Lead routing is the seam between marketing and sales. When it leaks, the whole funnel feels broken — even when scoring, sync, and content are healthy. Here are the four failure modes we see most often.
1. Routing logic lives inside one person's head
Undocumented routing is a time bomb. The day that person leaves, every edge case becomes a mystery. Move logic into Salesforce Flow or a declarative routing tool, and write a one-page README that explains the intent — not just the rules.
2. Territory definitions drift from the sales org chart
Sales reorganizes more often than marketing does. If routing is hard-coded to named reps instead of territory or segment objects, every reorg silently breaks attribution. Route to roles and queues, not people.
3. Routing fires before enrichment lands
Inbound web leads often arrive with bare minimum fields. If routing runs immediately, you route on guesses. Add a short hold window (or a defined enrichment step) so country, employee count, and industry are present before assignment.
4. Routing has no SLA observability
If you cannot answer 'how many MQLs were touched within 24 hours last week' without a manual export, your routing has no feedback loop. Instrument SLA timers, surface them in a dashboard sales actually opens, and you will see behavior change inside a quarter.