Glossary
Plain definitions of the terms used in lead qualification, lead scoring, and routing, each answered in a sentence or two.
21 terms
A
- AI intake formAn AI intake form is a website form where an AI chats with each visitor, asks a follow-up question when an answer is vague, and saves the answers. A service business gets each inquiry with the job, the timing, and the place already asked.
- ANUM frameworkANUM is a checklist for deciding whether an inquiry is worth a call. It checks four things, in this order: Authority (can they say yes), Need (what problem they have), Urgency (how soon they need it fixed), and Money (whether they can pay). It asks who decides first and the budget last.
C
- CHAMPCHAMP is a sales checklist for deciding whether a lead is worth a call. It checks four things in order: Challenges, who has the Authority to say yes, the Money they can spend, and their Prioritization (how high it ranks). Starting with the problem shows a small business first whether it can help.
- Conversational formA conversational form is a web form that asks one question at a time, like a chat. The visitor answers in their own words, and the form can ask again when an answer is vague. A service business then gets inquiries with the details it needs to decide what to do next.
F
- FAINTFAINT stands for Funds, Authority, Interest, Need, and Timing. It is a sales checklist of five things to learn about a lead before you spend time on a call. The F means Funds, whether the lead can pay, and not Fit.
- First response timeFirst response time is a measure of how long an inquiry waits for its first reply, from the moment it arrives to the moment someone answers it. For a service business, it is how long a new customer waits to hear back while they may still be asking other businesses.
- Fit vs engagement scoringFit and engagement are the two things a lead score can measure. Fit is how well an inquiry matches what a business sells, such as budget, location, or timeline. Engagement is how much a person has done on the business's site or emails, such as pages viewed or emails opened.
- Form completion rateForm completion rate is how many people finish a form, divided by how many it counts as starting. The number depends on that starting point: everyone who saw the form, or only those who began typing. For a service business, it shows how many inquiries a form loses.
G
H
L
- Lead leakageLead leakage is a loss that happens when an inquiry reaches a business and never gets a reply. Nobody answered, so the work was lost before anyone decided whether it was a fit. For a small service business, each leaked inquiry is a job that may go to someone else.
- Lead qualificationLead qualification is a yes or no check on each inquiry: does it fit the work a business does? A yes gets a meeting. For a service business, that means checking a few facts, such as the job, the place, and the budget, before anyone books a call.
- Lead routingLead routing is a set of rules that decides what happens to each inquiry after it arrives, such as a call today, a booked time, an email reply, or a polite no. When the owner does all the selling, routing decides what to do first, not who gets the lead.
- Lead scoringLead scoring is giving each inquiry a number for how well it matches what a business wants, so the inquiries most likely to become customers are answered first.
- Lead triageLead triage is a way of sorting new inquiries into priority bands, such as Hot, Warm, and Cold. Each band names one person who owns the inquiry and how fast they reply. The best-fit inquiries get the quickest answer, and every inquiry has someone responsible for it.
M
R
S
- Sales accepted lead (SAL)A sales accepted lead (SAL) is a lead the sales team has agreed to follow up after marketing passed it on as a likely fit. It sits between a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and a sales qualified lead (SQL). Most teams of one to ten people can skip it, because one person does both jobs.
- Skip logicSkip logic is a form rule that jumps a visitor past questions that do not apply to them, based on an answer they already gave. Someone who says they rent, for example, never sees questions meant for owners. It keeps the form short for each person.
- Speed to leadSpeed to lead is a measure of the time between someone sending an inquiry and getting a real answer: a reply to what they asked, a call, or a time to talk. An automatic "we got your message" email does not stop the clock, because it tells them nothing new.
T
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