Lead Lifecycle & Handoff
Move every contact through clear lifecycle stages — subscriber, lead, MQL, SQL, customer — and hand them to sales automatically the moment they qualify, with the context, owner and SLA already in place.
Overview
Marketing and sales argue about leads because the line between them is fuzzy. Lifecycle stages draw that line: everyone agrees what an MQL is, and when it becomes a sales-ready SQL.
Here each contact advances through defined stages on score and behaviour, and crosses to sales automatically when it qualifies — assigned to the right rep, with an SLA timer and the full journey attached, so nothing is dropped in the gap.
Explore Customer Relationship Management →- ✓ Defined stages: subscriber to customer
- ✓ Score-based MQL and SQL thresholds
- ✓ Automatic marketing-to-sales handoff
- ✓ Round-robin or rules-based assignment
- ✓ Handoff SLAs and escalation
- ✓ Full journey & source on the record
Everything Lifecycle & Handoff gives you
Lifecycle stages
Model your funnel as stages every team agrees on, from subscriber to lead, MQL, SQL and customer.
Qualification thresholds
Contacts become MQLs automatically when score and behaviour cross the set line, and become SQLs when sales accepts them.
Automatic handoff
Qualified leads are assigned to sales as soon as they qualify, with no manual list to share.
Smart assignment
Route by territory, product or round-robin so the right rep owns it instantly.
Handoff SLAs
A timer starts on assignment; if sales does not act, it escalates so no lead goes cold.
Full context
The rep inherits the whole journey — source, campaigns and behaviour — not a bare name.
From subscriber to customer
| Stage | What it means | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriber | Opted in, not yet engaged | Nurtured by marketing until interest shows |
| Lead | Engaged with content or forms | Scored on behaviour and kept warm |
| MQL | Crossed the marketing-qualified score | Flagged as ready and prepared for handoff |
| SQL | Sales-qualified and accepted | Handed to a rep with an SLA and full context |
| Customer | Closed and won | Moves into onboarding, retention and referral |
Live in four steps
Define stages
Agree the lifecycle stages both teams will use.
Score & qualify
Contacts advance and become MQLs and SQLs on score.
Auto-handoff
Qualified leads pass to the right rep automatically.
SLA & follow-through
A timer and escalation keep follow-up honest.
How the agent works with Lifecycle & Handoff
The Flow-Cognition Agent runs a real loop on your data — grounded in your records, governed and logged.
Sense
Reads each contact score, stage and behaviour.
Decide
Decides when it qualifies and who should own it.
Act
Advances the stage, assigns and starts the SLA — governed and logged.
Five-tier model routing · field-level permissions · full audit trail. See the AI layer →
Where teams put it to work
B2B pipelines
Long funnels get a clean MQL to SQL definition and an instant, accountable handoff.
High-volume inbound
Reps get leads that have crossed the qualification threshold, and the rest stay in nurture.
Marketing-sales alignment
One agreed lifecycle ends the bad-leads and slow-follow-up argument.
Questions, answered
Agreed steps a contact moves through — subscriber, lead, MQL, SQL, customer — so marketing and sales share one definition.
A lead becomes an MQL automatically when it crosses the score threshold, and an SQL when the assigned rep accepts it.
The qualified lead is assigned to the right rep with an SLA timer and its full journey attached.
The SLA escalates the lead so it is never left to go cold.
Yes. Source, campaigns and behaviour all travel with the lead to the rep.
The payoff
End the lead argument
One agreed definition of MQL and SQL that both marketing and sales sign up to.
Nothing dropped at handoff
Every qualified lead gets an owner the moment it crosses the line.
Faster follow-up
An SLA timer and escalation keep the first touch honest, every time.
Context travels
Reps inherit the full journey — source, campaigns and behaviour — not a bare name.
Hand every qualified lead off cleanly
Start free, or get a guided walkthrough — stages, qualification and SLAs on the one platform that runs your whole CRM.