How do I build a speed to lead workflow that follows up with new leads instantly?

Leads go cold when someone answers an hour, four hours or a day later. A commonly cited study shows a 391% increase in close rates when you respond within the first few minutes, so Votel recommends an automated speed to lead system. Create a separate agent and workflow for it, and save it as its own snapshot.

1. Create an agent for speed to lead and add a workflow.
2. Choose the trigger that matches the lead source. For a lead source that sends webhooks (for example Angi), use the Webhook trigger: the workflow gives you a webhook URL to paste into the lead source, so every lead received starts the workflow. For Facebook lead forms, use the Lead form (Facebook lead form submitted) trigger. You can add a second trigger for a Votel form on the customer's website; one agent can have several triggers and workflows, and every source follows the same automation.
3. For webhook leads, add the Contact lookup step. It matches an existing contact by phone or another field and creates one if none exists, which prevents duplicates.
4. Add an SMS step first, for example saying you see they just requested information and are about to call. A text right before a call greatly increases the answer rate, because most people do not answer calls from numbers they do not know.
5. Add an Outbound call step, then waits and further SMS and call attempts. Do not wait a day between early attempts: for example wait 15 minutes, or try three times in the first hour, and you can build in seven follow ups. You can add email steps too.
6. For a failed lead or a bad phone number, opt the contact out or set DND so the system does not keep calling a bad number.

The SMS steps work as opening messages: if the lead replies and the agent is turned on for that channel, the AI responds. Use variables so the workflow works for every sub-account without editing. You can also ask the AI assistant to build it.