Overview

What it is: An intelligent inbound lead qualification + auto-routing engine.

Goal: Respond instantly, qualify using rules + AI, score business fit, route to the right workflow, and sync every action to the CRM.

Why it matters: Eliminates slow response times and manual sorting, so high-value leads get attention within minutes.

Architecture (4-layer system)

1. Entry layer (lead capture)
   • Captures leads from: website forms, Calendly, landing pages, funnels, direct email.
   • Normalizes everything into a unified JSON schema.
   • Example fields: name, email, company, website, budget range, inquiry type, message, timestamp, UTM params.
2. Processing + qualification logic
   • Rule-based filtering
     • Invalid email
     • Personal domains (optional, if B2B)
     • Missing required fields
     • Spam patterns
   • AI-based qualification
     • GPT classification extracts intent, urgency, business model, revenue signals.
     • Outputs structured JSON (intent score, budget indicator, recommended tier).
     • Produces: Tier (A/B/C), Intent Score (1–10), Deal potential estimate.
3. Routing + action engine
   • Conditional branch execution based on tier.
   • Tier A: SMS alert + priority email + direct booking link + CRM tag “Hot Lead”.
   • Tier B: nurture sequence + 48h follow-up + SDR queue assignment.
   • Tier C: educational sequence + long-term nurture, no rep allocation.
4. CRM sync + analytics
   • Real-time CRM updates: lead score, status, assigned rep, follow-up stage, engagement activity.
   • Dashboard tracks: response time, lead volume by source, conversion by tier, rep speed.

Step-by-step flow

1. Lead submission trigger
   • Webhook fires → validate + format → duplicate check.
2. Validation + enrichment
   • Email syntax + MX verification
   • Domain enrichment
   • Company size estimate (API or scraping)
   • Failures are flagged and stored separately.
3. AI intent analysis
   • Sends message to GPT with strict output schema.
   • Returns structured JSON like:
     • intent_score
     • budget_indicator
     • urgency
     • recommended_tier
4. Smart response generation
   • Drafts a contextual first reply referencing the user’s message.
   • Injects the right booking link.
   • Targets < 60 seconds to first touch.
5. Routing execution
   • Triggers Slack notifications, SMS alerts, CRM updates, email sequences, calendar links.
6. Logging
   • Logs every step for reporting (Sheets, Airtable, or native CRM dashboards).

Key components (conceptual)

• automation/inbound_webhook_handler.js
• automation/lead_validator.py
• automation/ai_qualifier.py