they are designed to stop early too. An acknowledgement text buys a few minutes; it does not qualify a buyer or negotiate anything. Every external send starts in review, and a consent gate is part of the plan rather than an afterthought, because texting a consumer mobile in the United States brings the TCPA into it. That is not legal advice.
One thing worth setting up now regardless of the roadmap. Getting the source onto every lead is what makes the whole question measurable later, and it is the step teams skip because it is dull and nothing breaks when they do.
Questions
- Can SalesCrew text a new lead automatically today?
- No. Two-way SMS and the speed-to-lead actions are on the roadmap. If an automatic text within sixty seconds is the reason you are shopping, this is not the product for you this month.
- What is the fastest thing it does today?
- Capture and route. The lead exists in your database with its source and an owned task within seconds of the form being submitted, which is more than a shared inbox gives you.
- How fast should you actually respond?
- Faster than the buyer's next tab. External research on lead response is widely cited and worth reading yourself rather than trusting a number quoted by a vendor with something to sell.