AI Lead Scoring in n8n: OpenAI + Sheets + Slack Alerts

AI Lead Scoring in n8n — OpenAI, Google Sheets, and Slack Alerts with SLA Escalation

Turn inbound form submissions into automatically scored sales leads. This n8n workflow uses OpenAI to score and categorize each lead, logs them to Google Sheets, and sends hot and warm Slack alerts—including an SLA-based escalation for hot leads that haven’t been handled.

What this workflow does

• Receives leads via webhook: A POST request from your form hits an n8n webhook.
• Normalizes and identifies: Incoming fields are normalized into a consistent lead structure, with a lead_id and timestamp generated.
• Scores with OpenAI: The workflow builds a scoring prompt and calls the OpenAI Chat Completions API to return a JSON payload containing a score, reason, next step, and intent.
• Classifies temperature: The response is parsed and assigned as hot, warm, or cold/unscored.
• Logs to Google Sheets: Every lead is appended to the Google Sheets “Leads” tab, including fields such as lead_id and handled.
• Notifies Slack by priority: Hot leads and warm/unscored leads are posted to your Slack sales channel. Cold leads are only logged.
• SLA escalation for hot leads: For hot leads, the workflow waits the configured SLA window, re-reads the matching row in Google Sheets, and if handled is still empty, it escalates the lead to a Slack manager channel.

Use cases

• SaaS teams scoring trial/demo requests instantly and notifying sales with urgency.
• Lead routing for forms where intent and next steps vary by request content.
• Ensuring no high-priority lead is missed via Slack SLA escalation.

Technical details

• Integrations: OpenAI (Chat Completions), Google Sheets (OAuth2), Slack.
• n8n workflow components: if, set, code, no op, wait, slack.
• Required setup: Create a Google Sheet with a “Leads” tab and matching columns (including lead_id and handled), then configure Slack channels and SLA minutes, scoring thresholds, and the OpenAI model in Settings.