How it works
The team defines a list of people who should receive new conversations. When a new lead arrives, it goes to the next person on the list. The following lead goes to the person after that, and so on, looping back to the start.
Common variations include:
- Availability-aware rotation: people who are off shift, out of office or marked away are skipped.
- Weighted rotation: some people receive more than others, for example a full-time rep versus a part-timer.
- Capped rotation: someone is skipped once they have a set number of open conversations.
Round-robin usually applies only to new conversations. Returning customers typically go back to their existing owner.
Example
A driving school has three instructors who also answer inquiries. New WhatsApp messages from people asking about lessons rotate among them: the first goes to Ana, the second to Marcus, the third to Priya, the fourth back to Ana. On Tuesdays Marcus teaches all day, so he is marked unavailable and the rotation skips him. When a student who has already booked with Priya writes again, the message goes straight to her rather than into the rotation.
Why it matters for messaging teams
Rotation solves two problems at once: nobody has to decide who takes each lead, and leads are spread fairly. That supports speed to lead, because the new message lands in one person’s queue right away instead of waiting in a general pile for someone to notice.
Round-robin vs. rule-based assignment
Round-robin ignores what the message says. Rule-based assignment looks at the content, channel or a field value and sends it to the right specialist. Many teams combine them: rules first (Spanish-language inquiries go to the bilingual rep), then round-robin among whoever is left.
Common mistakes
- Rotating to people who aren’t working, so leads sit unread.
- Putting returning customers back into the rotation, which breaks continuity.
- Treating “even” as “fair” when some leads are much larger than others.
- Never checking whether each person is actually replying. Rotation spreads the work; it doesn’t guarantee a response.
Rule-based routing in inChat is part of workflow automation, which is in development.