PSAI is designed to work for your entire team, whether you're a small local operation where everyone does a little bit of everything or you're a large business spread across many geographic areas. One of the best ways to make PSAI fit into your unique staffing structure is to take advantage of the Com Portal's lead assignment feature.

This article provides an overview of assigning leads in the Com Portal, including why lead assignments can be so helpful and what you should know before starting.

What Does "Assigning a Lead" Really Mean?

Assigning a lead is exactly what it sounds like. You take a lead that has entered your Com Portal, and you officially delegate it (or "assign" it) to a member of your team. 

In practical terms, this simply means opening a drop-down menu on the lead's engagement page and choosing one of your PSAI users, as shown below.

Get more detailed instructions on assigning leads.

Why Would I Assign a Lead to Someone?

There are many reasons you might assign a lead within PSAI, as it can benefit you as a PSAI administrator, your PSAI users, and even the leads themselves. Here's a deeper look at why assigning leads can be so helpful.

To Provide Clearer Roles and Responsibilities

By assigning leads in PSAI, you'll ensure that everyone is on the same page at all times. No one will have to wonder who is handling which customer, what was said or done last, or what the next steps should be. You simply assign the lead to the employee, and this lead becomes their responsibility—no room for confusion, error, or duplicate work.

Clearer role delegation within your company will result in a smoother customer experience, too.

To Make PSAI Simpler for Your Team

From the perspective of your employees, having clear lead assignment is not only helpful in terms of responsibilities, but also in terms of actually using the PSAI platform. By consistently assigning leads through the Com Portal, your team members will only have to look in one place: the "Mine" bucket.

Whenever you assign a lead, that lead automatically flows into that PSAI user's "Mine" bucket. He or she can stay in the "Mine" bucket and not have to worry about clicking around PSAI or remembering where things are. (PSAI is not difficult to use, but at the same time, fewer steps is always easier!)

To Maintain a More Organized Lead Queue

From an administrator's standpoint, assigning leads can be helpful in terms of keeping your lead queue organized. 

Whenever a lead comes in through any of your PSAI marketing sources—whether through a Quote Form, a Chatbot, a storm campaign, or something else—it will automatically be placed into the "Unassigned" bucket. As you can see in the screenshot below, the Unassigned queue can become quite long if you are not consistently assigning those leads to your team.

Leads will remain in the Unassigned bucket until you've either assigned them or closed them. By assigning leads as soon as they flow in, you won't have to try to remember who all of these "Unassigned" leads are and what they need. You can immediately delegate leads to your team and reduce mental overhead for yourself.

To Get Better Performance Tracking

Last but not least, assigning leads can help you keep track of your team's individual performance.

Whenever a PSAI user closes a lead that is assigned to him or her, it is automatically tracked for you. To review and compare how your team members are performing in the current month, all you have to do is view the panel for "Total Engagements Closed" on your PSAI dashboard.

What to Know Before You Assign Leads

Review the six key points below to make sure that you understand how lead assignments work.

1. Only PSAI Users Can Receive Lead Assignments

Leads can only be assigned to official PSAI users. If your employees have not yet been added to your company's PSAI admin portal, you'll have to do that first, and then you can assign the lead in the Com Portal. (Learn how to add new PSAI users here.)

Moreover, leads can only be assigned to internal PSAI users, not external users. You can share a lead with an external user, but you cannot assign one.

2. Assigning Leads Changes Their Bucket

Assigning leads will move them around within the four lead buckets of the Com Portal: Unassigned, Mine, Closed, and Assigned. New leads always flow into "Unassigned" first. 

Once you assign the lead, it will move out of Unassigned and into another bucket. Buckets are user-specific, so the bucket that the lead appears in will vary based on who is logged into PSAI:

• The PSAI user who has received the assignment will see the lead in the "Mine" bucket.
• All other PSAI users (including you) will see the lead in the "Assigned" bucket, as it has been assigned to someone else.

3. PSAI Users Receive Email Notifications

Whenever you assign a lead in PSAI, that user will receive an automated email notification about the lead assignment. Make sure that your PSAI users are checking their emails regularly to receive instant notifications of new lead assignments.

4. Some Leads Are Assigned Automatically

There's one circumstance in which leads are automatically assigned by the Com Portal: when a PSAI user interacts with a lead by chat. If your staff takes over a live web chat from Gia, then the lead will be automatically assigned to that PSAI user.

Don't worry—you can easily change this automated lead assignment if you want to.

5. Lead Assignments Are Easy to Change

You can assign and reassign leads as many times as you want. For example, maybe you've mistakenly assigned a lead to the wrong team member, or maybe the lead has moved down the sales funnel from initial contact to in-person consultation and now needs to be handled by a different rep. There's no limit to how many times you can assign or reassign a lead.

For easy review, the Com Portal will keep track of all of your lead assignments over time within the lead's Contact Activity Panel.

6. You Can Restrict Your Employees' Access to Leads

If you'd like to restrict your team member's access to lead data for any reason—whether to simplify their PSAI tasks or to maintain tighter privacy over customer data—it's easy to do. Simply head to the user's page and choose the access level you prefer.

A popular setting for outside sales reps or contractors, for example, is to only grant access to "My Leads," as shown below.

Next Steps: Explore the Com Portal Further

This article is part of a loosely ordered series on using the Com Portal effectively. Coming soon will be more tips, explanations, and best practices: 

• Overview: What Is the Com Portal?
• Searching, Filtering, and Navigating the Com Portal
• Communicating with Leads Through the Com Portal
• Taking Advantage of Predictive Technology in the Com Portal
• Assigning Leads in the Com Portal
• "Closing" Leads in the Com Portal

Next: Closing Leads in the Com Portal