Follow-up tasks so no lead is forgotten
How a firm schedules follow-ups on leads, hands them to colleagues, tracks overdue ones and keeps a record of every task, done or cancelled.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Most lost leads are not lost to a competitor. They are lost to a sticky note. Someone promised to call back after the prospect's board meeting, wrote it down somewhere, and the board meeting came and went. By the time anyone remembers, the prospect has assumed the firm was not interested.
A follow-up that lives in someone's head, inbox or notebook is invisible to everyone else and fragile even for its owner. Putting each one on the lead itself, with a date and a name, is the simplest discipline in practice development, and the one that most reliably turns enquiries into clients.
Dated tasks on the lead itself
In Achekam, staff can put dated follow-up tasks on a lead. Each task sits on the lead's own page and in the Follow-ups tab under CRM & SALES > Leads, so it can be found from either direction: from the prospect, or from the list of work due.
A good follow-up task answers three questions in its wording:
- What exactly is to be done? "Call to discuss the payroll quote", not "follow up".
- When? A real date, tied to something the prospect said where possible.
- Why? A few words of context, so that a colleague picking it up knows where the conversation stands.
Make it a rule that no conversation with a prospect ends without a next task on the lead, even if that task is "close as lost if no reply by" a stated date.
For yourself or a colleague
Tasks can be set for yourself or for a colleague. That matters in a firm, because the person who takes the first call is often not the person who should take the next step. The receptionist captures the enquiry and sets a task for the tax manager; the manager meets the prospect and sets a task for the partner to send the proposal.
Handing over by task rather than by corridor conversation has two benefits. The colleague receives something concrete with a date on it, and the firm keeps a record of who was asked to do what. If the prospect later says nobody called back, the lead shows exactly where the chain broke.
When handing a task to a colleague, tell them as well. A task is a record, not a substitute for a brief word.
Overdue and due in the next seven days
The Follow-ups tab shows overdue follow-ups and those due over the next seven days. Those two views are the heart of a weekly sales routine:
| View | What to do with it |
|---|---|
| Overdue | Deal with each one today, or move the date with a reason |
| Due in the next seven days | Plan the week's calls and e-mails around them |
Overdue items deserve particular attention. One overdue task is a slip. A person with a long overdue list has too many leads or too little time, and that is a capacity conversation for the partner, not a reprimand.
Tasks that create themselves
Not every follow-up is typed by a person. Two automated features add tasks to the list:
- Sequences. A firm can build follow-up sequences of tasks and AI-written e-mails. A step that cannot be sent becomes a follow-up, so a failed e-mail turns into a task for a person instead of disappearing.
- The mailbox check. A firm can switch on a check of its sending mailbox in Microsoft 365 or Gmail, so that an e-mail from a lead stops the lead's sequence and creates a "reply to" follow-up for the owner.
Both put work in front of the right person without anyone having to notice it first. How sequences work in detail is covered in follow-up sequences that stop when a lead replies.
The daily e-mail of due follow-ups
People who live in their inbox rather than in the CRM can still keep up. A firm can send each person a daily e-mail of their due follow-ups. It is off until switched on in the Lead auto-responder & outreach settings, together with lead assignment and first-response targets, which are covered in assigning new leads and response targets.
The daily e-mail works best as a prompt, not as the system of record. Staff should still mark tasks done or cancelled on the lead, so that the list stays true for everyone.
Never deleted: done or cancelled
Follow-ups are never deleted. A task is marked done when it is done, or cancelled when it no longer applies.
This can feel fussy, but it is what makes the history trustworthy. A cancelled task still shows that a step was planned and deliberately dropped, and when. Agree what "cancelled" should mean in the firm, for example that the prospect asked not to be contacted, or that the step was replaced by a different one, and ask staff to say which in the task.
The first of those reasons deserves care. When a prospect asks the firm to stop contacting them, cancel every open task on the lead and record the request where the next person will see it. Data protection law in all three countries gives people rights over how their information is used; for Kenyan firms, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner's page on data protection laws in Kenya covers the Data Protection Act, 2019 and its regulations, including those on complaints handling.
Open the Follow-ups tab now, clear or re-date everything overdue, and add a next step to every open lead that has none.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
