# Leads If you do not see this in your menu, your website does not use it. A lead is an inquiry. Someone filled in a form on your website and pressed send. Their message lands here, and it stays here. Go to **Plugins**, then **Leads**. Two forms feed this list. Your contact form, and your quote form. Leads from the quote form are marked **Quote**. The rest are marked **Contact**. ## Do leads come by email too? Yes. When a lead comes in, a copy is emailed to the address we set up for you. Nothing on this screen turns that off. The person who wrote to you gets a short reply as well. It tells them their message arrived. You do not have to send it. Leads flagged as spam are the one exception. No email goes out for those. There is a section on spam below. ## The inbox ![The Leads screen. Boxes across the top count the leads. Below them, four numbered marks: 1 on the search box, 2 on the Export CSV button, 3 on the row of status buttons, 4 on one lead in the list.](../../../assets/screenshots/leads-inbox.png) *Your inbox. Newest at the top.* **1. Search.** Type a name or an email address and click **Search**. It looks at names and email addresses only. It does not read what people wrote. **2. Export CSV.** Covered further down this page. **3. The status buttons.** **All**, **New**, **Read** and **Archived**. Click one to show only those leads. **4. A lead.** One row is one inquiry. Click the row to open it. Under the status buttons is a second row: **All types**, **Contact** and **Quote**. Use it to show one kind of inquiry. The boxes across the top are counts. How many leads you have, how many are new, how many came from each form, and how many were flagged as spam. A row tells you a lot before you open it. Whether it is new, read or archived. Which form it came from. The name, and the business name if they gave one. Any tags you added. How many notes it has. And the date and time it arrived. Leads are listed newest first, 25 to a page. **Older** and **Newer** buttons sit at the bottom when you have more than that. ## Opening a lead Click the row. The lead opens under it. ![One lead open, with four numbered marks: 1 on a yellow warning strip, 2 on the contact details, 3 on the message, 4 on the Mark read button. Notes and tag boxes sit between the message and the buttons.](../../../assets/screenshots/leads-detail.png) *A quote request, open. Every box on the form the visitor filled in shows here.* **1. A yellow strip.** You will not see this most of the time. It means the email for this lead did not go out. The last section on this page covers it. **2. Their details.** Name and email are always there. Phone, business name and timeline show up when the person filled them in. **Received** is when it arrived. **Came from** is the page of your website they were on. **Country** is where they were. **3. What they wrote.** Their message, word for word. **4. Mark read.** This and the other buttons are covered below. Click the row again to close the lead. ## Notes and tags Two boxes sit under the message. **Add a note** is for what you did about this lead. "Called back Tuesday, quoted $4,200, waiting to hear." Notes are private. Nobody outside the panel ever sees them. **Add a tag** is a short label, such as `hot` or `site visit`. Tags are lower case, and one lead can hold twelve. Type into either box, or both, then click **Save**. Your note gets today's date and time. Tags you have used turn into buttons at the top of the screen, with a count next to each. Click one to show only leads with that tag. Click it again to show them all. To take a tag off a lead, open the lead and click the tag under the message. To remove a note, click **Delete note** under it. You are asked to confirm. ## Marking a lead read Click **Mark read**. The **New** count at the top goes down by one. Reading a lead does not do this on its own. You have to click. **Mark unread** puts it back to new. Use it for a lead you want to look at again tomorrow. ## Archiving a lead Click **Archive**. The lead comes off the **All** list and moves to the **Archived** list. Nothing is lost. Use it for jobs you have finished, and for inquiries you are done with. Click **Archived**, open the lead, and click **Restore** to bring it back. ## Deleting a lead :::caution[Warning] **Delete** removes the lead for good. Its notes go with it. Nothing can bring it back, and neither can we. The panel asks you to confirm first. If you are not sure, click **Archive** instead. It costs you nothing to keep a lead. ::: ## Spam Your website checks every inquiry before it saves it. One that looks like it came from a robot is kept, but flagged. A flagged lead sits in the same list as the rest, with **SPAM** at the front of the row. Open it and you get a yellow strip. ![A lead flagged as spam. Three numbered marks: 1 on the yellow strip explaining the flag, 2 on the Not spam button, 3 on the red Delete button.](../../../assets/screenshots/leads-spam.png) *Nothing was emailed for this one. It is here and nowhere else.* **1. The strip.** It says why the lead was flagged, that no email was sent, and that the lead will be thrown away 30 days after it arrived. **2. Not spam.** Click this if the inquiry is real. The flag comes off, and the lead is no longer on its way to being deleted. **3. Delete.** For real spam. Read the warning above first. You do not have to do anything. A flagged lead deletes itself after 30 days. :::note[Important] Read your flagged leads once a week. The check is not perfect, and a real customer does end up in there from time to time. A rescued lead was never emailed to you, so this list is the only place it exists. ::: ## Getting your leads into a spreadsheet Click **Export CSV**. A block of text appears above your leads, one line per lead. Select all of that text, copy it, and paste it into Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. Save it as a `.csv` file if you want to keep it. The export follows whatever you have filtered the list to. Filter to **Quote** first and you get quote requests only. Click **Hide export** when you are done. :::tip[Tip] Leads are not replied to from this screen. There is no reply box, and there never was one. Pick up the phone, or write to the address on the lead. The faster you get back to someone, the more of these turn into work. ::: ## When a lead email does not arrive An open lead with a yellow strip reading **Notification email was not delivered** was saved, but the email about it never went out. The inquiry is safe. Only the email failed. :::danger[Contact support] Contact us if lead emails stop arriving, or if they are going to the wrong person. Tell us: - the date and time of a lead you did not get an email about - the address the emails should go to We set that address up, and we can change it for you. Check your junk folder first, in case they are being filed away. Email [support@lookoutridgeit.com](mailto:support@lookoutridgeit.com). [Getting support](/help/getting-support/) says what to put in the message. :::