Send enquiries to the right team

What this means for your practice

Write the routing rules in business language before automating them. Use only information the receiving team genuinely needs and keep ambiguous requests visible for review.

A practical conversation with your supplier

Ask the supplier to route a fictional request involving two services. Who receives it, and can they explain why? Include a general question with no obvious category. The practice should know where uncertainty goes instead of discovering that those requests never reached anyone.

Plan the first improvement

Start by asking reception to describe how it decides where an enquiry goes today. List the information that actually changes that decision: the requested service, location or type of question, for example. Avoid adding categories simply because the form builder offers them. Each category creates a responsibility that somebody must understand and maintain. Write one ordinary example and one awkward example for each rule, using fictional details. These examples become a practical brief for the supplier and a way to explain the process to new staff.

Before switching on automatic assignment, agree whether the receiving team can return a misrouted item and who handles it next. Otherwise automation may replace forwarding emails with forwarding tasks. Review a small selection of assigned enquiries with both reception and the receiving teams after launch. Look for recurring misunderstandings in the categories, not just individual mistakes. Change the rule only after the people affected agree how it should work.

How to check the result

Count requests reassigned because the initial rule was wrong.