The lead pipeline
What New, Contacted, Booked and Lost mean, what the pipeline strip and milestones show, and what changes a status on its own.
Every lead has one status. The status is the single source of truth for the pipeline strip on the lead record, the counts on the Leads page and the lead widgets on the dashboard. Hailo changes it on its own in exactly one case, described below. Everything else is up to you.
The four statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| New | The couple inquired and nobody has replied yet. |
| Contacted | You have replied. The ball is in their court or the conversation is going. |
| Booked | The couple booked. A booked lead's record carries on as the client's record. |
| Lost | The couple went elsewhere or went quiet for good. Lost leads are dimmed in the list and drop out of dashboard counts. |
The pipeline strip
The header of every lead record shows three stages: Inquiry, Contacted, Booked. The current stage is highlighted, earlier stages show as done. Click a stage to set the lead's status to it (Inquiry sets New). Once the lead is booked, the strip is replaced by a single line reading "Booked" with the date.
The same chips appear under Pipeline status on the Profile tab, which is the intended place to move a lead forwards or backwards by hand.
Milestones
Under the strip, three milestones light up on their own as real things happen. They are display only; you cannot tick them by hand.
| Milestone | Lights up when |
|---|---|
| Proposal sent | A proposal attached to this lead has been sent. |
| Contract signed | The couple has signed the contract on their booking. |
| Deposit paid | A payment has been recorded on the booking, or any invoice for the converted client has money against it. |
What moves a lead on its own
- New to Contacted happens when you send an email from the Messages tab and your connected mailbox confirms the send. That is the only automatic move.
- Nothing else is inferred. Logging a note, receiving a reply, sending a proposal, or the couple opening a link does not change the status. If a couple books through your booking link, the booking flow sets the lead to Booked as part of converting it to a client.
- Automations can change a status too, but only if you build one that does. See Automations overview.
Mark a lead as lost
- Open the lead.
- Click ⋯ in the header and choose Mark as lost.
The lead stays in your records under the lost segment. To bring it back, open the same menu and choose Un-mark as lost. The status returns to what it was before.
Convert a lead to a client
Click Convert to client in the header of the lead record. Hailo creates a client from the lead's details and the button becomes View client. The lead record stays where it is: opening the client from the Clients list brings you back to this same page.
You do not need to convert by hand when the couple pays through your booking link. Hailo converts them at that moment, creates the wedding event and generates the installment invoices. See Book a lead.
Troubleshooting
The lead still says New after I emailed them. Either the email was sent from outside Hailo (for example with Open in Gmail), or no mailbox is connected so the send never completed. Set the status yourself from the strip or the Profile tab.
A lead shows Contacted but I never wrote to them. Somebody on your team changed the status, an automation did, or the lead came through your call page, which creates leads as Contacted because the couple already booked a call.