The Lead Leakage Audit: Find Where Your Enquiries Go to Die

A lost deal at least got a fight. A leaked lead died unseen — the enquiry nobody called back, the WhatsApp message discovered three days late, the trade-fair visiting card still in a jacket pocket. In most audits we run, leakage beats lost deals as the bigger revenue hole. Here’s how to measure yours in an hour.

Step 1: Count the mouths of the funnel (20 min)

List every channel an enquiry can arrive through: calls, WhatsApp, website, marketplace portals, references, walk-ins, exhibitions. For one recent week, count arrivals per channel from the raw sources — phone logs, WhatsApp chats, portal dashboards. Not from your records; from the sources.

Step 2: Trace them to a response (20 min)

For each counted enquiry, answer two questions: did anyone respond, and how fast? The typical first audit finds 15–30% received no response at all — usually the ones that arrived evenings, weekends, or to the person on leave.

Step 3: Trace them to a follow-up (20 min)

Of the responded ones, how many got a second touch? This is where the numbers get uncomfortable: a single reply followed by silence is the most common enquiry lifecycle in Indian B2B. Buyers rarely chase suppliers; they simply buy from the one who chased them.

Fixing the holes

The audit’s findings map to three mechanical fixes: one funnel (every channel feeds one system — no enquiry lives only in a personal phone), assignment rules (every lead has an owner within minutes, including Sunday leads), and cadence enforcement (follow-ups scheduled by the system, not by memory). Run the same audit a month after fixing — the before/after is usually the easiest business case you’ll ever present.