How it works
Qualification is a judgment made from facts. A salesperson asks a few questions, notes the answers and decides one of three things: pursue actively, nurture for later, or politely decline.
The questions usually cover:
- Need: what problem they want solved and whether you solve it.
- Timeline: when they want it done.
- Budget: whether their expectations are in a range you can work with.
- Decision-maker: who else needs to agree.
- Logistics: location, size, access or anything else that rules a job in or out.
Frameworks like BANT give these questions a structure. In chat, the questions come up naturally over a few messages rather than as a form.
Example
A wedding photographer gets an Instagram DM: “Are you available June 14?” Before quoting, she asks where the wedding is, roughly how many hours of coverage they want and whether they have a budget range in mind. The couple answers: a venue two hours away, eight hours of coverage, and a budget well under her starting package.
She marks the lead as not a fit for now, sends a friendly reply with a referral, and adds a note in case their plans change. Total time: a few minutes, instead of a call and a custom proposal.
Lead qualification vs. lead scoring
- Qualification is a decision about a specific lead, usually made by a person in conversation.
- Lead scoring is a number assigned by rules or a model to rank many leads, often before anyone has spoken to them.
Scoring can help decide who to talk to first. Qualification decides whether to keep going after you’ve talked.
Why it matters for messaging teams
Chat makes it cheap to start conversations, so small teams can drown in inquiries that will never buy. Qualifying early keeps time for the leads that fit, and the answers become useful fields on the contact and deal.
Common mistakes
- Interrogating. Ask one or two questions at a time and answer theirs first.
- Asking about budget before you’ve shown you understand the need.
- Qualifying but not recording the answers, so the next person asks again.
- Treating “not now” as “no”. Some leads are a fit next season.
inChat’s AI lead qualification is in development as a concept: it is designed to suggest qualification from message content for a person to confirm, not to score leads on its own.