You've probably heard by now how intelligent lead routing can help sales teams improve their speed to lead and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. But finding the best lead routing software for your business takes special consideration. Your team has unique needs, and all lead routing solutions are not created equal.
Here are the core factors you should consider when choosing a lead routing software provider, how different routing methods work, and whether your existing approach to data can support your routing goals.
What Is Lead Routing?
Lead routing software automates the assignment of incoming leads to the right sales reps based on predefined rules. The software evaluates lead attributes like company size, industry, or location the moment they enter your system, then directs them to the rep best positioned to close the deal.
Here's the basic flow: A lead enters through a form, chat, or other channel. The software applies your routing rules. The lead gets assigned to the appropriate rep. The rep receives a notification to follow up.
Without lead routing, here's what happens:
Reps manually claim leads, creating conflict over ownership
High-value prospects sit in queues waiting for assignment
Leads get assigned to reps who lack the right territory or expertise
Manual handoffs introduce delays that kill conversion rates
With lead routing in place:
Leads reach the right rep instantly based on territory, account ownership, or skill
Distribution happens fairly using round-robin or weighted assignment
No lead sits unworked because assignment is automatic
Reps spend time selling instead of fighting over who owns what
Why Lead Routing Matters for Revenue Teams
Lead routing directly impacts three outcomes that drive revenue:
Speed-to-lead: Faster response times improve conversion. Leads contacted quickly convert at higher rates because buyer intent is highest right after they engage.
Fair distribution: Automated routing prevents cherry-picking and rep conflict. When leads distribute evenly or according to defined rules, teams work more cohesively.
Fewer dropped leads: Every lead gets assigned to someone. Routing ensures accountability because there's always a clear owner.
Lead Routing Methods
Different routing methods solve different problems. Choose the approach that matches your sales motion and team structure:
Round-Robin Routing: Distributes leads evenly across reps in rotation. Use weighted round-robin to assign more leads to senior reps or top performers.
Territory-Based Routing: Assigns leads based on geography, region, or named accounts. Best for field sales teams with defined coverage areas.
Account-Based Routing: Routes leads to the rep who owns the associated account. When a new contact from an existing account submits a form, they go to the account owner automatically.
Priority and Skill-Based Routing: Assigns high-value leads to senior reps or specialists based on lead score or company size. Use this for enterprise deals or vertical expertise matching.
Availability-Based Routing: Routes to reps who are online or have capacity. Use this when speed matters more than perfect rep matching.
ZoomInfo's intelligent lead routing allows you to activate any-object routing and leverage your Salesforce triggers to automate the real-time movement of all kinds of records, including leads, contacts and accounts, directly to your sales team.
Lead-to-Account Matching and Routing
Lead-to-account matching connects new leads to existing accounts in your CRM. When a contact from a company you already do business with fills out a form, matching ensures they route to the rep who owns that account relationship.
This matters for three reasons:
Routes leads to the right account owner: New contacts from existing accounts go to the rep who already knows the company, not a random SDR.
Enables ABM motions: If you run account-based marketing campaigns, automated lead-to-account matching aligns revenue generation teams and enables a seamless customer experience.
Prevents duplicate outreach: Multiple contacts from the same company don't get assigned to different reps, which creates confusion and wastes effort.
Handles account hierarchy: Parent-child company relationships ensure leads route to the correct account owner even with subsidiaries. If someone from a subsidiary fills out a form, they route to the rep who owns the parent account.
Additional revenue-generating routing features include:
Leveraging account hierarchy management
Automating data hygiene and maintaining a healthy database
Enabling enterprise territory management
Automating account-based selling motions with dynamic account teams
Data Enrichment Before Routing
Data is a must-have for accurate lead routing. Automatically routing leads to sales relies on critical fields like industry, employee size, or location being populated and accurate. If those fields are empty or wrong, your routing rules can't work.
Take Spectrum as an example. The telecommunications and mass media company revamped its lead routing process from end to end, saving sales teams days of wasted effort.
"We cut our lead routing time from three days to less than a minute," says Matt Kromer, CRM Marketing Manager at Spectrum. "This has immensely cut down our sales cycle time."
Data quality affects lead routing efforts in several ways:
Incomplete records: Lack of enriched first-party and third-party data harms your conversion rate.
Non-standardized data: Varying job title spelling and address formats disrupt lead scoring and routing accuracy.
Outdated information: Stale data routes leads to the wrong territory or rep based on old company information.
Missing firmographics: Without company size, industry, or revenue data, you can't route based on ICP fit or lead score.
If your lead routing system is the center of your universe, data is the gravity that holds it all together. As you go through the buying journey, consider the data components that must be present so it can run smoothly.
Real-Time Enrichment for Accurate Routing
Real-time enrichment appends missing data at the point of capture so routing decisions use accurate inputs. When a lead enters the system, enrichment adds company size, industry, tech stack, and other firmographic and technographic details before routing logic fires.
Here's how it works: A lead submits a form with only email. Enrichment appends company name, employee count, and industry. Routing rules then assign based on complete data.
Routing based on incomplete data leads to misassignment. A lead might go to the wrong territory because location wasn't populated, or a high-value enterprise prospect gets routed to a junior rep because company size was missing.
Lead Routing Best Practices
Routing is not set-and-forget. The best teams treat it as an ongoing process that requires documentation, monitoring, and adjustment. Here's what separates good routing from broken routing:
Document your routing rules and ownership: Write down who owns what territory, account, or lead type so rules don't break when people leave or territories change.
Define SLAs and follow-up timers: Set response time expectations and track whether reps hit them, because routing means nothing without follow-up.
Build fallback routing for edge cases: Have a default assignment for leads that don't match any criteria so nothing goes unworked.
Audit routing performance regularly: Review routing logs to identify misroutes, track conversion rates by routing rule, and adjust as territories or team structures change.
After implementing better routing, teams work more cohesively and with less conflict.
"Before Route, salespeople literally used to fight over who owned what lead," Kromer says. "Now, leads can be distributed automatically and fairly, using a round-robin approach."
Set SLAs and Follow-Up Timers
Routing without follow-up accountability wastes the speed advantage. You can get a lead to the right rep in seconds, but if that rep doesn't act, conversion rates stay flat.
Here's what to implement:
Define response windows: Set expectations for how quickly reps should contact leads after assignment. This might be 5 minutes for demo requests or 24 hours for content downloads.
Trigger notifications: Send automated alerts when SLAs are at risk. If a rep hasn't touched a lead within the defined window, escalate to a manager.
Auto-reassign unworked leads: Build reassignment rules for leads that sit untouched. If a rep doesn't act within the SLA, route the lead to the next available rep.
Audit and Optimize Routing Performance
Ongoing optimization means reviewing routing logs to identify what's working and what's broken. Track conversion rates by routing rule, adjust as territories change, and identify bottlenecks where leads queue too long.
Here's what to audit:
Misroute frequency: How often do leads go to the wrong rep? High misroute rates signal bad data or outdated rules.
Time-in-queue: How long do leads sit before assignment? Long queue times kill conversion even if routing eventually works.
Conversion by routing path: Which routing rules produce the best outcomes? Double down on what works and fix what doesn't.
Rule exceptions: How many leads don't match any rule and fall into your default bucket? High exception rates mean your rules don't cover enough scenarios.
Common Lead Routing Challenges
Even with automation, routing breaks in predictable ways. Here's what goes wrong and how to fix it:
Misrouted and orphan leads: Leads assigned to the wrong rep or no rep at all. This happens when routing rules don't account for edge cases or when data is missing. Fix it by building fallback routing and enriching data before assignment.
Dirty data and duplicates: Overlapping records create rep conflict and missed opportunities. Duplicate leads and contacts create headaches and inefficiencies for reps trying to contact leads faster. Fix it by implementing deduplication and data cleansing as part of your routing workflow.
Territory changes breaking routing: Rules become stale when territories shift. A rep leaves or coverage areas get redrawn, but routing rules still point to the old structure. Fix it by auditing rules quarterly and updating them when team changes happen.
Lack of visibility: No audit trail for why a lead went where it did. When reps question assignments, you need logs to show how routing logic made the decision. Fix it by choosing routing software that tracks assignment history.
What to Look for in Lead Routing Software
Once you've identified your expectations and goals, compare top lead routing software providers against the features that matter most. Here's what enterprise buyers should prioritize:
Data accuracy and enrichment capabilities: Look for solutions that enrich leads with firmographic, technographic, and intent data before routing with integrated normalization and cleansing features.
Integration depth with CRM and GTM stack: The solution should sync with where reps work, not create another system to check.
Flexibility and customization of routing rules: You need the ability to build multiple round-robin workflows, route any object, and create sophisticated assignment rules with drag-and-drop interfaces.
Automation capabilities beyond basic assignment: The platform should automate lead scoring, segmentation, prioritization, field value updates, and rerouting based on pre-defined rules.
Scalability, security, and compliance: Verify the solution handles volume growth without performance degradation and meets enterprise security and compliance requirements.
It's challenging to piece together a cohesive data management function that cleans, enriches, and updates information in real-time. That's where comprehensive solutions like ZoomInfo's advanced lead routing come into play. With drag-and-drop features, creating a custom routing workflow fueled by world-class data can become second nature, as you connect the steps in your process to any input or activity type.
By incorporating world-class data and next-generation orchestration, an intelligent lead routing system significantly reduces the number of point solutions required for a GTM tech stack.
CRM Integration with Salesforce and HubSpot
Native CRM integration is non-negotiable. Routing must sync with where reps work, not create another system to check. Integration depth matters: can routing rules access custom fields, trigger workflows, and update records bidirectionally?
Here's what to look for by platform:
Salesforce integration points: Assignment rules, lead queues, workflow triggers, custom field access, and real-time sync with opportunity and account records.
HubSpot integration points: Rotation settings, workflow automation, contact and company property access, and bidirectional sync with deals and tickets.
Both platforms support marketing automation integration with tools like Marketo, which extends routing logic to campaign responses and email engagement.
Scalability, Security, and Compliance
Enterprise buyers should ask vendors about three requirements during evaluation:
Volume scalability: Can the solution handle lead volume growth without performance degradation? If you're routing 1,000 leads per month today but expect 10,000 next year, will the system keep up?
Access controls and permissions: Does the solution offer role-based access controls? Can you restrict who can edit routing rules or view lead assignment history?
Compliance certifications: Does the vendor meet GDPR and CCPA requirements for how lead data is processed and stored? Ask about SOC 2 compliance and data handling practices.
Conclusion
Routing leads to the right reps drives higher conversion rates, but choosing the right lead routing software is step one. Find a data-driven approach that gets you:
Simple, customizable routing workflows
Lead assignment automation tools like round-robin
Alignment features to route based on rep availability and skill
Talk to our team to learn how ZoomInfo can help you route leads faster and more accurately.