Routing forms capture prospect information through intake questionnaires and automatically assign appointments to the right team members based on their responses.
This guide explains how Calendly routing forms work, walks through setup steps, and shows you how Zeeg, a CRM-powered scheduling platform, delivers the same functionality with AI phone answering, custom objects, and advanced automation at lower prices.
What are Calendly routing forms?
Starting with the basics, Calendly's routing forms are intake questionnaires paired with the Calendly scheduling platform to automatically distribute appointments to the right people or teams. When someone books a meeting on your calendar, they first answer questions that capture important context about their request.
These intake questions might include topics they need to discuss, their role and seniority, what region or product line interests them, and more. The answers help qualify prospects efficiently and match them to the best resource for their needs.
Once someone completes the routing form questions, Calendly's rules engine kicks in behind the scenes. Appointments get automatically directed to specific calendars, individuals, or departments based on your configured routing rules.
💡 One thing to note: Routing forms require a paid Calendly plan. The free version doesn't include this feature.
By the way, here are more articles on Calendly:
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- Calendly Free vs Paid: Is the Upgrade Worth It?
How do Calendly routing forms work?
Breaking down the process, Calendly’s routing forms give you an automated way to direct inbound leads and appointments based on pre-configured rules and logic. Here's how you can set up intelligent routing with Calendly:
1. Build an intake form
First, you'll create questions to capture key details about inbound inquiries. Within Calendly, you can build customized forms with various field types like multiple choice, dropdowns, checkboxes and more. Common qualifying questions ask about company size, industry, interests, role, location and similar criteria.
2. Set up routing destinations
Next, you connect your Calendly links to teams or individuals who should receive different types of appointments. For example, smaller accounts may route to junior sales reps while enterprise prospects go to the VP of Sales.
3. Configure routing rules
This is where the logic comes in. You set up score ranges or conditional criteria that assign inquiries to the appropriate destination based on intake form responses. Requests meeting certain conditions are directed to Destination A while others go to Destination B or C.
4. Form responses trigger automated routing
Once everything is configured, the system runs on autopilot. When new prospects fill out the questionnaire and book appointments, Calendly instantly evaluates the rules and sends meetings to the right calendars and internal teams.
Why do I need a routing form?
Moving on to the benefits, using intake and routing forms have several key advantages when managing inbound inquiries and appointments:
Qualify leads faster - Forms standardize lead qualification at the very start of engagement by capturing key details like industry, role, business size and interests. This enables instantly identifying the most promising opportunities to prioritize.
Route more accurately - With configurable routing rules and logic, forms distribute high quality leads to the right teams and individuals based on expertise, capacity and other criteria.
Reduce bottlenecks - Automated scoring and routing eliminates manual evaluations and decisions around lead assignment, preventing delays and bottlenecks.
Improve data quality - Structuring incoming data into forms minimizes errors, inconsistencies and missing information that happen with free-form inquiries. Over time this results in cleaner lead records.
Optimize workflows - The instant hand-off via automated routing connects form submissions to downstream processes like notifications, follow-ups and workflows for continued efficiency gains.
In essence, intake and routing forms act as a command center to ingest, qualify, and instantly channel inbound interest to accelerate revenue generation and customer success.
How do routing forms work?
Getting into the mechanics, intelligent routing forms operate through three key steps:
Building out the form - This starts with the upfront questionnaire that captures details like interests, role, industry and more from inbound leads. Custom form fields enable qualifying criteria.
Mapping responses to routing - Next, the questionnaire answers get mapped to the appropriate resources. For example, marketing inquiries get routed to the marketing team while enterprise prospects go to sales VPs.
Automated assignment - Finally, when a prospect completes the form, their answers instantly trigger routing to the associated resource's calendar for follow up.
This sequence allows intake quizzes to direct booking requests without any manual evaluation or costly delays coordinating across teams.
How to create a routing form in Calendly
Let's walk through the setup process. Creating an automated intake and routing form within Calendly takes a few key steps:
1. Build out the intake form
Start by constructing a lead qualifying questionnaire using Calendly's drag-and-drop form builder. Add questions in formats like multiple choice, dropdowns, checkboxes, and more with customized options to capture relevant lead details. Common examples include company size, role, location, interests, or customer segment.
2. Set up screening routes
Next, configure screening logics to automatically redirect visitors who don't meet certain qualifying criteria. For example, screen out small businesses by routing their submissions to a custom message or external URL rather than a booking link. Tailor messaging to provide next steps or alternative options.
3. Map qualified leads to booking routes
Then create booking logics to map submissions that meet qualifying criteria to appropriate Calendly scheduling links, teams, or external destinations you wish to direct promising leads towards for further engagement.
4. Build a fallback route
In addition, set up a default fallback route to handle form submissions that don't match any previous screening or booking routing rules. This makes sure that you have a path to redirect all inbound interested parties.
5. Validate routing with test submissions
Before finalizing and distributing your Calendly rowuting form, publish it then thoroughly test sample submissions to validate accuracy of routing outcomes. Refine any inconsistent logic until satisfied.
Once configured properly following these steps, your automated Calendly form will intake lead details and instantly deliver booking inquiries to appropriate handling resources based on responses.
Managing and analyzing routing form responses in Calendly
After your routing form is published and capturing submissions, Calendly gives you insights into responses for ongoing optimization. Within the platform you can:
View submission details - Check individual form response history along with the associated routing destination or outcome for each entry. Filter and sort to analyze response patterns.
Export submission data - Download full response data in CSV format for additional analysis and integration with other systems like CRMs.
Monitor performance - Track metrics like form submission volumes, booking rates, and automated routing accuracy over time to fine tune form questions and routing logic.
Adjust routing rules - Edit existing screening/booking routing criteria or fallback logic based on learnings from response patterns.
Update form questions - Add, edit or remove intake questions and answer options based on which provide the most relevant signals.
With these capabilities, Calendly equips admins to continually evolve their automated routing approach using response insights to improve lead qualification and assignment accuracy.
Exporting Calendly routing form data
To enable further analysis or integration of routing form submissions with other systems, Calendly allows exporting complete response data in CSV format.
Admins can download full details of all form entries, including:
- Timestamps
- Questions displayed
- Answers selected per response
- Associated routing destination per entry
- Contact details (if collected)
Bringing this data into spreadsheet tools or loading it into databases allows additional reporting capabilities. For example, admins may want to segment analysis by factors not available within Calendly directly.
Common use cases for exported routing form data include:
- Syncing bi-directionally with CRM platforms
- Importing into business intelligence dashboards
- Further statistical analysis using Excel or dedicated tools
- Backup or archiving form submissions externally
- Feeding data into custom lead handling workflows
With easy access to full, raw routing form response data, Calendly gives you flexibility for businesses and teams to incorporate insights into other stacks as needed.
Using Zeeg as an alternative routing form solution
Now, let's talk about a more comprehensive alternative. Zeeg distinguishes itself as an all-in-one scheduling and CRM platform that goes far beyond basic routing capabilities. Built in Europe with data privacy at its core, Zeeg combines elegant scheduling with powerful business management tools.
Unlike Calendly's standalone scheduling approach, Zeeg functions as a complete CRM system with custom objects which allows you to track leads, manage customer relationships, and automate your entire sales process. The platform includes AI-powered features like AI phone answering, intelligent lead scoring, and smart routing: all at a significantly lower price point than Calendly's enterprise offerings.
With Zeeg's modern interface, you can create sophisticated routing campaigns without any coding. The drag-and-drop builder lets you design custom intake forms with various fields, from text boxes to multiple choice questions to file uploads. Forms can be embedded directly on your website, used in landing pages, or triggered as pop-ups.
What really sets Zeeg apart is its integration range. Appointment data flows into your CRM database while triggering notifications, tasks, and workflows based on submissions. Through native integrations and Zapier connections, Zeeg plugs directly into your existing tech stack including Salesforce, HubSpot, Apple Calendar, and other major platforms.
Beyond scheduling, Zeeg's CRM capabilities include:
- Custom objects and fields to track any business data specific to your workflow
- AI phone answering to handle inbound calls automatically and qualify leads 24/7
- Lead scoring and qualification to prioritize opportunities based on behavior and attributes
- Automated workflows for follow-ups, nurturing sequences, and task assignment
- Team collaboration tools for shared customer visibility across departments
- Analytics dashboard to track performance metrics and conversion rates
- Round-robin scheduling to distribute appointments fairly among team members
- Payment processing to collect fees directly through booking pages
The platform also maintains full GDPR compliance with European server hosting and end-to-end encryption, which is critical for businesses handling sensitive customer data.
Conclusion
Wrapping things up, intelligent routing and intake forms have become invaluable for organizations managing high volumes of inbound leads and appointments. Automating the process of capturing qualifying details and distributing booking requests delivers immense efficiency gains while providing quality customer experiences.
As discussed, Calendly offers a sophisticated platform enabling customizable forms and logic to instantly score leads, segment priorities, and route to appropriate teams for follow up. Configuring tailored workflows allows businesses to scale while ensuring accurate and rapid lead assignment.
For those seeking a more advanced solution, Zeeg is a compelling opportunity: especially when cost savings and additional functionality matter. With its built-in CRM, AI-powered features like automated phone answering, custom objects for flexible data management, and enhanced automation capabilities, Zeeg delivers routing forms alongside complete business management tools at competitive pricing.
No matter the platform, leveraging the power of automated lead routing through intake forms optimizes top-of-funnel processes to help businesses convert more prospects. The ability to instantly channel inbound inquiries based on answers provided solves a universal pain point for high-performance sales and service teams.
FAQs
What are routing forms?
Routing forms are intelligent intake questionnaires used to automatically direct inbound leads or appointments to the appropriate sales reps, agents or teams for follow up. Calendly forms standardize the capture of key details from leads upfront through custom questions that profile criteria like company size, industry, interests and needs. Based on how visitors respond, the routing form software then instantly assigns leads to designated individuals or groups using rule-based logic mapping form answers to routing destinations.
How much do Calendly routing forms cost?
Calendly routing forms are only available on paid plans, starting at $10 per user per month for the Standard plan. The feature isn't included in Calendly's free tier. By comparison, Zeeg offers routing forms starting at just $16 per user per month with CRM capabilities, AI features, and more comprehensive functionality included.
Can I customize Calendly routing forms?
Yes, Calendly allows you to customize routing forms with various question types including multiple choice, dropdowns, checkboxes, and text fields. You can configure routing rules based on responses and set up screening logic to filter out unqualified leads. However, customization options expand significantly with dedicated platforms like Zeeg, which offers drag-and-drop builders and more flexible logic options.
Do routing forms work with my existing CRM?
Calendly routing forms can export data to integrate with CRMs, though the connection typically requires middleware like Zapier. Zeeg offers a different approach: it functions as a full CRM itself with custom objects while also providing native integrations with platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot, eliminating the need for separate systems.
