Lead management
Acknowledge in a minute, qualify, chase the quote, never forget.
Most lost sales in a Zimbabwean SME are not lost to a competitor's price. They are lost to a quote that went out and was never followed up, or a WhatsApp that sat unread for six hours. This is the automation that fixes both.
The Zimbabwean situation
What usually goes wrong
A tenant enquiry comes through a property portal at 21:40. The agent sees it at 08:15, replies at 10:00, and the tenant has viewed two other flats. A hardware customer asks for a quote on 40 bags of cement; the quote goes out on Tuesday and nobody asks on Friday whether they bought. A workshop quotes a clutch replacement and the customer "will come back" and does not.
None of this is a people problem. It is that the first reply and the follow-up depend on someone remembering, in a business where the same person also serves the counter.
What we build
What gets built
- Acknowledge in under a minute. Every new lead, from every source, gets a reply that names the business and asks the qualifying question.
- Qualify and assign. Area, budget, timing, product. Assignment by rule (round-robin, branch, product line), with the transcript.
- Chase the quote. 24h / 72h / 7d templates that stop the moment the customer replies, and escalate to the rep when the customer asks a question.
- Stale-deal alarm. No activity for N days flags the manager and, optionally, reassigns.
- Lost reasons. Closing a deal as lost requires one of your reasons; the monthly report shows why you lose.
How it works
The flow, end to end
What it needs from you
- Your lead sources and access to each (WhatsApp number, portal login for alerts, Facebook page).
- The two questions that tell you whether a lead is worth a rep's time.
- Your assignment rule and what "stale" means in days.
- Your follow-up wording, or agreement to use ours (it is short and polite).
- A list of lost reasons you actually want to track.
Timeline shape
| Phase | Typical span | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Scoping | 1 week | List lead sources, agree the qualifying questions, the assignment rule and the follow-up cadence. |
| Build | 2–3 weeks | Source connectors, acknowledgement and qualification flow, assignment, cadence templates, lost-reason capture, reports. |
| Pilot | 2 weeks | Live on one source first; reply times and conversion tracked from day one. |
| Run | ongoing | Monthly: cadence tuning, template quality, source performance. |
Spans are typical shapes, not quotes. The process page explains what moves them.
What it costs
What drives the price
A single-source build with a three-step cadence is one of the smallest projects we do. Cost rises with sources, qualification depth and how much of the quoting happens outside the CRM.
We do not publish package prices because the drivers below move the number by multiples. The pricing page lists every driver with sourced platform costs.
| Driver | Effect on cost |
|---|---|
| Number of lead sources | WhatsApp only is the simplest; adding portals, Facebook and forms adds connectors. |
| Qualification depth | Two questions is a flow; scoring against budget, area and timing is an agent-style build. |
| Cadence length and volume | Each follow-up outside the 24-hour window is a template Meta charges for; volume drives the monthly fee. |
| Assignment rules | Round-robin is simple; by branch, product line and rep capacity is more. |
| Where quotes are produced | A quote in the CRM triggers the cadence directly; a PDF from a separate system needs a bridge. |
Questions we get asked
How fast should the first reply be?
Under a minute, automatically, every time. That first reply is not a sales pitch; it acknowledges, asks the one or two qualifying questions, and tells the person what happens next. A human then has hours instead of seconds.
Will customers mind talking to a bot?
They mind silence more. The first message says who you are and that a person will follow. Anyone who types "human" or asks a question the flow cannot answer is handed over with the transcript.
What does a follow-up cadence look like?
For quotes, a common shape is 24 hours ("did the quote come through?"), 72 hours ("any questions on it?") and 7 days ("shall we close the file or hold the price?"). Each step is a utility or marketing template depending on timing and consent; the cadence stops the moment the customer replies.
Can it work with leads from property portals or Facebook?
Yes. Portal email alerts are parsed, Facebook lead forms are connected directly, WhatsApp is native. Each source is tagged so you can see which ones convert.
What about leads that a rep is sitting on?
A deal with no activity for the agreed time is flagged to the manager and, if you choose, reassigned. The rule is visible to the team from day one.
Next step
Scope it before you book it
Fill in the scoping worksheet (five minutes, no sign-up). It produces a summary you can paste into WhatsApp or email, so the first call starts with the actual work.