What's Next for LeadRobin: Kanban, Multi-Source Leads, and Broker Bidding

LeadRobin is live and processing thousands of leads for insurance agencies. But the current version is just the foundation. Here's what's coming next - features that will turn LeadRobin from a lead routing tool into a complete lead management platform.

Kanban Board: Visual Lead Management

The current dashboard shows leads in a list, which works fine for searching and filtering. But when you're managing hundreds of active leads, a list isn't enough. You need to see where each lead is in the sales process at a glance.

That's why I'm building a kanban board view. Imagine columns for each stage of your sales pipeline:

• New: Leads that just came in and haven't been contacted yet
• Contacted: Broker has reached out to the prospect
• Quoted: A quote has been sent
• Negotiating: Back-and-forth on terms, coverage, pricing
• Bound: Deal closed, policy issued
• Lost: Prospect went with another agency or decided not to buy

Each lead becomes a card that you can drag from one column to the next. Click on a card to see the full details - the original email, the CSV data, the broker assigned, notes from the broker, and the complete history.

But a kanban board with hundreds of cards is chaos. That's why filtering is built in from day one:

• Filter by broker: See only the leads assigned to a specific broker
• Filter by line of business: Commercial auto, general liability, workers comp, professional liability, etc. - see only the leads you care about
• Filter by date range: Focus on this week's leads or last month's pipeline
• Filter by status: Show only leads that need attention
• Filter by source: Email leads, web form leads, API leads (more on that below)

The line of business filter is especially important. Insurance is specialized - a broker who handles general liability doesn't want to see commercial auto leads cluttering their board. With this filter, each broker can focus on their specialty while the agency still sees the full picture.

The filtering makes the kanban usable at scale. An agency processing 500 leads a month can still manage their pipeline effectively because they're not looking at 500 cards - they're looking at the 20 leads that need action right now.

The kanban also enables bulk actions. Select multiple cards and move them all to the next stage. Assign multiple leads to a different broker. Update the status of an entire batch. These features save hours of manual work.

Multi-Source Lead Ingestion

Right now, LeadRobin monitors Microsoft 365 shared mailboxes via the Graph API. That works great for agencies that receive leads via email - and most do. But leads come from everywhere, and agencies need a single system to manage all of them.

I'm building support for additional lead sources:

Web Forms

Agencies can embed a LeadRobin form on their website. When a prospect fills it out, the lead goes directly into LeadRobin - no email intermediary. The form data maps to the same fields as email leads, so the round-robin logic, the dashboard, and the agency management system integration all work the same way.

API Integrations

Lead vendors, comparison sites, and marketing platforms can push leads directly to LeadRobin via API. Instead of emailing a CSV, they POST JSON to a webhook endpoint. LeadRobin validates the data, assigns a broker, and routes it through the same pipeline. This is faster and more reliable than email-based ingestion.

Manual Entry

Sometimes leads come in by phone, walk-in, or referral. Brokers need a way to get those into the system so they can track them alongside everything else. A simple "Add Lead" form in the dashboard lets brokers or admins enter leads manually. They still go through the same tracking and reporting system.

CSV Upload

For agencies migrating from another system or importing a batch of leads, there's a CSV upload feature. Map the columns, upload the file, and LeadRobin imports the leads into the dashboard.

The key principle: regardless of where the lead comes from, it goes through the same pipeline. Same round-robin logic (or bidding, see below), same dashboard, same agency management system integration, same reporting. LeadRobin becomes the single source of truth for all leads, not just email leads.

Broker Bidding: A Marketplace for Leads

Round-robin works well for agencies that want equal distribution. But not every agency works that way. Some want their best brokers to get the best leads. Some want brokers to compete for leads. Some have specialized brokers who only want certain types of leads.

That's why I'm building a bidding system. Here's how it works:

Lead Pool

Instead of automatically assigning every lead to a broker, some leads go into a "pool" - a list of available leads that brokers can see. The pool shows basic info: lead type, line of business, location, coverage amount, and maybe a few other details. Not enough to work the lead, but enough to decide if it's worth bidding on.

Bidding

Brokers can bid on leads in the pool. A bid might be a dollar amount (what the broker is willing to pay for the lead), a priority level, or just an expression of interest. The agency can configure the bidding rules - highest bid wins, first bid wins, or the agency manually reviews bids and assigns the lead.

Why Bidding?

Bidding solves several problems:

• Specialization: A broker who specializes in construction insurance can bid on construction leads, while a broker who focuses on restaurants bids on restaurant leads. No more manually reassigning leads after round-robin sends them to the wrong specialist.
• Motivation: When brokers have to bid on leads, they're more motivated to follow up. They've "paid" for the lead (in time, money, or priority points), so they're not going to let it sit in their inbox.
• Fairness through market forces: Instead of an algorithm deciding who gets what, the market decides. Brokers who are good at closing certain types of leads will bid more aggressively on those leads, and they'll get them.
• Premium leads: Some leads are more valuable than others. A lead for a $1M general liability policy is worth more than a lead for a small BOP. Bidding lets the agency capture that value - either by charging brokers more for premium leads or by letting the market determine who values them most.

How It Integrates with the Kanban

When a lead is bid on and assigned, it moves from the pool to the winning broker's kanban board. The broker can then drag it through the pipeline stages. The agency can see which leads are in the pool (unassigned), which have bids pending, and which are actively being worked.

Configurable Rules

Not every agency wants bidding. That's why LeadRobin will support multiple routing modes:

• Round-robin: Equal distribution, the current default
• Bidding: Brokers compete for leads
• Hybrid: Some lead types go through round-robin, others go to bidding
• Manual: Agency admins assign leads directly

Agencies can choose the model that fits their workflow, or mix and match by line of business or lead source.

The Vision

LeadRobin started as a solution to one problem - fair lead distribution for insurance agencies. But the vision has grown. It's becoming a complete lead management platform:

• Ingest leads from any source (email, web forms, API, manual)
• Route them intelligently (round-robin, bidding, manual)
• Track them visually (kanban board with powerful filters)
• Integrate with agency management systems (NowCerts and others)
• Report on performance (by broker, by lead type, by source, by time period)

The goal is to give agencies a single tool that handles the entire lead lifecycle - from the moment a prospect reaches out to the moment a policy is bound. No more switching between email, spreadsheets, and three different systems. LeadRobin becomes the central hub for lead management.

What's Next

I'm building the kanban board first, then multi-source ingestion, then bidding. Each feature builds on the last. The kanban needs a solid foundation of tracked leads. Multi-source ingestion needs the kanban to be useful. Bidding needs both the kanban and multi-source to work at scale.

The roadmap is clear. The architecture is solid. And the agencies using LeadRobin today are already seeing the value. The next phase is about making that value available to more agencies, in more ways, for more lead types.