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Case Study

Lead Qualification Engine

An n8n + OpenAI pipeline that automatically scores, categorizes, and routes inbound leads — cutting response time by 12x and tripling lead-to-meeting conversion.

48h → 4h

lead response time

conversion rate improvement

60%

less manual qualification work

The Problem

A B2B software company's sales team was manually qualifying every inbound lead from three separate sources: a website contact form, a LinkedIn DM funnel, and cold email replies. Each lead required checking company size, budget fit, and intent signals before deciding whether to respond.

Response time averaged 48 hours. Hot leads — prospects who had already compared competitors and were ready to buy — were cooling off before the sales team even reached out. Lost opportunities were impossible to measure, but the pattern was clear.

The Solution

I built a unified lead qualification pipeline in n8n that ingests leads from all three sources into a single Airtable base. From there, OpenAI analyzes each lead's company data, message content, and intent signals to produce a numeric score and a plain-language summary. High-scoring leads trigger an instant Slack notification and an automated follow-up email — all before a human ever looks at the CRM.

  • Form submissions, DMs, and email replies all land in a single Airtable base via n8n webhooks
  • OpenAI scores each lead on fit, intent, and urgency using a structured prompt with the company's ICP criteria
  • Hot leads (score ≥ 80) get an immediate Slack alert with a summary and suggested opener
  • An automated first-touch email goes out within minutes, personalized to the lead's stated problem
  • HubSpot is updated automatically so the CRM never falls behind
  • Warm and cold leads are batched into a daily digest for human review

Pipeline

Form Submission Airtable Storage OpenAI Lead Scoring Score Router Slack Alert + Auto-Email + CRM Update

The Results

Response time dropped from an average of 48 hours to under 4 hours for qualified leads — and for hot leads, the system responds within minutes. The sales team now spends their time exclusively on conversations that are already pre-qualified, which directly improved conversion rates.

  • Lead-to-meeting conversion improved by 3x in the first quarter after launch
  • Sales team's manual qualification work dropped by 60%
  • Response time for hot leads reduced to under 10 minutes
  • HubSpot data quality improved as every lead is now logged consistently
Get in touch

Have a similar challenge?

If leads are slipping through the cracks or your sales team is spending too much time on manual qualification, I can build a pipeline like this for your stack.

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