What this means for your practice
Define the handover event, receiving role and acknowledgement process. Keep the minimum information needed in approved systems and make unanswered handovers visible.
An example to discuss with your team
Send a fictional enquiry to an unavailable receiving role in a test process and confirm it reaches an authorised alternative without disappearing.
What to discuss with your agency
Send a fictional enquiry to a role that is unavailable. Who becomes the authorised alternative, and how does the central team know the handover worked? Agree the minimum information needed in approved systems. Report ownership as well as enquiry totals so a growing lead count does not hide unanswered requests.
Put the brief into practice
Map the enquiry route from the website to the home that should respond. For each step, identify the information passed, the receiving role and how acceptance is recorded. Central marketing may monitor overall flow without becoming the permanent owner of every local conversation. Keep the boundary clear so the local team knows when responsibility has arrived and the central team knows when it can stop chasing. Use fictional enquiries for more than one home, including an unavailable recipient and an unclear location choice.
Agree a fallback and review point for items not acknowledged. Follow the organisation's approved systems and information-handling arrangements rather than using ad hoc forwarding chains. Report waiting handovers separately from new enquiry volume. A rising number of contacts can look encouraging while families wait without an owner. Review repeated routing problems with both teams and improve the form, destination list or cover process that caused them, rather than repeatedly forwarding individual messages manually.
How to check the result
Measure time from enquiry receipt to acknowledged ownership.
Turn reading into a next step
Your action checklist
Work through these checks with your team or supplier. Tick the ones you have resolved and leave unknowns open.
Record what you know, what is still missing and the answer you need from your team or supplier.
Use project decisions only, without personal, patient or confidential details. Entries stay in this page and are not submitted to Kay & Co. Copy or download before leaving; this page does not save your notes.
Further reading
These sources provide background for the topic. The practice examples and checklist are illustrative planning suggestions from Kay & Co.
Related guides
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