Where your lead hand-off from marketing to sales typically breaks

The lead exists but belongs to a shared queue, a catch-all user, or nobody. No rep sees it in their list, so the response-time clock runs with no one watching.

Why it happens. The assignment rule has no branch for this lead (a new country, a new product, a blank field), so it falls to a default.

Usually fixed by: Sales or revenue operations (routing rules).
Kind of break, one of six: Condition: does a rule that should always hold, hold?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.

A lead or account is owned by someone who is deactivated. Updates to it can be refused, and no one is following up.

Why it happens. When people leave, their records are not reassigned and the routing still names them.

Usually fixed by: CRM admin and sales operations (an offboarding checklist).
Kind of break, one of six: Condition: does a rule that should always hold, hold?
Sources: Vendor documentation

A new lead from a company you already sell to goes round-robin to whoever is next, not to the account's owner. The customer gets a second rep, or a cold sequence.

Why it happens. Routing looks at the lead's own fields and does not look the company up first.

Usually fixed by: Sales operations (routing rules).
Kind of break, one of six: Condition: does a rule that should always hold, hold?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.

The enrolment shows active, yet the next step never fires. The lead looks worked in reports and is not being worked.

Why it happens. The rep's inbox lost its connection, a send limit was reached, or a send failed, and nobody checks the error list.

Usually fixed by: Sales operations, with the rep.
Kind of break, one of six: Freshness: is the step still running, and on time?
Sources: Vendor documentation

New leads fall sharply. A broken form, a removed tracking script, a consent change or a browser change cuts the count, and the weekly report just shows a slow week.

Why it happens. Counts are looked at when they are reported, not compared with traffic and spend as they happen.

Usually fixed by: Web or marketing operations, with whoever changed the site that week.
Kind of break, one of six: Count: do the numbers at each end agree? Freshness: is the step still running, and on time?
Sources: Vendor documentation

The integration signs in as a named person. When that person leaves, changes role or their password expires, the connection stops or loses permissions, and nothing new moves.

Why it happens. Connections are often set up under whoever built them, and nobody lists them in the leaver checklist.

Usually fixed by: CRM admin and marketing operations.
Kind of break, one of six: Freshness: is the step still running, and on time? Arrival: did it show up in the next tool in time?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.

Rules assign owners to leads created one way (a form, a person typing), but leads created by an import or an integration arrive with the default owner, or none.

Why it happens. In some tools, assignment rules run only when each import or call asks for them.

Usually fixed by: Sales operations and the CRM admin.
Kind of break, one of six: Condition: does a rule that should always hold, hold?
No public source found for this one: it is our reading of how these hand-offs usually work.

A rep tries to enrol a lead and is blocked: the address bounced before, the person unsubscribed, or they are already in another sequence. When enrolment is automatic, the failure is silent.

Why it happens. In some tools, safety rules (bounce, spam, opt-out, one sequence per person) are enforced by the sales tool, but the lead was routed without checking them.

Usually fixed by: Sales operations (rules) with marketing operations (suppression data).
Kind of break, one of six: Arrival: did it show up in the next tool in time?
Sources: Vendor documentation