Workflow · Lead generation
Lead Capture, Qualification and Follow-Up
Turn every form submission into a categorized CRM record, an alert to the right person and a prompt, personal follow-up.
The workflow at a glance
Goal: Respond to every genuine enquiry quickly, route it to the right person and never lose a lead in an inbox.
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Step 1: Trigger
New form submission
A contact, quote or demo form on your website starts the workflow. Hidden fields capture the UTM source and the page URL.
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Step 2: AI step
Classify and summarize
The AI labels the enquiry (sales, partnership, support or spam), sets a priority from fixed rules and writes a one-sentence summary.
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Step 3: Data
Validate and de-duplicate
Check the AI output against allowed values, look up the email in your CRM and merge with an existing contact if found.
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Step 4: Action
Create or update the CRM record
Save the contact, source, category, priority and summary, and assign an owner based on category or region.
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Step 5: Human review
Owner reviews a drafted reply
The assigned person receives an alert with the summary and a suggested reply, edits it and sends it from their own mailbox.
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Step 6: Action
Schedule a follow-up task
If there's no reply within a set number of days, the CRM creates a follow-up task for the owner.
Why this workflow
Enquiries that wait a day often go cold, and enquiries that land in a shared inbox sometimes get no reply at all. This workflow makes sure every genuine lead is recorded, routed and followed up — without sending robotic automated sales emails.
What you need
- A website form that can send data to an automation platform (most form builders can).
- An automation platform: Zapier for the quickest setup, or Make if you want more control over branching.
- A CRM. HubSpot offers a free CRM; a spreadsheet works to start.
- Consistent UTM parameters on your campaign links, built with our UTM Builder, so you know where leads come from.
Note that Zapier’s free plan is limited to two-step Zaps, so a workflow with this many steps needs a paid plan or a platform with a different usage model.
Build it
- Add hidden fields to your form for
utm_source,utm_medium,utm_campaignand the page URL. - Create the trigger in your automation platform for new submissions.
- Add the AI step with a strict JSON output — see the prompt in our guide to building automation workflows.
- Validate the output and route anything unexpected to a person.
- Search the CRM for the email address; update if found, create if not.
- Assign an owner with simple rules (category, region or round-robin).
- Send an alert with the summary and a suggested reply to the owner in email or team chat.
- Create a follow-up task with a due date.
Example alert
New sales lead — high priority Maria Lopez, Lopez Interiors · Source: newsletter / email / spring_offer Summary: Wants a quote for redesigning two retail shop fronts before June. Suggested reply: attached as a draft — review before sending.
Variations
- Calendar booking: add your booking link to the suggested reply for high-priority leads.
- Enrichment: look up the company’s website and add a short, factual description — but only from what you can verify.
- Lead magnets: for downloads, send the file automatically and keep the personal follow-up for leads that match your ideal customer.