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Updated on… December 15, 2023
It’s easy to get lost amidst the jargon that B2B softwares throw at you. Lead distribution software. Oh, not another one! Isn’t that what a CRM software does? Well, yes and no.
CRM tools do get into the act of distributing leads but that ends being nothing more than a value add. CRM is more about nurturing your prospective contacts for the long-term by actively monitoring their actions.
They are not built to replicate your internal sales processes that underscore how leads are routed or distributed. Barring a few exceptions, lead distribution is usually an afterthought in the CRM world.
Here’s where a purpose-built lead distribution software can differ. They can shape-shift according to your lead distribution requirements and automate the entire process without missing out on prospect due diligence and sales context.
Before we get into the business of top 10 lead distribution software you need to keep tabs on in 2024, let’s try to understand automated lead distribution better.
What is lead distribution software?
Automated lead distribution software is a tool that helps assigning inbound contacts or prospects to the right sales reps or teams. Most tools automate the lead distribution process by these following methods:
- Scoring leads based on the predetermined criteria such as CRM activity, fetching account details from tools like Apollo.io, native form enrichment from tools like Clearbit, and so on.
- Setting up conditions based on the prospect’s inputs on the form field such as company size, revenue, role of the contact, decision-making power, industry relevance, and so on.
These methods ensure that the leads flowing into the automated distribution workflows are vetted and qualified instantly, so that your sales reps can avoid the operational hazards of manual lead qualification.
10 Best Lead Distribution Software in 2024
1. RevenueHero
RevenueHero is a sales pipeline acceleration software purpose-built for GTM teams to qualify, route, and schedule meetings for leads with the best-suited sales reps. Website, live chat, in-app, ad landing pages, email sequences, or outbound campaigns – it covers the entire gamut of inbound and outbound touchpoints to collect contact info, distribute, and book meetings with your leads.
RevenueHero provides complete control of your lead distribution with customizations to match your unique GTM. With lead-to-account matching for account owners and 1-click CRM sync, the tool enables you to meaningfully route leads with context, and save your sales reps from the grunt work that usually tags along.
Unlike most lead distribution tools and CRMs where meeting booking and instant scheduling are primitive or siloed away from the action, RevenueHero brings it all together as the powerhouse of your CRM.
Key features
- Instant lead qualification, meeting distribution, and meeting booking after form-fill.
- Weighted, flexible, and strict round-robin options for distributing meetings.
- Relays: A feature for handing off leads instantly between SDRs, AEs, and customer success.
- Magic Links: To let your leads book meetings with you in 1-click.
- Native form enrichment for more control on distributing leads to the right rep.
- Automations to ensure quota attainment among the sales team.
- Meeting rescheduling workflows, notifications, and reminders to account for no-shows.
Pricing
Inbound Essentials: $25/user/month, $79/month platform fee
Outbound Essentials: $20/user/month, no platform fee
GTM Enterprise: $39/user/month, $69/month platform fee
2. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM automates lead distribution across different social media channels, emails, web forms, etc. The software offers workflow automation in all its plans. Moreover, users can also set up lead routing triggers for social media, especially for businesses where socials are big lead accelerators.
With dedicated BI capabilities, Zoho CRM offers the flexibility to scale with scoring rules, sales forecasting, and multiple pipelines to manage inbound and outbound leads better.
Key features
- Round-robin queues for even lead distribution.
- Social automation rules for adding followers who engage with social content.
- Lead scoring to prioritize high-intent prospects.
- 200+ app integrations.
- Automated lead routing based on department or geography.
- Deep analytics with region-wise leads, revenue-share, and target trackers.
Pricing
Standard: INR 800/user/month
Professional: INR 1400/user/month
Enterprise: INR 2400/user/month
Ultimate: INR 2600/user/month
3. LeadSquared
LeadSquared is a CRM and marketing automation solution. The lead distribution feature in the software assigns the leads to sales reps based on predefined conditions that are fairly in-depth.
LeadSquared enables sales managers to set rules individually for the sales reps or for particular teams. The lead generation module of the software also offers lead capture and qualification.
Key features
- Availability-based lead distribution along with flexible round robin.
- Distribution based on lead and agent attributes.
- Detailed reporting and analytics.
- Deep CRM analytics.
- Lead capturing modules.
- Redistribution workflows for leads caught up with churned sales reps.
Pricing
Lite: INR 1250/user/month
Pro: INR 2500/user/month
Super: INR 5000/user/month
Ultimate: Request quote
For field force automation (lead tracking, scoring, lead management, etc.), you get customized pricing plans.
4. LeanData
LeanData is a revenue orchestration platform with intelligent lead distribution and scheduling capabilities. It helps GTM teams capture and filter buying signals and prioritize high-value leads.
For lead distribution, LeanData offers territory management, round robin, and flexible decision branches to address routing needs with different levels of complexity. The clincher however is the alerts for sales reps around new buying signals and triggers.
The downside however is that LeanData is admittedly Salesforce-dependent to provide value to the fullest with process automation and detecting buying signals.
Key features
- Match records on CRM and eliminate duplicates.
- Automated SLA management and lead-related alerts.
- Enriched context with contacts that enter Salesforce.
- Drag-and-drop distribution builder for Salesforce lead contacts.
Pricing
Standard: $39
Advanced: $49
Premium: $59
Enterprise: Request a quote
5. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is one of the most popular CRM solutions which is also a great platform for inbound lead management. It offers lead distribution and workflow features like automated lead rotation and custom lead scoring criteria.
From the starter plan, you get intelligent routing for emails and inbound calls. HubSpot Meetings, despite its basic scheduling functionalities, can be a good native option to club along with the CRM’s lead distribution.
Key features
- More than 500 app integrations.
- Build a lead scoring system using historical data and custom criteria.
- Lead rotation (round-robin lead distribution).
- A timeline view of the prospect’s journey.
- Pipeline management and forms.
Pricing
Free: For limited plans
Starter: $18/month/2 users
Professional: $1600/month/5 users
Enterprise: $5000/month/10 users
6. Freshsales
Freshsales is a CRM software with comprehensive lead distribution features. It allows lead segmentation into different categories based on criteria like zip codes and country codes.
You can also create several categories or contact lists of leads by combining multiple rules to segment them. The AI-powered contact scoring feature by Freshsales helps you identify high-intent leads to engage with them first and accelerate follow-ups.
Key Features
- Assign leads based on industry, geography, etc.
- An AI-powered lead scoring system.
- Assign contact numbers to territories and transfer calls in the CRM.
- Call routing workflows for lead distribution.
- Live chat management
- CPQ, product catalogs, and activity goals.
Pricing
Free: A limited plan for 3 users.
Growth: INR 999/user/month
Pro: INR 2799/user/month
Enterprise: INR 2799/user/month
7. Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is primarily a CRM software with lead distribution features. It is a lead generation and distribution software that helps you to capture leads, manage them, and store lead information.
The lead distribution function of the software allows users to distribute inbound leads (that come via chats, emails, website, calls, etc.) evenly. Bitrix24 also offers social media management and email marketing tools that help to automate business processes.
Key features
- Intelligent routing: It ensures that the leads are matched to their specific account managers.
- Omni-channel communication: Connect your sales teams with leads across several communication channels like Slack, Telegram, Facebook messenger, etc.
- Automatic rerouting: If a sales rep is unavailable, this feature automatically assigns the lead to the next rep.
- Conversation transfer: It enables redirecting the conversation to another channel or sales rep.
- Pre-built telephony: Receive calls from leads in the CRM software by setting up specific rules for reps.
Pricing
Free: Limited leads, forms, and pipeline.
Basic: USD 43/month for 5 users
Standard: USD 87/month for 25 users
Professional: USD 175/month for unlimited users
8. Lead Assign
Lead Assign is a lead management solution purpose-built to cover most unique use cases of lead distribution. Apart from basic functionalities like matching reps to leads based on location and skillset, Lead Assign offers real-time conversion trackers at a lead, SDR, and channel-level
It uses a combination of business rules or routing conditions that you set, performance analysis of your reps and channels, and historical lead activity to determine which prospects need to be bumped up the queue. The solution also offers performance scoring for sales reps that tells how fast they respond to leads.
Key features
- Grade sales reps based on how fast they respond to leads.
- Intelligent routing to match the leads with the right reps.
- Lead hints to generate a lead preview for the sales reps to determine if they’re good to pursue.
- Battle cards feature provides sales reps with basic lead information before their meetings.
- Agent scoring system that makes performance tracking and incentives simpler.
Pricing
Starting at $695/month that scales based on your requirements.
9. LeadByte
LeadByte is a lead management software that helps organizations to gather, nurture, qualify, and distribute leads in real-time. It enables you to distribute the inbound leads by setting up customized criteria.
Furthermore, the software offers workflows to help you to create rules to eliminate invalid leads. Other notable functionalities include activity and source tracking, and campaign management.
Key features
- Detailed real-time reporting and analytics including most-profitable sources.
- Track opens, clicks, and conversions on lead outreach.
- Funnel building with advanced retargeting.
- Personalized SMS domain tracking for lead nurtures.
- Real-time lead validation and distribution.
Pricing
Take a demo to request a quote.
10. Distribution Engine
Distribution Engine by Salesforce ensures that the leads are distributed to the right and most qualified sales reps. The lead distribution software distributes leads based on skills, round-robin algorithm, or lead source. It’s another Salesforce native integration that works exclusively with the CRM.
The advanced reporting system in Distribution Engine provides comprehensive reports on leads distribution including the average hourly distribution volumes to forecast the workload of the sales reps.
Key features
- Call logs for tracking lead details
- Third-party integrations with the top routing tools
- Real-time reporting
- Built-in calling feature within the software
- Insights on the lead source (source reporting)
- Lead capture and distribution
- Monitoring
- Reminders
- Pipeline reporting
Pricing
$45/user/month
How to choose the best lead distribution software in 2024?
There are several factors that you must look into before buying a lead distribution software in 2024. For starters, you need to look out for specific use cases that the tool can solve in keeping with your unique distribution needs. Here are some examples:
- Allow your qualified, high-intent prospects to schedule meetings instantly after form-fill – which involves distributing contact to the right SDR or AE based on CRM properties or form fields or any enriched data.
- Create a separate workflow for low-intent, less-qualified prospects that may not fit the bill right now, but have a chance of converting down the lane.
- Make lead distribution simple even after the first-touch of an inbound request. After initial interactions, sales reps may need to handoff the prospects to AEs; AE’s to implementations specialists; implementation to customer success and so on. Look out for a lead distribution tool that streamlines the entire process with a handoff workflow.
- Get flexibility in course-correcting the automated lead distribution. Whether it’s named account matching, strict round robin, flexible round robin, or recent interactions, to name a few.
- Nurture leads who go cold after getting assigned to a sales rep. Look out for a tool that enables you to keep meeting no-shows and dropped off contacts engaged without breaking any sales context or buyer journey.
Why RevenueHero is the ultimate lead distribution tool you need
With RevenueHero, lead distribution is not an afterthought to your meeting scheduling flow. Unlike tools where lead qualification, meeting booking, and lead assignment are piecemeal mechanisms, RevenueHero unifies every moving part involved in accelerating the inbound leads entering your pipeline.
Lead-to-account matching
A sizable volume of your inbound leads could be a part of a company already in your CRM or may have engaged with one of your reps previously. RevenueHero’s lead-to-account matching will help you override regular distribution rules in these cases, and map the contact to the rep who owns the account. This can be done in 3 ways:
- Match the contact to the existing owner who has a prior relationship.
- Match the contact to the owner who has handled similar accounts.
- Match the contact to the owner who has handled contacts from the same company.
Comprehensive lead qualification and routing
It’s borderline criminal to have your high-intent leads wait for your manual inefficiencies.
Case in point, lead qualification. If you’re still just routing leads leaving qualification to the sales reps, you’re doing it wrong. Especially when you can rather help them spend time on prospecting and building bridges with potential buyers.
RevenueHero lets you set up complex distribution rules with a simplest builder. The criteria can be based on contact enrichment, company size, region, role, and so on.
All this happens almost instantly after the prospect fills up a form so that all that’s left for them to do is schedule a meeting with the matched sales rep or AE.
Custom distribution rules
You can distribute your leads based on territory, account ownership, or any custom logic that your GTM demands. RevenueHero also uses native enrichment and also works with third-party apps like Clearbit to ensure sufficient account data to create personalized distribution rules.
W to ensure all leads are directed to the right teams, every single time. And lastly, you can manage your team’s workload efficiently by easily adding, removing, or balancing meeting weightage for each rep.
Post-distribution buyer journey
What happens after the leads are assigned to your reps is where your revenue actually is. Once leads are assigned to reps, they still have to reach out to them over email or LinkedIn. And go through multiple email threads to find a time slot that works.
Your prospects don’t want to wait. And they don’t want to go through multiple email threads.
RevenueHero eliminates all of these hurdles and makes the buyer experience seamless throughout their journey. And reduces days of follow ups to matter of seconds.
A few examples of post-distribution journey:
- Getting the meeting booked immediately after form fill to increase your MQL to SQL conversion rates and reducing your sales cycles.
- Handing off a lead to an AE without back-and-forth after initial conversations with the prospect.
- Deploying meeting widgets within your app to help speed up product adoption.
- Adding personal meeting links to your follow-up emails after every meeting/conversation.
RevenueHero lets you fortify your post-distribution nurture with personalized communication and 1-click magic links, that lets you add inline collaterals, meeting recaps, and other email nurtures after every meeting.
Custom meeting links and personalized landing pages can be extremely helpful while reaching out to known prospects, whose contact and sales context you already have. For example, for your named accounts in your ABM list or for your closed lost accounts.
Alternatively, this will also come handy in outbound scenarios where you don’t have to ask the prospect to fill up a form. And nudge them to schedule a meeting in just 2 clicks.
Make your lead distribution pay for itself with the right workflows around it
What next after your sales reps get assigned to leads? What’s the win rate? How many leads even take the meeting that they schedule with you? Your pipeline doesn’t automatically convert just because you’ve done lead distribution efficiently.
Lead distribution as a standalone process is not going to help you close deals. It’s a vital cog in your inbound flow that also requires the right systems around it to function. Here’s how you can actually make the most out of your lead distribution process:
- Create conditions to auto-qualify leads before they enter the routing engine.
- Make meetings the destination of lead distribution workflow. So you’re not only routing, but also setting up a meeting for the prospect with the right sales rep or team.
- Bring other customer-facing stakeholders into the workflow to ensure a frictionless onboarding experience.
- Measure success, win-rates, and drop-offs across every touch point, workflow, pages, and forms to make incremental changes to your lead distribution system.
