Build a Smart Lead Qualification Bot with Make.com

Hook: The Lead That Almost Broke Me

A few years back, I was running a tiny consulting shop. My phone rang off the hook with “excited” potential clients. Turns out, 90% of them were tire-kickers who wanted a $50k app for $500. I spent hours on calls that went nowhere. My calendar was a graveyard of dead-end meetings. I was the human equivalent of a spam filter—just way less efficient.

Then I built a tiny robot intern. It now does my lead qualifying for me. It meets every new lead at the digital door, asks 3 smart questions, scores their answers, and only lets the good ones through. If I’m busy, it even books a meeting for me. I went from drowning in noise to swimming in qualified opportunities.

Today, you’re going to build the same thing. No code. No drama. Just a clean, business-focused automation that replaces chaos with clarity.

Why This Matters: The Cost of Chaos

Every unqualified lead is a leak in your revenue bucket. Here’s the math:

Time: 15 minutes per bad call × 10 calls/week = 2.5 hours of your life, gone.
Opportunity Cost: While you’re on a bad call, you’re not closing a good deal.
Sanity: Constant rejection and wasted energy burns out even the best founders.

This automation replaces: Your junior sales rep, your frantic note-taking, and your gut-feel decision-making. It becomes your first line of defense.

What This Tool / Workflow Actually Is

This is an AI-powered lead qualification engine. It sits between your lead sources (website forms, contact pages, etc.) and your CRM or calendar.

What it does:

Triggers on a new lead submission (e.g., from a Google Form).
Sends the lead data to an AI (like OpenAI) to score based on fit and intent.
Updates a Google Sheet with the score and notes.
Routes the lead: High scores get a calendar link; low scores get a polite email.

What it does NOT do:

It doesn’t close deals for you.
It doesn’t replace your CRM (it feeds it).
It doesn’t magically create leads—you still need traffic.

Prerequisites

Be honest: If you can fill out a web form and follow a recipe, you can do this.

You need:

A free Make.com account.
A free Google account (for Sheets).
An OpenAI API key (or similar; $5 in credits will last you months).

Zero coding required. If you get stuck, I’m here. Well, metaphorically. You’ve got this.

Step-by-Step Tutorial: Build Your Lead Bot

Let’s build this in Make.com. Think of Make as a digital LEGO set—you snap together modules (called “modules”) to create a workflow.

Step 1: Create the Trigger (The Doorbell)

We’ll use a Google Form as our lead source. Create a simple form with 3 questions:

Name
Email
“What’s your biggest challenge right now?” (Paragraph text)

Now, in Make.com:

Click “Create a new scenario.”
Search for and add the Google Forms module.
Select “Watch Responses.”
Connect your Google account and pick your form.

Why this step: This is your robot’s eyes and ears. It waits for the doorbell (form submission) to ring.

Step 2: Send Data to AI for Scoring (The Brain)

Add the OpenAI module (or your AI provider).

Select “Create a Chat Completion.”
Connect your OpenAI API key.
In the “System Message” field, give the AI its job description. This is CRITICAL:

You are a ruthless lead qualification expert. Your task is to score a lead from 1-10 based on fit and intent.

Look at the 'challenge' field. Do they sound like a serious buyer with a real budget and problem?

Respond ONLY with a JSON object like this:
{"score": 8, "notes": "Clear problem, mentions budget"}

In the “User Message” field, map the data from your Google Form trigger. Just paste the form fields. Make will auto-fill them.

Why this step: You’re giving the AI a rubric. You’re not asking “is this a good lead?”—you’re forcing a structured decision.

Step 3: Parse the AI’s Brain (The Translator)

Make.com will give you a big text blob from the AI. We need to extract the score.

Add a Tools module.
Select “Parse JSON.”
For the “Text” input, select the text output from the OpenAI module.

Why this step: Computers love structured data. We’re turning the AI’s human-like text into a number our router can use.

Step 4: Route the Lead (The Fork in the Road)

This is where the magic happens. We’ll use a Router module.

Add a Router module after your JSON parser.
Create two paths (click the plus button on the router).

Path A: Good Lead (Score >= 7)

Filter: Add a filter. Condition: Score >= 7.

Connect a Google Sheets module: “Add a Row.” Map the name, email, score, and notes to your sheet. Call this tab “Qualified Leads.”

// In your Google Sheets module, map these fields:
Column A: {{Name}}
Column B: {{Email}}
Column C: {{Score}}
Column D: {{Notes}}
Column E: {{Timestamp}}

Connect a Calendly or Google Calendar module: “Create Invite.” Send a meeting link to their email.

Path B: Bad Lead (Score < 7)

Filter: Condition: Score < 7.

Connect a Gmail module: "Send an Email."

// In your Gmail module:
To: {{Email}}
Subject: Following up on your inquiry
Body: Hi {{Name}},

Thanks for reaching out! Based on your info, we might not be the best fit right now. Here's a free resource that could help: [Link to your blog/guide].

Best,
Your Automated Assistant

Also add a Google Sheets module: "Add a Row" to a tab called "Nurture Leads."

Why this step: This is your bouncer and your concierge, working in tandem. High-value guests get the red carpet. Everyone else gets a polite, helpful redirect.

Step 5: Test and Turn It On

Click "Run once" in Make.com. Submit a test response to your Google Form. Watch the LEGO bricks snap together in real-time. If it works, flick the switch to "Scheduling: On."

Complete Automation Example

Scenario: You're a freelance web designer. Your contact form is on your site.

A lead named Sarah fills out your form. She writes: "I need a 5-page site for my new yoga studio. Budget is around $3k. Need it in 6 weeks."
Your Google Form trigger fires in Make.com.
Make sends Sarah's info to the AI. The AI sees "yoga studio" (specific niche), "$3k" (real budget), and "6 weeks" (real timeline).
AI outputs: {"score": 9, "notes": "Clear project, budget aligns, urgent timeline"}
Router sees 9 > 7. Path A activates.
A row is added to your "Qualified Leads" Google Sheet.
A Calendly link is auto-emailed to Sarah: "Sarah, a 9/10 fit! Book a 15-min scoping call here."
You get a notification: You have a hot lead ready to talk to. You never touched your email.

Real Business Use Cases (MINIMUM 5)

Real Estate Agent: Scores new Zillow/form leads by property type, price range, and timeline. High scores get an instant text with your calendar link; low scores get added to a monthly newsletter.
SaaS Founder: Qualifies beta signups. Filters out students from actual decision-makers who mention a specific pain point your software solves.
Marketing Agency: Scores inbound "Can you help us?" emails. Looks for keywords like "SEO," "PPC," and "budget." Routes serious inquiries to a sales rep and others to a case study PDF.
Recruiter: Scans incoming resumes/CVs from a form. Scores based on years of experience and specific skills mentioned. Auto-rejects or schedules a screening call.
E-commerce Store (High-Ticket): For items over $1k, a post-purchase form asks about use case. High-intent answers trigger a personal follow-up call from a human.

Common Mistakes & Gotchas

The Vague Prompt: If you tell the AI "score this lead," you'll get garbage. Be specific: "Score 1-10 based on budget, timeline, and problem clarity." Your prompt is your manager; manage it.
Forgetting the No-Path: What happens if the filter fails? In your router, make sure you have a default path for leads that don't meet your criteria. Don't let them vanish into the void.
Not Testing Edge Cases: Submit a blank form. Submit a form with crazy characters. Your intern needs to know how to handle weird inputs.
API Limits: Don't send every spam email through GPT-4. Maybe filter for an '@' symbol first to catch the junk.

How This Fits Into a Bigger Automation System

This lead qualifier is the front door of a much larger machine.

CRM: Instead of Google Sheets, the final step for a high score could be creating a new Lead/Contact in HubSpot or Salesforce.
Voice Agents: After the high-score email, trigger an AI voice call: "Hi Sarah, this is [Your Name]'s assistant. I see you're interested in a web design. He's free for a quick chat at 2 PM. Press 1 to confirm."
Multi-Agent Workflows: The qualifier bot could pass the lead to a "Research Bot" that scrapes the company's LinkedIn and tech stack, then drafts a personalized outreach email for you.
RAG Systems: If a lead asks a technical question in the form, the AI could check your internal knowledge base (via RAG) and provide an instant, accurate answer in the follow-up email.

What to Learn Next

You just built a smart, revenue-generating machine that works while you sleep. You've tamed the chaos of your inbox and calendar. That's power.

But what happens after the lead books a meeting? The next step in our course is Automating Your Sales Prep. We'll build a bot that watches your calendar, researches the new meeting attendee, and writes a personalized briefing note so you walk into every call like a mind-reader.

Stay tuned. The robot revolution isn't coming. We're building it, one workflow at a time.