Why Handoffs Matter
Picture this: An excited prospect just finished a great conversation with your SDR. They’ve scheduled a demo for next week. Your SDR moves on to the next call. The day of the demo arrives, and your Account Executive opens the CRM to prep. All they see is a name, company, and meeting time. No context. No conversation history. No idea what the prospect cares about.
The demo starts with “So, tell me about your business…” The prospect thinks: “Didn’t I just explain all this to your colleague last week?” Trust erodes. Momentum dies. What should have been a smooth transition becomes an awkward restart.
This happens every day in growing sales organizations. Bad handoffs don’t just create awkward moments—they kill deals and lose customers. When customers have to repeat themselves, when context gets lost, when promises made during sales mysteriously disappear during implementation, you’ve got a handoff problem. And handoff problems cost real money.
Good handoffs do the opposite. They preserve momentum, transfer trust, maintain context, and create a seamless experience where the customer feels known, understood, and valued throughout their entire journey with your company.
The Critical Handoff Points in Your Sales Process
Most sales organizations have five key handoff moments where deals and customers can slip through the cracks. Understanding each one helps you design processes that actually work.
Marketing to SDR happens when a new lead comes in through your website, content downloads, or marketing campaigns. This is pure lead routing—getting the right lead to the right person quickly. The trigger is simple: new lead generated. The goal is to ensure no lead sits unworked, and every lead goes to someone who can actually help them.
Inbound routing to SDR is a special case of the first handoff. When someone fills out a demo request or contacts you directly, you need instant routing rules. Is it based on territory? Company size? Industry? Round-robin? The faster you route high-intent leads, the higher your conversion rates.
SDR to Account Executive is where most handoff attention goes, and for good reason. This is where a qualified conversation becomes an opportunity. Your SDR has built rapport, uncovered pain points, and scheduled a meeting. Now they need to transfer all that context to the AE who will run the demo and close the deal. Done well, the AE picks up exactly where the SDR left off. Done poorly, the AE starts from scratch and the prospect questions whether your company has its act together.
AE to AE territory changes happen less frequently but matter enormously. When territories get realigned, accounts change hands, or reps leave, you need a clean handoff process. The new AE needs full context on relationship history, deal status, customer situation, and any commitments made. Customers don’t care about your internal changes—they want continuity.
AE to Customer Success is the most critical handoff for long-term revenue. This is where the relationship transitions from selling to delivering. Everything promised during the sales process needs to transfer cleanly to the team responsible for making it happen. Miss this handoff and you get buyer’s remorse, failed implementations, and early churn.
How to Execute the SDR to AE Handoff
The SDR to AE handoff happens after your SDR qualifies a prospect and schedules a discovery call or demo. The meeting is booked. Now what?
Great handoffs happen in three parts: CRM updates, context documentation, and warm introduction.
Start with the CRM foundation. Create the opportunity record, add all contacts involved, link the account properly, and schedule the meeting. This takes two minutes but ensures everyone knows the meeting exists and can find the relevant information. If your CRM is your source of truth, treat it that way.
Document the context. This is where most SDRs rush and most handoffs fail. Your AE needs more than a name and number. They need to know what this company does, who they talked to, what pain points came up, how the prospect is qualified, what was discussed, and what expectations were set for the meeting.
Create a simple handoff document template that captures company overview (what they do, size, industry, location), contact information (who you spoke with, their role, other stakeholders mentioned), qualification details using BANT or your framework (budget discussed, decision makers identified, pain points uncovered, timeline understood), conversation summary (how you connected, what you discussed, what resonated, questions asked, concerns raised), and expectations (what you told them the meeting would cover, what they want to see, anything you promised).
Include your recommendations for the AE: what to focus the demo on, potential objections to anticipate, relationship notes about communication style, and any competitors mentioned. Attach call recordings, email threads, and documents shared.
This feels like a lot, but once you have a template, it takes 10 minutes. Those 10 minutes are the difference between an AE who walks into the meeting confident and prepared versus one who’s winging it.
Make a warm introduction. Don’t just update the CRM and ghost. Send an introduction email that connects your prospect with the AE. “Hi Sarah, as promised, I’m introducing you to Marcus, our Account Executive who will be leading your demo on Thursday. Marcus has helped many VP of Sales like yourself improve their pipeline visibility. I’ve shared the details of our conversations with him, so you’re in great hands.”
Copy the AE so they can take it from there. This simple email signals to the prospect that they’re not being passed around—they’re moving to the right person who knows their situation. It transfers trust from the SDR to the AE.
Timing matters enormously. Complete the handoff within four hours of scheduling the meeting. The AE should review everything at least one day before the meeting. The introduction email should go out before the meeting so the prospect knows who they’re talking to.
Here’s what good looks like in practice: SDR qualifies a prospect and schedules a demo for next Tuesday. Within an hour, the SDR creates the opportunity, fills out the handoff doc with all the context from their conversations, and sends the warm intro email. On Monday, the AE reviews the handoff doc, listens to the call recording, and prepares a customized demo focusing on the specific pain points the SDR uncovered. Tuesday’s demo starts with “Sarah, I understand you’re currently struggling with X and Y based on what you shared with my colleague. Today I want to show you exactly how we solve that.” The prospect feels heard. The demo is relevant. The deal progresses.
How to Execute the AE to Customer Success Handoff
The deal is closed. Champagne popping. Commission counting. And then… silence. The customer wonders what happens next. This is where companies lose customers before they even get started.
The AE to CS handoff happens the moment a contract is signed. Not when it’s convenient. Not next week. The day it’s signed.
Move fast. Within 24 hours of closed-won, initiate the handoff. Within 48 hours, have an introduction call with the customer. This speed signals to your brand new customer that you’re as excited about delivering as you were about selling.
Transfer complete context in four steps. First, update your CRM: mark the deal closed-won, create the customer record, transfer all contacts, and assign the CSM. Second, create a comprehensive handoff document. Third, schedule a three-way introduction call with the AE, CSM, and customer. Fourth, have an internal sync where the AE briefs the CSM privately before the customer call.
The handoff document for CS needs different information than the SDR to AE version. Your Customer Success Manager needs to know everything about the deal: contract details (start date, value, what they bought, key terms), how they found you, how long the sales cycle was, what competitors they evaluated, and why they chose you.
Create a stakeholder map. Who’s the executive sponsor? What’s your relationship strength with them? Who’s the day-to-day champion? Who’s the technical contact? Who are the end users? What are the power dynamics and decision-making patterns? This context is gold for the CSM building relationships.
Document their goals and success criteria in their own words. Why did they buy? What business outcomes are they expecting? What does success look like to them specifically? What metrics will they use to measure success? When the CSM can say “I understand you’re trying to reduce time-to-close by 30% in the next quarter,” the customer knows they’re in good hands.
Capture implementation details: what needs to be implemented, technical requirements, integration needs, timeline expectations, go-live targets, training requirements, phased rollout plans, and what resources the customer will dedicate. This prevents “I didn’t know we needed that” surprises later.
Here’s the critical section most AEs skip: risk factors. What known risks exist? What should the CSM watch for? What commitments were made during the sales process? Can you actually deliver on them? Being honest internally about promises made prevents disasters later. If you told them implementation takes two weeks but it actually takes six, your CSM needs to know now, not when the customer is angry in week three.
Include expansion opportunities. What else might they buy? When should growth conversations happen? Great CSMs think about expansion from day one, but only if you give them the context.
The three-way introduction call is non-negotiable for customer handoffs. Here’s how to structure 30 minutes: Start with introductions where the AE introduces the CSM, highlighting relevant experience with similar customers. The CSM shares their background briefly. Then the AE explicitly transfers the relationship: “I’ve shared everything we’ve discussed with Jordan. They know about your goals around X and Y and all the context from our conversations.”
The CSM confirms understanding: “Yes, I understand you’re looking to achieve X by Y date. I’m excited to help you get there.” This reassures the customer that context transferred successfully.
Spend 10 minutes confirming success criteria. The CSM should review their understanding of goals, confirm metrics, and clarify any questions. This ensures nothing got lost in translation.
Outline next steps clearly: when the kickoff meeting will happen, what the implementation timeline looks like, what the first milestone is, and how you’ll communicate going forward. Answer customer questions. Close with the AE saying “I’ll stay involved as needed, but Jordan is your go-to from here. Welcome aboard!”
The customer leaves this call knowing exactly what happens next and who to contact. The CSM has built initial rapport. The AE has successfully transferred trust. This is how you start customer relationships strong.
Lead Routing Rules That Actually Work
Lead routing sounds simple—get leads to reps quickly. In practice, it’s where many leads die.
Route by source and intent first. Someone who fills out a demo request form has different intent than someone who downloaded a whitepaper. Demo requests get immediate routing to an available SDR. Contact us forms go to SDRs. Content downloads might go to nurture first, then to SDRs when they hit a scoring threshold.
Use scoring to prioritize. If you have lead scoring, use it for routing priority. High score leads (80+) get immediate assignment to your best available SDR. Medium score leads (50-79) go into a queue for working within an hour. Low score leads (under 50) go to nurture sequences until they’re warmer.
Territory routing prevents chaos. The primary rule should be company headquarters location. If that’s unclear, use contact location. Have a fallback to round-robin within the region if location doesn’t map cleanly to territories.
For account-based approaches, existing accounts always go to the account owner regardless of who filled out the form. New accounts follow territory rules. Named target accounts go to their assigned owner even if they’re not in that rep’s territory.
Round-robin within segments keeps things fair. Distribute leads evenly within territory or segment. Skip reps who are out of office or at capacity. Some teams weight distribution by capacity or performance, though this gets complex fast.
Build in exceptions: high-value leads might go to your top performer regardless of whose turn it is. Industry-specific leads go to specialists in that industry. Referrals go to the person who was referred by name.
SLAs prevent leads from going cold. Hot leads like demo requests need response within 5 minutes. High-score leads within 1 hour. Standard leads within 4 hours. Low-priority leads within 24 hours. The faster the response, the higher the conversion.
Measuring Handoff Quality
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Track these metrics to know if your handoffs work.
For SDR to AE handoffs, start with acceptance rate—what percentage of meetings or opportunities handed off are accepted by the AE? Target 90% or higher. If acceptance is low, you have qualification issues. Track no-show rate—what percentage of scheduled meetings don’t happen because the prospect doesn’t show? Target under 15%. High no-show rates mean poor qualification or expectation setting by the SDR.
Measure conversion rate: what percentage of handoffs become real opportunities? Target 70% or higher. Low conversion means handoff quality is poor—either qualification is off or context transfer isn’t working. Get AE satisfaction feedback—have AEs rate handoff quality on a simple scale. Target 4 out of 5 or better. If AEs are unhappy, you need training or process changes.
For AE to CS handoffs, track handoff completion—what percentage of handoffs include all required elements? This should be 100%. If it’s not, your process isn’t clear or you’re not enforcing it. Measure time to handoff—how many hours from closed-won to introduction call? Target under 48 hours. Long delays kill momentum.
Get customer satisfaction on the transition. Survey new customers about their handoff experience. Target 4 out of 5 or better. Track onboarding success rate—what percentage of customers successfully complete onboarding? Target 95%+. Failed onboarding often starts with poor handoffs.
Watch early churn carefully. If more than 5% of customers churn in the first 90 days, you likely have handoff or expectation-setting problems. Customers who churn early often say “this isn’t what we thought we were buying” or “implementation was way harder than promised.” Both are handoff failures.
Create simple tracking logs. For SDR to AE, track date, SDR name, AE name, company, whether it was accepted, and outcome. Note rejection reasons. If 40% of rejections are “not qualified,” you’ve got SDR training to do. If 25% are “wrong territory,” you’ve got routing issues.
For AE to CS, track date, AE, CSM, customer, whether documentation was complete, whether intro call happened, and whether timing hit SLA. Review handoffs that went poorly to find patterns.
Common Handoff Mistakes to Avoid
The information black hole is the most common mistake. Teams pass just contact information—name, email, phone number, company name. That’s not a handoff. That’s abandoning the customer and forcing the next person to start over. Pass complete context: history, conversations, pain points, goals, commitments, and relationship dynamics.
Cold handoffs happen when you just update assignment in the CRM and assume the next person will figure it out. “Talk to this person now” without introduction or context transfer. Trust doesn’t automatically transfer. Make warm introductions. Do joint calls when possible. Transfer relationships, not just contacts.
No SLAs means handoffs happen whenever it’s convenient. The lead waits. The customer wonders what’s happening. Momentum dies. Define clear response times. Hold people accountable to them. Speed matters in handoffs as much as thoroughness.
No follow-up is the “hand off and forget” approach. You passed it over. Your job is done. Wrong. Close the loop. Confirm the next person picked it up. Verify the customer is taken care of. Check that the handoff worked. Dropped handoffs happen in the gap between “I handed it off” and “I received it.”
Inconsistent process means everyone does handoffs differently. Some reps write detailed notes. Others write nothing. Some do warm intros. Others don’t. Customers experience inconsistency. Fix this with standard templates and training. Everyone should hand off the same way.
Key Takeaways
Handoffs are the moments where deals and customers are won or lost. The quality of your handoffs directly impacts conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and revenue.
Document and standardize your handoff processes. Create templates that make it easy to do handoffs right every time. Train your team on using them.
Transfer complete context, not just contact information. The next person needs to know everything relevant that happened before. Ten minutes of documentation saves hours of re-qualification.
Warm introductions beat cold handoffs every time. Introduce people. Transfer relationships. Make the customer feel known and valued throughout transitions.
Measure handoff quality and success. Track acceptance rates, satisfaction scores, completion rates, and timing. Fix what’s broken.
Close the loop after handoffs. Confirm successful transfer. Verify nothing got dropped. Stay accountable for the whole customer experience, not just your piece.
Handoffs done right create seamless customer experiences. Handoffs done poorly create frustration, lost deals, and churned customers. The difference is process, discipline, and accountability.
Need Help With Handoffs?
We’ve designed handoff processes for growing teams. If you want seamless transitions, book a call with our team.