I've been scratching the head for a while on what to do with old deals that we didn't win? Right now

Jeff Sprott

I've been scratching the head for a while on what to do with old deals that we didn't win? Right now, we move them to a "Lost but subscribed" pipeline to keep the history, and they are added to our email campaign, but this is a bit redundant cause they go on our email campaign list regardless. Are we safe to delete their old "lost" deal? Can you "reopen" the deal months later and keep the history?

Pipedrive User 164

I’m not sure why you would ever delete lost deals. Just mark them as lost and they disappear from your pipeline. There isn’t any need to move them to another pipeline.

Shaheen Samavati

I think you must mean "mark as lost" not actually "delete"! i think you have decide what really means "lost" for you.. i think you should only mark a deal "lost" if you do not plan to follow up further, otherwise you should keep it as an active deal with a "next activity" to follow up in X amount of time, even if that time is several months in the future.

Shaheen Samavati

Also, note, if you lost that deal, but there is still potential for another project in the future, you could put the follow up activity on the "contact" instead of on the "deal." you could even set up an automation that every time a deal is marked lost, that a follow up activity is added to the contact for six months or even a year later.

Pipedrive User 164

@Shaheen Samavati Hmmm, the approach that I would take and see as usual practice would be if the deal that was being negotiated isn’t won and the prospect chooses to spend their money with a competitor or abandon the purchase then that deal would get marked as lost and then if a future opportunity arose with that prospect a new deal would be created. This allows for the tracking of the conversion rate. But if it works to leave the deal as open for future follow up that’s an option.

Sara Orsborn

Brad, like your suggestion here, but when you create new deal... you lose all the history from previous deal. Any ideas here?

Pipedrive User 164

@Sara Orsborn I guess if that specific history is needed for the new deal then probably just reopening the one deal is the way to go. You could duplicate the one deal as well. But I’m not sure that is going to give you the history you want.

Sara Orsborn

Thanks Brad. But what happens if you reopen deal, the deal created date is old & wont show in the reporting correctly

Shaheen Samavati

@Brad Krause We're both saying the same thing. I agree, best practice is to mark the deal as "lost" and create a new deal if a new opportunity arises in the future. @Sara Orsborn for reporting, you should not reopen old deals unless it is truly the exact same opportunity that was not really lost. If a lot of time has passed this is probably not the case and you should create a new deal. For the purpose of keeping track of the history, just go to the "contact" where you can see all past interaction with that person including all current and past deals.

Pipedrive User 164

@Shaheen Samavati @Sara Orsborn I agree, leave the original deal as lost and create a new one. I would say that if the the deal is lost, then it’s lost and create a new one.

Sara Orsborn

Thanks for your assistance here. If you create new deal & link person & org to the new deal. The history unfortunately doesn’t show in the deal page. And you aren’t to know if there is history unless you click on person or org. The history is so key