What makes an enquiry qualified? Write the definition before you pay for it
A practical way for any business to define a qualified enquiry: intent, contactability, scope, market fit, consent, duplicates and review, agreed in writing first.
“Qualified” is the most important word in any enquiry arrangement, and often the least defined. A provider can report a strong month while your team spends it chasing wrong numbers, job seekers and people outside the area you serve. Both sides are telling the truth; they are just counting different things.
The fix is boring and effective: write the definition down before anyone spends money, and check every enquiry against it.
Start from what your team actually does next
A qualified enquiry is one your team would be glad to reply to. That sounds obvious, but it changes the question from “did a form get filled in?” to “is this a person we can help, who asked us, and whom we can reach?”
Seven checks cover most businesses. The checks stay the same across sectors; what each one means for you does not.
| Check | The question | What you decide |
|---|---|---|
| Genuine intent | Is this person asking about what you sell, for themselves or their organisation? | Which other contacts (suppliers, job seekers, spam) are routed elsewhere |
| Contactability | Can you reply? | Which details are required, and when someone counts as unreachable |
| Scope | Is it something you offer? | Your list of services or products, including what you don’t take |
| Market fit | Is it inside the market you serve? | Places, customer types, company sizes or languages |
| Consent | Did the person know who they were contacting, and agree? | The notice wording, and anything extra your market requires |
| Duplicates | Have you already received this request? | The matching rule and the time window |
| Review | Can either side question a result? | How long you have, and what evidence is checked |
Genuine intent is a judgement, so make it a written one
Forms attract more than customers. A typical business contact form receives sales pitches, job applications, existing customers asking for support and the occasional test entry. None of those are bad, but none of them are new enquiries. Your definition should say where each kind goes, so nothing useful is thrown away and nothing is counted twice.
When a request is genuinely unclear, it should be held with a reason rather than quietly passed or dropped.
Record what you learn, but be careful what you disqualify
Budget, timing and decision stage are useful to know. They are risky as pass or fail rules, because people rarely share them on a first contact. A sensible default: record them when offered, and only use them to disqualify if the written standard says so.
It also helps to be honest about what an enquiry is. It is a person who wants to talk to you. It is not a sale, and reports should not describe it as one.
Measurement tools count differently too
Ad platforms let you choose how conversions are counted. Google Ads, for example, lets an advertiser count every conversion after an ad interaction or only one, and its help pages suggest counting one per interaction for leads, because the same person often fills in several forms. That setting is useful, but it is not your definition. A platform conversion is a form submission; whether it is qualified is a separate decision.
The same applies in your CRM. HubSpot, for example, automatically deduplicates contacts by email address and companies by domain name. That catches some duplicates, not all: the same person calling from a different phone, or a colleague from the same company using another email, still needs a rule.
Consent belongs in the definition
If an enquiry form doesn’t tell the person who will receive their details, you can’t be sure they meant to contact you. UK guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office, for instance, lists vague requests, pre-ticked boxes and not naming the organisation among the signs that consent is not valid. Rules differ by country and sector, but “the person knew it was you” is a sound minimum anywhere. There is more on this in our article on consent notices on enquiry forms.
A short checklist before you agree anything
- Write the seven checks in your own words, with examples of what passes and what doesn’t.
- Decide the duplicate rule and window for your business. There is no universal number.
- Agree how long you have to question a result, and what evidence will be checked.
- Ask for every enquiry to be listed in reporting, including the ones that didn’t count, with the reason.
- Revisit the definition after the first month. Real enquiries will show you what you missed.
Ring Side Leads publishes its own draft lead standard for exactly this reason: so you can judge it before talking to us, and hold us to it after.
Sources
- Google Ads Help: About conversion counting options, checked 2026-10-19
- ICO: What is valid consent?, checked 2026-10-19
- HubSpot Knowledge Base: Deduplicate records, checked 2026-10-19
General information, not legal advice. Rules and programmes change; check the sources before acting.
Next: Who should own your marketing accounts? Ownership, access and a clean exit