Client Guide: Lead Follow Up Best Practices

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Your leads land on your LeadsHQ Google Sheet automatically, in real time, the moment they clear verification. 

Your only job is to keep the LeadStatus column up to date as you work each lead, and to jot the odd note in the Lead Feedback column.

That feedback matters more than it looks. It’s how we track the effectiveness of every lead as it moves through your sales process, so we can see how your leads are performing in your hands, how the industry is performing, and how a very specific campaign, platform, ad or audience is converting. 

When we can see that, we can diagnose problems that are specific to you and your campaign, and problems that are showing up market-wide. Ten minutes of tidy status updates a day buys you much sharper answers when you ask us “how are my leads going?”

The one habit that makes this work

As you work a lead, set its Lead Status to match where it’s up to. That’s it. The sheet does the rest.

Everything downstream (contact rate, appointment rate, show rate, quote rate, quote win rate) is calculated from those statuses. If the statuses are current, the numbers are real.

If the sheet is stale, the numbers lie, and so does any advice we give you off the back of them.

Lead status definitions

There are three groups of statuses: no answerdid not qualify (DNQ), and qualified. Here’s what each one means and when to use it.

Working the lead: No Answer (N/A)

StatusMeaning
N/A – 01 through N/A – 10Called and no answer, attempt 1 through attempt 10
Following UpMade contact, following up at a later date

N/A stands for no answer. As you work a lead through your cadence and they don’t pick up, step the status up one: N/A - 01 after the first missed attempt, N/A - 02 after the second, and so on up to N/A - 10.

That ladder maps directly onto the 10-in-10 cadence: ten contact attempts across ten business days for any lead that doesn’t pick up first time. Around 40% of contactable homeowners answer on the fifth attempt or later, so a team that gives up at attempt two is throwing away nearly half its possible contacts. For the full cadence (which days, how many attempts per day, which channels), see the 10-in-10 follow-up guide.

Best practice: log the date and time of each attempt

You don’t have to, but the gold standard is to record the date and time of every attempt in the Comments column as you go. For example:

NA1 15/08 0910, NA2 15/08 1406, NA3 16/08 1005, NA4 16/08 1625...

One attempt in the morning, one in the evening, spread across the ten days. Do that and both you and we can see the cadence actually happening, not just the final status. It’s the difference between “we couldn’t reach them” and a documented ten-attempt record that proves it.

Closing the lead out: Did Not Qualify (DNQ)

StatusMeaning
DNQ – Non ContactNo contact after 10 dials across 10 days
DNQ – Not InterestedSpoke with them, not interested
DNQ – UnserviceableUnable to service (roof, home, not the homeowner, bill doesn’t qualify)
RejectedRejected via the rejection form

DNQ stands for did not qualify. Use DNQ – Non Contact only after a genuine 10-in-10: ten attempts over ten days with no answer. If you spoke to them and they’re simply not interested, that’s DNQ – Not Interested. If you can’t service them for any reason, that’s DNQ – Unserviceable.

Important — unserviceable and rejected leads need the rejection form. 

If a lead doesn’t qualify for a concrete reason (unserviceable roof or home, not the homeowner, energy bill too low), marking it in the sheet is not enough on its own.

You also need to submit it through the rejection form so it’s logged for a credit.

Marking a lead as Rejected in the sheet documents it for your own tracking, but the form is what actually processes the rejection. If you don’t have your rejection-form UID, reach out to your account manager and they’ll send it through.

The wins: Qualified

StatusMeaning
Qualified – AppointmentProgressed to an appointment
Qualified – QuotedProgressed to a quote
Qualified – Quote LostQuoted, but lost
Qualified – Quote WonQuoted and won

These four track a lead through the back half of your funnel. Book an appointment, it’s Qualified – Appointment. It progresses to a quote, move it to Qualified – Quoted. From there it only goes two ways: Qualified – Quote Won or Qualified – Quote Lost. Keeping these current is what lets us calculate your appointment rate, show rate, quote rate and quote win rate.

What the finished sheet gives us

When the statuses are current and a line of comments tracks each lead, a quick read of the sheet tells the whole story: how many leads were contacted, how many progressed to an appointment, and downstream metrics like appointment show rate, quote rate and quote win rate.

That’s genuinely useful in three directions. It helps us diagnose issues specific to you and how your team works the leads. It shows us how a specific campaign, platform, ad or audience is converting so we can turn the good ones up and the weak ones down. And it feeds industry-wide benchmarks that make everyone’s targeting sharper. 

Your feedback is the raw material for all of it.

Quick reference

  • Leads arrive automatically, in real time. You never add them by hand.
  • Update the Lead Status as you work each lead. That single column drives every conversion metric we report back to you.
  • Step N/A up with each missed attempt01 through 10, in line with a 10-in-10 cadence.
  • Log the date and time of each attempt in Comments. Optional, but it’s the gold standard.
  • Use DNQ - Non Contact only after a genuine 10-in-10. Don’t retire a lead early.
  • Unserviceable or rejected leads must also go through the rejection form. Ask your account manager for your UID if you don’t have it.
  • Keep the qualified statuses current so appointment, show, quote and win rates stay accurate.

Questions about any of this, or how we’d like to see leads managed? Reach out to your account manager and they’ll walk you through it.


Frequently asked questions

Do I need to add leads to the sheet myself?

No. Verified leads drop onto your LeadsHQ Google Sheet automatically and in real time, usually within seconds of the homeowner completing their enquiry. Your only job is to keep the Lead Status column up to date as you work each lead.

What does N/A mean on the lead tracking sheet?

N/A stands for no answer. As you work a lead and they don’t pick up, step the status from N/A - 01 up to N/A - 10, one increment per missed attempt. It maps onto the 10-in-10 cadence: ten contact attempts across ten business days for any lead that doesn’t answer first time.

What’s the difference between DNQ and Rejected?

DNQ (did not qualify) covers leads you couldn’t convert: DNQ - Non Contact after a full 10-in-10 with no answer, DNQ - Not Interested if you spoke and they declined, and DNQ - Unserviceable if you can’t service them. Rejected marks a lead you’ve formally rejected via the rejection form. Unserviceable and rejected leads should also be submitted through the rejection form so they’re logged for a credit — marking them in the sheet alone isn’t enough.

When should I mark a lead as DNQ – Non Contact?

Only after a genuine 10-in-10 cadence: ten contact attempts across ten business days with no answer. Roughly 40% of contactable homeowners answer on the fifth attempt or later, so retiring a lead as non-contact before ten attempts throws away contacts you’d otherwise win.

Do I have to log the time and date of every call?

No, it’s optional, but it’s the gold standard. Recording each attempt (for example NA1 15/08 0910, NA2 15/08 1406) in the Comments column lets both you and LeadsHQ see the cadence actually happening, and gives you a documented ten-attempt record behind any non-contact.

How do I reject a lead that doesn’t qualify?

Submit it through the rejection form using your rejection-form UID, and mark it Rejected (or the relevant DNQ status) in the sheet. If you don’t have your UID, contact your account manager and they’ll send it through. Common valid reasons include an unserviceable roof or home, the contact not being the homeowner, or an energy bill that doesn’t qualify.

Why does LeadsHQ want this feedback?

Your status updates are how we measure conversion at every stage of your funnel, and how we attribute performance to a specific campaign, platform, ad or audience. That lets us diagnose issues specific to your team, tune which campaigns run, and maintain industry-wide benchmarks. The more accurate the sheet, the more useful the analysis we can give back to you.