SDR to AE Handover Rate
This rate doesn't measure how many deals the SDR generates. It measures how well an opportunity survives the most fragile moment of its journey: the change of ownership.
“A lead the SDR warmed up for three weeks and the AE lets go cold in the first week is an opportunity lost twice: once to marketing, once to sales.”
Otto GTM ObservatoryThe funnel's most fragile moment
The SDR-to-AE handoff is a relationship change for the prospect: a new person, often a new tone, sometimes a request to repeat information already shared. Every friction point at this moment increases the risk of losing an opportunity that was already painstakingly qualified.
A structured handover involves transmitting complete context (objections raised, stakeholders involved, stated urgency) and ideally a joint SDR-AE-prospect introduction moment, which reduces the feeling of starting over from scratch.
Anti-patterns
Common mistake: measuring only the volume of opportunities passed from SDR to AE, without tracking how many of those are still active after 30 days, missing the most important signal about handover quality.
Second mistake: relying on generic written notes in the CRM to transfer context instead of a direct alignment moment between SDR and AE, with the effect of making the prospect repeat information already shared and perceive an uncoordinated service.
Practical Application
Of 58 opportunities passed from SDR to AE in a quarter, only 39 are still active after 30 days: a 67.2% survival rate. After introducing a 15-minute joint SDR-AE-prospect handover call for every handoff, the rate rises to 89.6% the following quarter, with a direct increase in the volume of opportunities reaching the proposal stage.