Handover

A handover is the moment a lead or customer moves from one person to another. A qualifier passes a lead to a seller. A seller passes a paid deal to an account manager. Someone leaves. Done well, the customer barely notices.

In a CRM a handover is two things: a change of the owner field and a note in the deal. The note says who the customer is, what they want, what was promised and what the next step is. Without the note, only the name has moved. A good note takes a few minutes and saves the next person a whole call.

For example, after payment, the seller writes a handover note and introduces the account manager on the last call.

The head of sales checks handovers in the weekly review by looking at deals whose owner changed. For each one, open the note and the next step. If either is missing, the deal goes back to the previous owner until the handover is finished.

Deals often get lost at a handover. A customer who had to explain everything twice often slows down or leaves. If many deals stall right after an owner change, the handover note or the introduction is the first thing to fix.

A handover changes the lead owner on purpose, while routing sets the first one. A backup covers temporarily and does not need a full handover. The account manager receives most handovers after payment, and every handover ends with a clear next step.

• Changing the owner without a note. The new person starts from zero and asks the customer again. Make the note a condition: no note, no owner change.
• Writing notes nobody can use. A line like "good client, call him" says nothing. Use a short template: who decides, what they want, what was promised, open questions, next step and date.
• Handing over by email to the customer only. The customer gets a new name and no reason to trust it. Introduce the new person in a call or a joint message, and let the previous owner stay in for one exchange.
• Handing over and disappearing. Questions come up in the first weeks and nobody answers. Agree that the previous owner answers colleague questions for a short, named period.

By Friday, the head of sales writes a six-line handover template and pins it in the deal card. Then pick the last five deals whose owner changed and check them against it. For each one that fails, ask the previous owner to complete the note today. Next Friday, check the new handovers against the same template.

A weekly meeting on stuck deals that ends with a decision and an owner for each.