Adding Your First Lead

A lead in ArborBuddy is any potential customer — someone who called, texted, emailed, or submitted your quote form. Here’s how to add one.

Step 1 — Open Leads

Click Leads in the left sidebar or navigate to /dashboard/leads.

Step 2 — Add a Lead

Click the + Add Lead button in the top-right corner. A slide-over panel opens.

Fill in:

Field	Required?	Notes
Name	✅ Yes	First + last name or company name
Phone	Recommended	Used for urgency banner + push alert
Email	Recommended	Required for AI email generation
Service Type	Recommended	Drives AI scoring and email context
Address	Optional	Enables neighborhood clustering
Message / Notes	Optional	Customer’s words — used in AI email personalization

Click Save. The lead appears in your pipeline with a New status badge.

Step 3 — ArborBuddy Scores It Immediately

As soon as the lead is saved, ArborBuddy runs two scoring models:

• DistilBERT sentiment analysis on the message/service type
• Rules-based scoring on urgency signals (emergency keywords, high-value services)

The combined score (0–100) appears as a colored badge next to the lead name. Red = needs to call now.

Step 4 — Move It Through the Pipeline

Tap the status badge to move the lead forward:

New → Contacted → Quoted → Won ✅
                          ↘ Lost

When you mark a lead Won, ArborBuddy automatically fires the 3-email post-job sequence — no action needed.

What Happens Next?

• “Call This Lead NOW” hero — the highest-scoring new lead surfaces at the top of your dashboard
• Response urgency banner — shows how fast your conversion rate drops if you wait (live-ticking clock)
• AI email generation — click the envelope icon on any lead to generate a personalized follow-up in one click

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Tip: Leads from your quote form are added automatically with source: quote_form. You don’t need to add them manually.