In This Article:

Lead Ownership keeps Leads with Agents who are the Lead Owners.

For Leads with Lead Owners, no other Agent will be allowed to work with those Leads unless explicitly allowed.

The Lead Owner nurtures the Lead day after day until the sale is closed, and so it is important that when an Agent owns a Lead that they do not lose that Lead to someone else.

• If the Lead is sent to a different Agent, this could result in the Lead becoming confused (“why did this other person call me?”) and subsequently losing interest, or the new Agent may end up making the sale and so would unfairly receive credit for another Agent’s efforts.

Admins should be the only ones that change and assign Lead Ownership. If the Leads are purchased by the Agent, that Agent will be assigned as the Lead Owner automatically when the Leads are inserted through API.

Administrators also have the ability to reassign Leads to new Lead Owners to satisfy business conditions.

Regardless of how the Lead Owner is assigned; whether by the Admin or by being purchased by the Agent, the Dial Method is always a manual dial where the Agent is in control of when to dial their Leads, so they are able to prepare for the conversation.

 

Why an Agent Might Want/Need to Release Ownership

The Agent will need to contact an Admin to have Lead Ownership changed.

• The Lead Owner may determine that they will not be able to close the sale and want to reassign the Lead to another Agent that, historically, has done a good job with this type of Lead.
• The Lead Owner may have too many Leads and wants to release Leads back into the pool so any Agent can pick them up.
• Besides the List of Leads that the Agents own, the business may have purchased additional Leads that are distributed amongst various Agents. Once an Agent starts the sales cycle:
  • The Agent can take Ownership to ensure no other Agent swoops in and takes the Lead from them.

Why an Administrator Might Want to Change Ownership of Leads

• Administrators may need to reassign Leads in the event that the Lead Owner left the company.
  • In these situations, where there are potentially hundreds of Leads that need a new Owner, the Admin can utilize the Mass Edit Leads function.
• The Admin may have determined that the Lead Owner is taking too long or is hoarding Leads so that no other Agent can pick them up.
• The Admin knows there are better-qualified Agents to close specific Leads and will reassign those Leads to those other Agents.
• The Admin wants to prevent Leads from going stale, there still may be an opportunity to close the sale after multiple days of inactivity:
  • The Admin may want to release those Leads back into the pool so that any available Agent can pick them up.
  • Or remove the Lead Owner if Leads are in certain Statuses, or a set of days since last called, and put those Leads back into the Queue to be called again.
• Besides the List of Leads that the Agents own, the business may have purchased additional Leads that are distributed amongst various Agents. Once an Agent starts the sales cycle:
  • The Admin can then have that Agent take Ownership of that Lead.

Table of Contents

• Setup
  • Campaigns
    • • General Settings
      • Dial Settings
    • Leads
    • Hopper
    • Advanced Lead Filter
  • Advanced Configuration
  • Inbound Routing
  • Workflow Automation
  • Admin ACL
  • Lead Form
• Processes
  • Lead API
  • Users API
  • Hopper Population
  • Lead Routing
• Monitoring and Reporting
  • Campaign Hopper
  • Agent Monitor Report
  • Lead Summary Report
  • Mass Edit Leads

Lead Ownership Setup

To implement Lead Ownership, the Administrator must be aware of and/or configure multiple areas in the Convoso system. 

Campaigns

Campaigns Settings is where the bulk of the setup is required.

• Campaign General Settings - General Tab
  Select Normal for the Campaign Type.

  • All other Campaign Types are not valid.

 

• Dial Settings - Outbound Settings Tab
  The Dial Settings defines most of the details of the setup. 

  • The Lead Ownership functionality is only possible with the manual Dial Methods:

    • Preview

    • Preview & Inbound
      

  • The Admin can put in place standard Campaign Settings such as Allow Agents to Skip Leads and whether or not to Reinsert Skipped Leads.
    • • Note: If the Campaign is configured to reinsert skipped Leads on the Leads settings, there will be a restriction where the Secondary Hopper Priority needs to be set to First in First Out rather than Last in First Out so the Lead Owner does not get the same Lead over and over again.
        
  • The Admin must set the Enforce Lead Ownership.
    • That is the main setting that activates Lead Ownership.
    • Select Yes or No from the drop-down in the Enforce Lead Ownership field.
    • Once this is set to Yes, other Campaign Settings are restricted to ensure proper functionality.

To support Lead Owners managing their own Leads, the Preview Time is typically set to unlimited preview time so the Agent/Lead Owner can prepare to take the call.

 

Leads Tab

On the Leads settings, the Secondary Hopper Priority must be set to First in First Out (FIFO).

• If the Campaign were to allow Last in First Out (LIFO), the Lead Owner may be presented with the same Lead over and over again if they skip a Lead.

 

Hopper Tab

On the Hopper tab, the Hopper Level per Agent must be set.

• For regular Campaigns, the Hopper Level is the total number of Leads for the entire Campaign, but when Lead Ownership is enabled, the Hopper Level is now per AGENT. The setting applies to both the Lead Ownership as well as the general Leads.

For Example: If the Hopper Level is set to 50, and only one (1) Agent is logged in to the Campaign, the Hopper will fill with 50 Leads with the Lead Owner filled in, and 50 general Leads for a total of 100 Leads.

• Note: If Agent Skills is also activated, only general Leads that match the Agent's skills will be added.

Advanced Lead Filter

The Advanced Lead Filter is used for assigning Skills to Agents.

For Example: In a health insurance Call Center with Agents that are Licensed in particular States, the Admin should set up an Advanced Lead Filter for the States in which their Agents are Licensed.

Create an Advanced Lead Filter, Click +Add Set, Click +Add Group, Click +Add Item.

• Select State from the first drop-down, select EQUAL TO in the second drop-down, then select the specific State the Agents are licensed in.

Click +Add Group again

Click +Add item again.

• Select Lead Owner from the first drop-down, select EQUAL TO in the second drop-down, then leave the third drop-down empty, (do not make a selection.)

 

Advanced Configuration - Agent Skills

The Admin needs to have Advanced Lead Filters set up to be used as Agent Skills BEFORE enabling Agent Skills, otherwise, they can’t assign Agent Skills.

 

On the Campaign Settings page, click Advanced Configuration, and click the Agent Skills drop-down option.

In addition to having Leads routed to Lead Owners based on the Lead Owner field, additional Leads may be General Leads that do not have a Lead Owner. These Leads should be routed to Agents based on Agent Skills.

• The General Leads will only be routed to Agents using the Advanced Lead Filter once they are finished with ALL the Leads currently in the Hopper that had Lead Owners explicitly defined for them.

For Example: A health insurance company has Agents that are Licensed in particular States. Agents should only get Leads for the States in which they are Licensed.

 

Click the Advanced Lead Filter by Agent toggle switch to Enabled. 

The Admin can set a Default Agent Lead Filter which will route calls to any Agent where no Lead Filter is assigned.

The Admin must also assign Advanced Lead Filters to all applicable Agents, in the User fields.

• If no Agent is logged in with those Skills the Leads will not be placed in the Hopper.

Note: Advanced Lead Filter by Agent can only be Enabled if Enforce Lead Ownership is set to Yes. 

 

Inbound Routing

When a Lead calls back (or calls for the first time), we should respect the Lead Owner.

The Lead Owner may have purchased those Leads or already have cultivated the Lead over time. So when the Lead calls back in, the call should be routed to the Lead Owner.

 

The Inbound Number settings should route the call to the Lead Owner.

• In the Route Call To field of the General section, select Agents in the first drop-down.
• Select Lead Owner in the second drop-down.

However, the Agent might not be online, and so, in order to respect the Lead Ownership, ensure the Route Unavailable Agents toggle switch is set to NO, otherwise, incoming calls could be routed to a different Agent.

Additionally, when the Lead Owner is not found, either there is no Lead Owner, or the Lead Owner is no longer with the company. In these cases, to ensure those calls get routed somewhere, configure the Route Call if Agent Not Found or Unavailable field with a valid destination such as; a Call Center Queue.

Workflow Automation

For the General/shared Leads, the Lead Owner is initially not set. However, once an Agent works with that Lead and the Lead progresses to a certain Disposition status such as Interested or Sale, the Call Center Administrator might want to assign Lead Ownership to the current Agent since that Agent was able to successfully move the Lead forward in the sales process.

To accomplish the lead_owner setting, one can use Workflow Automation.

• Set up a new Workflow Automation based on the object/relation for a Campaign and choose the Campaign(s) that you want to have the Workflow Automation work with.
  
  

Create a Trigger Event based on the Disposition status change such as Interested.

Create a Trigger Action to change the Lead Owner to Agent Submitted.

In the Action Type drop-down select Field.

Select Owner ID in the Field column of the table that appears when Field is selected as the Action Type.

In the Value column, Agent Submitted needs to be selected from the drop-down.

Click the blue Save button to save the Workflow that will change the Lead Owner to the current Agent.

 

Admin ACL

An Administrator may want to change the Lead Owner for many different Leads.

For Example: If an Agent leaves the company and has many Leads assigned to them, the Admin can reassign the Leads to new Owners.

Permissions are controlled via ACLs. The Admin Mass Lead Edit setting controls access to this functionality.

• Super Admins have this ability by default.
• For other Admins that should not have this capability, make sure to create a custom ACL, uncheck the Admin Mass Lead Edit, then assign the custom ACL to those Admins.

 

 

Lead Form

Click the CRM main menu

Click the Lead Layouts & Fields menu option.

Use either the Default Layout: LEAD Form, or create a new Lead Form.

 

The Admin is the only one allowed to change the Lead Owner. Agents should not be allowed to change the Lead Owner Field on their own.

• To ensure Leads cannot control Lead Ownership, the Lead Form must NOT contain the Lead Owner Field. The Lead Owner Field MUST remain in the available Fields and not be put in the Form itself.
  • Note: If the Lead Owner Field is in the Form, Agents will be able to claim Leads which could result in Leads being hoarded by a single or a few Agents, which would keep other Agents from answering/dialing those Leads.

The Lead Owner must inform the Admin that they want to either assign the Lead to someone else or simply clear the Lead Ownership so that it can be put back into the Queue/Hopper for other Agents to pick up that have the correct skill. 

 

 

Processes

The below topics describe the end-to-end process of bringing Leads into the platform, populating the Hopper, Reporting, and changing Lead Ownership.

 

Lead API

Click the API main menu.

Click the Leads option.

If the Call Center wants to utilize the Lead APIs, such as Lead Insert API, for Lead Management including the Lead Owner, they need to use the user_id field to designate the Lead Owner.

The user_id field is a unique Value associated with the User. 

 

Users API

In order to populate the user_id field, first set up mapping between Users and user_ids.

• One option is to use the User Search API to gather all Users.
  
  
• The other option is to export/download the list of Users from the Show Users page.
• Account main menu > Users menu option.
  

Either method will work in order to populate an external mapping table for lookup purposes to populate the Lead API.

 

Note that the Lead Owner user_id Field is not required.

• This means that the Leads can be inserted directly into the Hopper without a Lead Owner. In this case, those Leads will not be routed to an Agent. By inserting the Lead directly into the Hopper we bypass the logic to handle the General Leads.
• Once the Hopper Script runs the next time, those Leads will be flushed from the Hopper and reinserted based upon Agent Skills (assuming at least one Agent matches that Skill.)

When using the Lead Insert API, the Hopper Field designates whether the Lead is inserted directly into the Hopper or not. If the value is set at 0, then the Lead will not be picked up until the next Hopper process is run.

When there is no Lead Owner:

• Best practice is to set the Hopper Value to 0 so that the Lead does not go into the Hopper thus, not giving the impression that it can be dialed when in actuality it can not. 
  • For Example: If you have Agents licensed only for Arizona (AZ) and a Lead without an Owner (thus making it a General Lead) is in California (CA), the CA Lead will not be allowed to be dialed because the General Leads routing logic is bypassed with a direct Hopper insert. The Lead needs to be flushed, then reinserted with the restriction for AZ licensed Agents only.

 

Hopper Population

The Hopper will be filled based on the Hopper Level per Agent. 

When the Hopper loading process runs, Leads will be inserted into the Hopper based on which Agents are currently logged into the Campaign.

• Firstly, the Hopper logic will determine if there are any Leads with the Lead Owner associated with the available Agents that are currently logged into that Campaign. If the Hopper Level Per Agent is set to 100, then 100 Leads will be placed in the Hopper.
• Secondly, the process will load another 100 General Leads into the Hopper based upon the current Agent’s Skills. If no Leads match the Agent’s Skills, then no additional Leads will be inserted. 

Note: The total Leads per Agent is capped at 1,000 per logged in Agent. The limit is capped at 1,000 regardless if there are more than 1,000 Leads. 

 

If the Lead Owner is no longer logged into the Campaign, when the next Hopper load is run, any lead-owner type Leads will be removed from the Hopper 

On any subsequent Hopper load processes, the Hopper will add to the number of Leads currently in the Hopper based upon the Hopper Level per Agent value.

The Hopper will always be populated in chunks of Leads based on that Value. If the number of Leads is less than the setting, then an equal number of Leads will be added.

• For Example: If the Hopper Level per Agent is set to 100, say there are 99 agent-owned Leads and 99 general Leads for the current Agent, the Hopper logic will add another potential 100 agent-owned Leads and 100 general Leads for a total of 398 Leads (199 + 199). 

 

For the General Leads (where no Lead Owner is assigned), for all Agents that have the same Skills, the Hopper will be filled with an equal number of Leads per Agent.

For Example: If 2 Agents are logged in with Skills for California and Arizona (using the 100 value), then 2 x 100 = 200 Leads will be inserted for the General Leads.

• Either of the Agents may be routed to any of these Leads as these Leads are General and not assigned to any particular Agent.  

 

Lead Routing

When Agents login to the Agent Dashboard, the Convoso platform will:

• First route the lead-owner Leads to the applicable Agent(s).
• Once those Leads are exhausted, the system will route the General Leads based on the Agent Skills.

If the number of Leads in the Hopper drops below the designated number per Agent, the next Hopper load process will refill the Hopper to ensure all Agents have enough lead-owner Leads as well as General Leads.

 

Monitoring and Reporting

Campaign Hopper

In the Campaign Settings, in the Hopper tab, the Admin can view the Hopper to see which Leads are in the Hopper and assigned to the various Lead Owners.

• This will allow the Administrator to validate which Leads are available for each Lead Owner.

 

Agent Monitor Report

For Lead Owner managed Campaigns, dialable Leads cannot be calculated.

The Agent Monitor Report page will show Dialable Leads as Not Applicable. 

 

Lead Summary Report

Dialable Leads may vary from Agent-to-Agent.

As such, the Dialable Leads on the Leads Summary should be used as a guideline.

 

Mass Edit Leads

In general, the Lead Owner should be the only Agent that handles the Leads they own, but when the Agent leaves the company, or the Admin decides to change the Lead Ownership for any reason they can reassign Leads to another Agent. 

There could be hundreds or thousands of Leads that need to be reassigned, because the company does not want those Leads go stale, and changing Ownership one by one is not feasible, the Admin can then use the Mass Edit Leads feature on the Leads page, under the Call Center main menu.

See the article on Mass Edit Leads.