Luis García, GTM engineer and founder of Drivant. About four years building GTM systems for B2B SaaS, fintech, HR-tech and staffing companies, from early-stage startups to established teams. How I work
The routing decision, in the order it should run
- Lead arrivesform, signal, import
- then → Matched to account?
- Matched to account?domain + hierarchy
- yes → Owner active?
- no → Territory / round-robin
- Owner active?not a leaver or API user
- yes → Owner within window
- no → Named fallback
- Territory / round-robinnet-new only
- then → Owner set once
- Owner within window
- missed → Named fallback
- Named fallbackout, full, or missed SLA
- Owner set onceno later overwrite
Takeaway. Most routing bugs live in the first two diamonds, not in the assignment rule.
Who it reached, and who should have had it.
| Inbound lead | Matched account | Routed to | Should have gone to | Minutes to touch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Existing customer, expansion | No (name mismatch) | Round-robin | Account manager | 310 |
| Subsidiary of named account | Subsidiary only | Territory rep | Strategic AE | 95 |
| Net-new, in territory | None, correct | Territory rep | Territory rep | 12 |
| Owner left in June | Yes | Inactive user | Fallback queue | No touch |
Illustrative sample of four leads. Pull 50 of your own the same way.
What it looks like from the inside.
Existing customers routed as new business
An expansion lead lands with a new-business rep, or two reps call the same company in one week.
Leads assigned to people who left
Inbound sits untouched for days with no alert, because technically it has an owner.
The right owner, then overwritten
Reps see the owner change minutes after creation and stop trusting the field.
Fast assignment, slow response
Routing reports look healthy while time to first touch is measured in hours.
Subsidiaries and parents handled differently
A lead from a subsidiary goes to round-robin while its parent is a named strategic account.
When a rep leaves, what happens to the next lead from one of their accounts? The Pipeline Leak Teardown answers questions like this one for your company, in one page, without a call.
Get the teardownTradeoffs we decide together, in writing.
| Account owner first, or territory first | Account-first protects existing relationships and expansion; territory-first protects coverage and fairness. We write the precedence down so it stops being decided by whichever automation runs last. |
|---|---|
| Strict matching or generous matching | Strict domain matching sends fewer leads to the wrong rep but leaves more unmatched. Fuzzy name matching catches more and misroutes some. We set it from your misroute cost, not from habit. |
| Response window and fallback | How long an owner has before the lead moves on, and to whom. Short windows win speed; long ones protect relationships. It's a commercial rule, so leadership signs it. |
What I check in the first 48 hours.
Of your last 50 inbound demo requests from companies you already sell to, how many reached that account's owner? That question usually opens the audit. Then, in order:
- A sample of recent inbound: who it matched, who it went to, who should have had it, and minutes to first touch
- Accounts and companies without a usable domain, and accounts owned by inactive users or integration users
- Every process that can write the owner field, in the order it actually executes
- How free-mail, reseller and shared domains are handled before matching
- Whether routing reads the account hierarchy for subsidiaries and regional entities
- What happens when a matched owner is out, over capacity or misses the response window
Questions.
Do we need a dedicated routing tool?
Not necessarily. Most routing problems are matching data and precedence rules, which have to be fixed whatever executes them. We decide on tooling only after those rules are written.
Can routing use buying signals, not just form fills?
Yes. The custom signals from the pipeline engine can raise priority or route accounts showing intent to a named owner, with the same precedence rules as inbound.
How do you measure that routing is fixed?
Three numbers before and after: share of inbound from existing accounts reaching the account owner, share of leads with an inactive owner, and median minutes to first touch.
Does this work for HubSpot and Salesforce?
Yes. The mechanics differ, and they're covered on the HubSpot and Salesforce pages, but the matching and precedence decisions are the same.