Lead qualification and follow-up in Odoo
Capture enquiries in Odoo, add company context and prepare follow-up. Consultants review the fit and handle the conversation.
Results
- from an enquiry arriving to a reviewed follow-up, previously 1 to 2 days
- 15 minutes
- of enquiries logged in Odoo, up from about 70%
- 100%
- returned to the consultants
- 4 hours a week
- of enquiries screened as a poor fit before a consultant reads them
- 40%
Measured over the first three months on about 60 enquiries a month.
The four manual steps that took a day or two now run in the CRM within minutes of the enquiry. The consultant's review is the last step, and the reply still goes out in their words.
The problem
Enquiries arrived through several channels and needed manual research, CRM entry and follow-up. That work competed with client delivery.
Enquiries came in through the website form, direct email and partner referrals. Whoever saw one first looked up the company, typed a CRM record and replied when delivery work allowed. That took a day or two, and about 3 in 10 enquiries were never logged at all.
The consultants are the firm's billable people, so this admin competed with client work. Follow-ups were inconsistent, and two consultants sometimes answered the same enquiry.
Speed matters here. A Harvard Business Review study of 2,241 companies found that firms which contacted a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that waited even an hour longer.
What we built
The workflow collects inbound enquiries in Odoo and prepares the information a consultant needs to review them.
- Capture website and inbound enquiries in Odoo CRM.
- Add company and contact context.
- Score enquiries against the firm's agreed ideal-client profile.
- Assign the enquiry and prepare a first follow-up for review.
How we built it
- Routed every channel into Odoo CRM: the website form, the shared inbox and a forwarding address for partner referrals. Duplicates are matched on email domain and company name.
- Added company and contact context: size, sector, website, any Odoo modules visible on the site, and previous contact already in the CRM.
- Wrote the ideal-client profile down with the partners and turned it into a score with reasons, so a consultant sees why an enquiry scored as it did.
- Assigned each enquiry to one consultant by sector and prepared a first follow-up as a draft in the CRM.
- Reviewed the scores with the partners every two weeks for three months and adjusted the criteria twice.
What changed
Consultants start with enquiries and company context in their CRM. They retain the qualification decision and the customer conversation.
A consultant opens Odoo and sees the enquiry, the company context, a score with reasons and a draft reply. They decide whether to pursue it and send the reply in their own words. Nothing reaches the prospect until they do.
The score's main job turned out to be saying no early. About 40% of enquiries are students, job seekers or companies outside the firm's regions. Those now get a polite reply before a consultant spends time on them.
We underestimated duplicates. Partner referrals often arrived twice, once from the partner and once from the prospect, and merging them needed a rule we had not planned for.
How the workflow fits together
What we measured and how
Each figure in the results block comes from one of these measurements.
| What we measured | How | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Time to a reviewed follow-up | Odoo timestamps, from the enquiry being created to the consultant marking the reply as sent. | Median 15 minutes in working hours, from 1 to 2 days |
| Enquiries logged | The monthly count of CRM records compared with inbox and form submissions. | 100%, from about 70% |
| Consultant time on enquiry admin | Logged for three weeks before go-live and again in month three. | From about 5 hours a week to 1, so 4 hours returned |
| Score corrections | Consultants mark a score as wrong when they disagree with it. | 1 in 8 in month one, 1 in 20 by month three |
Planning a similar project
These are questions to resolve with your team before implementing a similar workflow.
| Decision | What to establish |
|---|---|
| Intake coverage | Which channels should create a CRM record? Identify duplicate submissions and ownership rules so two consultants do not follow up on the same enquiry. |
| Qualification criteria | What makes an enquiry a good fit for the firm? Write the criteria down and decide how to handle missing company information before using a score. |
| Follow-up ownership | Who reviews the prepared message and owns the next action? Decide how consultants can correct the context or disagree with a score. |
Questions about this workflow
Does this replace the consultancy's CRM?
No. The workflow uses the existing Odoo CRM for enquiry capture, company context, assignment and follow-up preparation. Consultants work in the same screens they used before.
Who decides whether a lead is a fit?
The workflow scores enquiries against the agreed ideal-client criteria and shows its reasons. Consultants keep the qualification decision and the customer conversation, and they can mark a score as wrong.
What would demonstrate value for a similar sales workflow?
Track the delay between an enquiry arriving and a reviewed follow-up, the share of enquiries logged, duplicate work and score corrections. Compare those with the original process before attributing changes in pipeline or revenue to the automation. This page reports the first four and makes no revenue claim.
Discuss your workflow.
Tell us which systems your team uses and where the work gets stuck.