The most common routing rules
Service line (which product/service the inquiry concerns), territory (geographic assignment), and deal size (large deals to senior team members) are the three most common real-world routing rules — see Lead Routing Automation for how this is implemented as a Revenue System module.
Where the routing decision is actually made
Ideally before the lead reaches any inbox — during AI qualification, using the same criteria your team already uses informally. This means the first message a team member sees is already pre-sorted, not a queue they have to triage manually.
What happens with an ambiguous lead
A lead that doesn't clearly fit one routing rule should go to a defined fallback (often a team lead) rather than being silently dropped or randomly assigned — see When Should AI Hand a Lead to a Human for the broader version of this principle.
Fair assignment and capacity
Routing by rule raises a fairness question. Round-robin gives each person the next lead in turn and is easy to explain. Assigning by skill sends each lead to whoever handles that type best, at the cost of uneven load. Many teams combine them: match by skill first, then rotate within the group. Decide how holidays and absence are handled, so leads do not wait for someone who is away, and who covers when a person is at capacity. Every lead still needs a named owner and a time by which they respond, which is the subject of first response rule design.
Recruitment and dual-sided routing, as a worked example
See Recruitment Agencies for a real worked example of routing that has to handle two separate audiences (clients and candidates) simultaneously.
Questions
Can routing happen before a lead reaches the CRM?+
Yes — ideally the routing decision is made during AI qualification, before the lead is even logged, so it arrives pre-sorted.
What if two team members could both handle a lead?+
A defined tie-breaker rule (e.g. round-robin, or whoever has capacity) avoids the lead sitting unclaimed in a shared queue.
Does this replace a shared inbox entirely?+
Yes, that's the point — a shared inbox depends on someone noticing; routing assigns ownership automatically.