Handling a lost lead — closing the loop cleanly

Not every lead becomes a job. Marking one Lost cleanly matters — it clears your active list and records why the deal didn’t close. This page walks through how to do it, when to reopen a lead, and what happens after.

When to mark a lead Lost

Any lead that isn’t going to result in an install belongs at Lost. Common triggers:

• Customer chose someone else
• Customer stopped responding
• Timing shifted (they’ll do it next year, next season, after their renovation)
• The install turned out not to be technically feasible
• The customer wasn’t ready to commit to solar in the first place

You don’t have to be certain. If a lead’s gone cold for weeks after two follow-ups, mark it Lost — easier to reopen than to leave a stale card cluttering your board.

Marking a lead Lost

Open the lead’s detail page, then click ❌ Mark Lost. A short form appears asking two things:

• A reason from a fixed list of seven:
  • Price too high
  • Chose competitor
  • Timing not right
  • No response
  • Customer not serious
  • Technical unfit
  • Other (details required)
• An optional note — freeform text. Required when you pick “Other,” useful on the others too if there’s a specific factor worth remembering.

Confirm the form and the lead moves to the Lost column. The reason and note are stored on the lead and shown on its detail page from then on.

Reopening a lead

Lost isn’t a locked state. If a customer you’d written off calls back — or you realize you clicked the wrong button — go to the Pipeline tab, find the card in the Lost column, and move it back to whichever stage fits. Reopening keeps the original lost reason on record so you can see the full history.

For a longer gap — last winter’s Lost lead now wants a quote — treat them as a fresh conversation with a new quote and updated site details, even though the lead card carries forward.

What Lost leads still show up as

• In the Leads list — included by default alongside every other stage; use the stage filter if you want to see only your active leads.
• In the Kanban Pipeline tab — the Lost column, visible alongside every other stage.
• In the lead’s activity timeline — the Lost transition shows up as a logged event. The reason and note aren’t repeated in that entry, though — for those, check the Lost reason block on the lead’s detail page, which stays visible for as long as the lead is Lost.

Why the reason matters over time

The seven reasons form a fixed vocabulary so you can count where your leads go later. Writing a note consistently, not just picking a reason, is what turns Lost cards into patterns worth acting on.

Where to go from here

• The full pipeline model: understanding-your-lead-pipeline
• How a lead arrives in the first place: how-leads-work