Round Robin Meeting: What is it, When to Use Them and Best Practices

If you’ve ever played sports, you probably have experienced round robin rules: every team plays every other team. It’s a simple, straightforward way to organize otherwise complicated tournaments. The round robin meeting approach has become so popular among sales teams for much the same reason. 

But simple isn’t always better. So are round robin meetings the best sales distribution strategy for modern sales teams? Do they actually accelerate speed-to-lead and revenue growth? 

In this article, we’ll break down the good, bad, and ugly of round robin meetings. We’ll walk through how to do them well, where they succeed, and some potential alternatives for your sales organization to consider. 

First things first: what is a round robin meeting?

Round robin meetings are like dealing cards: every rep gets a lead assigned to them before the cycle begins again. For an illustration of how this works, see the graphic below: 

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This approach is built first and foremost for fairness. However, just because a rep is next on the docket doesn’t mean they have the skill or experience to successfully close the deal. 

Many sales leaders are keenly aware of this reality. One attempt at solving the problem is the use of a customized round robin approach that limits which reps are included in the distribution queue. These limitations can be based on a variety of factors, including: 

• Availability
• Territory or industry experience
• Skill level (e.g. bigger opportunities are assigned to more competent reps)
• New leads assigned to existing accounts

The graphic below illustrates a simplistic example. In it, the lower-value ICP #1 is distributed via round robin rules to SDRs, while the higher-value ICP #2 is distributed via round robin rules to AEs: 

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Benefits of round robin meetings

Round robin is probably the most popular lead distribution model, at least in B2B. Sales leaders love it because it’s simple and easy to implement. Salespeople love it because it makes expectations around inbound leads clear.

But in addition to making everyone’s lives easier, round robin meetings—especially flexible or customized round robin—can also benefit the business’s bottom line. Here are four reasons why.  

Faster speed to lead

According to data from Drift (now Salesloft), 55% of companies take more than five days to respond to inbound leads. So it’s no surprise that companies who respond within five minutes are 100X more likely to get in touch with that lead. 

But you can’t respond to leads quickly if you’re constantly having to look at a record, figure out which rep you want to receive it, make sure that rep is available, follow-up if there’s no outreach, etc. Round robin meetings automate this distribution process, helping you contact (and close) those leads faster. 

Fair distribution

If your sales reps are constantly fighting amongst themselves, that’s time and energy they’re not spending finding and winning new business. By setting clear rules and distributing leads evenly, round robin meetings can help reduce team friction. 

Additionally, fair meeting distribution can help avoid cherry picking, bias in lead assignment, and can provide a common baseline when comparing individual rep performance. While there may be good reasons to assign inbound leads to more experienced reps (e.g. outliers who don’t align with your ICPs), many teams treat this as the exception and not the rule. 

Learn how round robin lead assignment in Salesforce works, for example.

Maximize availability without burning out your sales team

Key to fast inbound lead response times is maximum sales rep availability. However, if some reps are online more than others, this can lead to excessive calendaring for that rep. 

Sure, those reps may welcome the additional opportunities. But if you have a lead volume of 200+ leads per month, this could end up burning them out. Round robin lead distribution helps to maximize your availability without unduly burning some reps over others. 

Lead routing customization

Thanks to numerous lead routing software options, your choices for lead distribution aren’t limited to round robin and cherry picking. You can set up numerous customizations to your round robin workflow to ensure the best outcome for your reps. 

For example, let’s say a qualified inbound lead from a large healthcare company comes in. The sales rep on deck for assignment has plenty of IT experience, but none in healthcare. The next rep in the round robin rotation, however, has 15+ years selling in healthcare. You can set up your lead routing workflow to assign the lead to the second rep, then go back to the first rep when the next lead comes in. 

The same customizations can be used for rep availability, experience level (you may not want first-year reps selling $100M+ enterprise clients), and more. 

How to set up effective round robin meetings: a step-by-step guide

Once you’ve decided to implement round robin meetings as your method of inbound lead distribution, here’s how to set up your lead routing software & processes.

1. Set up your round robin rules

Before you purchase or implement your lead distribution software, it’s important to define your round robin meeting rules and process. That way you’re configuring your automations to your sales and business strategy—not the other way around. Here are the most common approaches to round robin. 

Standard round robin

With a standard round robin approach, lead distribution follows a strict alternating pattern among all your available sales reps. No exceptions. 

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Flexible round robin

Flexible round robin presents the inbound lead with all available sales reps and their available meeting times, allowing them to pick the person and time slot that works best for them. 

Weighted round robin

Not every sales rep can handle the same volume of inbound leads. For example, you could have an entry-level rep that’s spending more time on training and coaching and, thus, needs a smaller workload. Or, on the other hand, a rep that handles primarily long sales-cycle, B2B enterprise accounts may only be able to handle half the inbound leads a more transactional rep can handle. 

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Customized round robin

This is a standard round robin approach, but with built-in exceptions based on insights drawn from enrichment data. These can include specific territories, company sizes, lead-to-account matching, or outliers that don’t align 100% with your ICPs.

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2. Automate your round robin lead routing software

For your round robin meetings to work and actually accelerate speed-to-lead and qualified bookings, you can’t rely on a sales ops manager to manually assign the leads. After all, you need as close to 24/7 coverage as you can get, and sales ops managers deserve lunch breaks and PTO too! 

That’s where lead routing software comes in. As soon as a lead fills out a high-intent form, your software identifies the next available rep in the rotation, assigns the lead in the CRM, and sends a notification via Slack or other messaging software. Ideally, your lead routing software features real-time enrichment, giving that rep all the information they need to have a value-filled conversation from the get-to. 

3. Integrate calendaring directly with lead routing

Routing leads to sales reps, while important, isn’t your end goal. It’s simply a means to an end: getting a qualified booked meeting. 

According to Default’s proprietary analysis of 88K+ inbound leads, a top strategy for accelerating speed-to-lead is to integrate sales scheduling software directly into your forms and lead routing software. Leads can click a meeting link and choose their time slot within seconds of conversion.

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As you can see from the graphic above, this approach reduces lead response time from 48 minutes down to just two. 

4. Continually monitor for improvement

Sure, round robin meetings are a popular strategy for assigning & routing inbound leads. But if they don’t accelerate speed-to-lead, qualified meetings, and closed-won business, you shouldn’t use them.

After setting up your round robin rules, continually monitor your sales performance to make sure you’re getting the results you need. If not, you should consider modifying or adjusting your approach. 

Lead routing examples, other than round robin

If you do find yourself needing a new approach to inbound lead distribution, here are some examples of approaches other than round robin:

• Location- or territory-based routing. You can define territory either geographically (i.e. specific states, provinces, or countries) or by industry or vertical. Either way, reps have set boundaries within which they operate, and the inbound lead distribution rules match these boundaries. 
• Company size. This approach is particularly common among B2B companies who have multiple tiers of enterprise clients. Less experienced reps can handle smaller deals, while your six- or seven-figure, enterprise deals for larger companies should probably be handled by more seasoned reps. 
• Product interest. Some sales teams are divided not by geographic territory, but by product expertise. If an inbound lead expresses interest in a particular product, you’ll want to route that lead to the reps best positioned to sell that product.
• Interest level. Based on your lead scoring model, a lead’s interest level may be designated as “cold,” “warm,” or “hot.” Some companies route and assign leads based on their temperature—for instance, only sending “hot” leads to senior AEs so as not to waste their time. 

Round robin meeting best practices

Distributing leads and booking qualified meetings are one thing. Closing business from those meetings is another entirely. Here are some tips for better meetings after you route your inbound leads. 

Do your homework

Don’t go into your prospect meetings blind. If you use a lead enrichment software like Default and have access to hundreds of data points per lead, use it to your advantage.

Researching your prospects doesn’t have to be time-consuming. In fact, if your marketing automation software uses AI to summarize your enrichment data, you can speed up qualification by 31 percent. 

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Define the meeting objective

Depending on your sales process and ICP, that first inbound meeting could have a number of objectives. Are you trying to book a second meeting? Qualify the lead? Learn more about the account and where the lead sits in the organization? Go in with the hard ask? 

Before the meeting starts, figure out your primary objective. That way, you know what questions to ask or actions to take before closing out your Zoom window. 

Communicate your value prop

If you take the time to do your homework (see above), you should have a good sense of the prospect’s need or pain. Make sure that you communicate the value of your product in a way that speaks to those needs or pain. Otherwise, you risk wasting their time (and yours) sharing irrelevant information. 

Sell with the long game in mind

You have no control over whether or not a prospect buys. You do have control over the relationship you build with them. Keep that in mind when deciding how to approach your inbound sales calls.

Granted, good rapport does not a closed-won deal make. However, it certainly helps. And if you don’t win their immediate business, you’ll increase the odds of future business and referrals. As you expand and diversify your inbound operations, these “soft sell” opportunities will become more common and more valuable. 

End with an action item

Remember those objectives mentioned above? Every sales call should end with an action item to move you closer along one of those goals. Most of the time, the action item for a new inbound lead is a second meeting. 

Round robin meeting FAQs

What are the disadvantages to round robin meeting scheduling? 

The main disadvantage to round robin meeting scheduling is that it prioritizes equal lead distribution over sales effectiveness. There are many scenarios where certain reps are better positioned to build rapport with a particular lead (e.g. common industry experience), which makes them more likely to close the deal. 

Are round robin meetings efficient?

Yes, round robin can be an efficient and simple meeting distribution strategy. Its equal distribution of leads makes it popular among sales teams. Plus, most round robin lead routing software offer the ability to customize and weight your routing rules.  

What’s the best software for starting & running round robin meetings? 

The best RevOps software for automating round robin meetings should include the following capabilities to achieve optimal meeting outcomes:

• Flexible sales workflow software to account for outliers, custom routing rules, and more
• Native integration between form automation software and scheduling 
• Automated lead enrichment to provide context that improves sales meeting effectiveness
• AI-based summaries of enrichment data to accelerate lead qualification

And no, you don’t need an entire RevOps tech stack to achieve all those capabilities. You just need one tool: Default. To see it for yourself, schedule a demo today.