Working a single lead: status, first response, convert
Every lead in your pipeline, whether it came in as a forwarded inquiry, a web form, a phone call someone logged, or a row from a CRM import, is a single record you can open and work. The lead detai…
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What this is
Every lead in your pipeline, whether it came in as a forwarded inquiry, a web form, a phone call someone logged, or a row from a CRM import, is a single record you can open and work. The lead detail overlay is where that happens: log that you responded, move the lead through Quoted, Won, or Lost, put a reason on a loss, and convert a win by linking it to the job it became. It's the one place on Sales & Marketing where you take action on a specific lead rather than reading about the pipeline as a whole.
Verinode does not decide when a lead is dead or call the customer for you. It reads what you tell it, timestamps your first response, and gives you the buttons to move a lead forward. You decide the status; Verinode records it and uses it to keep your close rate and follow-up flags accurate.
Where to find it
Open Sales & Marketing from the sidebar, under the Revenue group, then get to the full lead list at iq.verinode.ai/growth/leads. You land there either from the Lead Pipeline tile on the Sales & Marketing home, from the Pipeline tab's "Work the leads that need attention" or "Open the full pipeline" button (covered in Lead pipeline at a glance), or with a direct link from a Findings decision card.
The leads page itself is a flat list, one row per lead, above it a row of filter chips: Needs attention, All, New, Quoted, Won, Lost, each with a count beside it when there's anything in it. Needs attention is pre-selected the first time you land here if anything is flagged; otherwise All is selected. Two buttons sit in the header, Add lead (a short manual-entry form: name, phone, email, property address, source, estimated value) and Import CSV (bulk-imports an opportunity export from your CRM, reporting rows read, added, updated, and skipped once it finishes). Neither is the focus of this article, both exist to get leads into the list you're about to work.
Tap any row and the detail overlay opens. That's the whole entry point: click a lead, the glass overlay slides in over the list, everything below happens inside it.
Note
If the list is empty and you've never captured a lead, it reads: "Leads will appear here as inquiries flow in from your inbox and imports." If you have leads but the current filter matches none of them, it reads "No leads match this filter." Neither is broken, they mean exactly what they say.
Reading the row before you open it
Each row shows the contact name (or the property address if no name was captured, or "No contact captured" if neither exists), a rail on the left that lights up Ember Red when the lead needs attention, and underneath the name a line combining the channel label, the lead source name if one exists, and, when relevant, a first-response note ("Responded in 12m," "Responded in 3h," "Responded in 2d") or "Unworked" for a new lead nobody has touched yet. On the right, the estimated value (or a dash if none was captured) sits above the status label and how long ago the lead came in ("today," "1 day ago," "N days ago," "1 month ago," "N months ago").
A lead is flagged needs attention when it's still open (New or Quoted), hasn't already been converted to a job, and has gone stale: a New lead with no first response logged after a few days, or a Quoted lead sitting without a decision for a couple of weeks. That's the same detector behind the Lead Pipeline tile turning Ember Red and the Pipeline overview card's follow-up line; see Lead pipeline at a glance for how it rolls up.
Inside the overlay
The overlay's eyebrow is the lead's channel (for example "Referral" or "Paid search"); its title is the contact name, or plain "Lead" if none was captured. Below that:
Headline value and status. The top row shows the Estimated value in large type ("Not stated" if none was entered) on the left, and the current status label (New, Quoted, Won, or Lost) on the right, colored to match: muted gray for New, Hard Hat Yellow for Quoted, Deere Green for Won, and a faded muted tone for Lost.
Take action. A row of buttons directly under the header. Which buttons appear depends on the lead's current status, and while a save is in flight the label reads "Take action · saving…" so you can see the click registered.
Logging a first response
The first, primary (dark-filled) button is Log first response, and it only appears on a lead that is still New and has never had a response logged. Clicking it stamps the current time as the lead's first-response timestamp, once, immediately: Verinode will never overwrite a first response that's already on record, even if you click it again or an import tries to touch it. Once you've stamped it, the button disappears from Take action and the Timeline group below shows how fast you responded, formatted in minutes, hours, or days depending on the gap between when the lead arrived and when you logged the response.
This one number is what feeds the "Unworked" flag and the response-time detail on the row: log it as soon as you make first contact, whether that's a call, a text, or an email, and the pipeline reflects reality instead of counting the lead as untouched.
Marking a lead Quoted
Mark quoted appears on any lead that isn't already Quoted or Won. Clicking it sets the status to Quoted, no extra fields required. Use it the moment you've priced the job and are waiting on the customer's decision; a Quoted lead that then sits too long without moving to Won or Lost is what trips the "stale quote" needs-attention flag.
Marking a lead Won and converting it to a job
Mark won appears on any lead that isn't already Won. It doesn't set the status directly, it opens a small picker underneath the buttons headed "Link this lead to the job it became (optional):"
- The first option is Won, no job link, a dark primary button that simply sets the lead to Won without attaching anything. Use this when the job the lead became either doesn't exist in Verinode yet or isn't worth linking.
- Below that, Verinode loads your unlinked jobs, the ones not already attributed to another lead, newest first, up to the 50 most recent. While it's loading, the picker reads "Loading jobs…". If there are none available, it reads "No unlinked jobs to choose from."
- Each job in the list shows its label (the client name, or "Job" followed by the first part of its ID if no client name was recorded), its amount (the billed amount if the job has one, otherwise the estimated amount), and its date (completion date, or assigned date, or the date it was created, whichever is available first), formatted as
YYYY-MM-DD.
Click a job and Verinode converts the lead: it sets the lead's status to Won, stamps that job's ID onto the lead as its converted job, and writes the lead's ID back onto the job record (carrying the lead's source along too, if it had one) so the attribution runs both directions. This is the same match the automated lead-to-job matcher makes when it can do so confidently on its own; picking the job here is you doing it by hand for a case Verinode couldn't resolve automatically or got wrong.
Once converted, the Timeline group in the detail view adds an Outcome row reading "Converted to a job," so anyone opening the lead later can see at a glance that it didn't just close, it's tied to a real job in your book.
Note
Converting a lead to a job is what lets Verinode measure your true close rate and channel performance with confidence: a "Won" lead with no job link still counts toward your close rate, but a converted one is the strongest signal Verinode has that a channel or source is actually producing revenue, not just quotes.
Marking a lead Lost
Mark lost appears on any lead that isn't already Lost. Clicking it opens a text field: "Why was it lost? (e.g. price, went with another contractor)" and a Confirm lost button. Type a reason (or leave it blank) and confirm; the lead's status flips to Lost and whatever you typed is saved as the lost reason, which then shows up in the Timeline group as Lost reason. If you don't write anything, the field is simply left empty and no reason shows in the timeline.
A specific lost reason, even a short one, is worth the extra few seconds: "price" versus "went with another contractor" versus "customer went with insurance repair only" all point a solo operator toward a different fix in pricing or follow-up, and over time a body of lost reasons is one of the clearest signals in your own book of where leads are actually falling out.
Reopening a lead
Reopen appears on any lead that is not currently New, meaning it shows up on Quoted, Won, and Lost leads alike. Clicking it sets the status straight back to New and, because a status change always clears the lost reason unless the new status is Lost, any lost reason on the lead is wiped at the same time. Use it to undo a status set by mistake, or to put a lead back into active work after a customer who said no comes back around.
None of these transitions are enforced in a strict order. Every button is a manual override: you can mark a brand-new lead Won on the spot, reopen a Lost lead a month later, or jump straight from New to Lost with no Quoted step in between. Verinode records whatever you tell it; it doesn't gate a status change behind the "normal" sequence.
Contact, source, and timeline
Below Take action, three flat groups lay out everything else Verinode has on the lead, each a plain label-and-value row with a hairline above the group title, no card frame:
Contact. Name, Phone, Email, and Property, each decrypted from your vault at the moment you open the lead. Any field with nothing captured is simply omitted from the list rather than shown blank. If all four are empty, the group instead reads: "No contact details were captured with this inquiry."
Source. Channel, the acquisition channel this lead came in on (Referral, Repeat customer, Paid search, Paid social, Local Service Ads, Organic / web, Direct, or Carrier program; "Unknown source" if none was recorded), and Source, the specific named source behind that channel if you've set one up (a particular referral partner, a specific ad campaign, a CRM import label), left off the list entirely if there isn't one.
Timeline. Received, how long ago the lead came in, in the same "today / N days ago / N months ago" phrasing as the row. First response, either the "Responded in…" time-to-first-touch, or an em-free dash if nothing's been logged, or "Unworked" is implied by the Take action button rather than repeated here (the field simply shows the response label or a dash). Lost reason, shown only when the lead's current status is Lost. Outcome, shown only once the lead has been converted, reading "Converted to a job."
Data sources
Data sources
- 1.Your lead records: contact, channel, source, status, and timestamps. Your business.
- 2.Jobs in your book, for the convert picker's unlinked-job list. Your business.