How to integrate multiple pipelines efficiently?
Dear Pipedrivers,
my company is currently planing to pull our entire customer interactions into Pipedrive. It started with Sales, than Onboarding and now we are considering implementing the entire Customer Support into Pipedrive as well.
There is one major issue, that I just couldn't work out so far, though: Efficiently connecting each Pipeline to the next.
What exactly is the issue?
For multiple reasons, we not only use different Pipelines, but also a different version/copy of the original Sales Deal: We want to keep insights useful and mark Deals that are won as "won". If you do that, you have to create a new Deal through a copy when you transition into a new Pipeline and place the Copy within the first phase of the next Pipeline. This also helps to keep all the information including activities and tranfer them over into the next Pipeline.
This technically works, but causes some problems. The biggest problem is that you end up creating multiple duplicates of the same deal, which clutters search results, causes confusion and makes things less clean overall. Also the automation to copy a Deal when marked as won, change the title, mark it as "open" again and put it in a different Pipeline is complicated and prone to errors.
What would be the goal?
Seemless connection between multiple Pipelines that portray the various segments of customer interaction. Or even better: Connection into a specific "Customer Support Loop" or a Project Managemant stage instead of a Pipeline, since in most use cases, Customer Support is an ongoing thing and not really a Pipeline with one singular goal.
Any help to do this more efficiently is appreciated! Also, I'd appreciate some feedback from Pipedrive directly as to what exactly might be planned for the future here (@Inês Batata, @Mike van der Valk).
Thanks in advance!
Comments
-
@Bernd Auer I saw you made a video in german about this, but I assume, your solution was similar?
0 -
Hi @Justus Lubahn!
Thank you for bringing this up. In this case we do suggest to have deals copied and move them to next Pipeline as you are already doing. But I do understand this can clutter the account a bit. I will share the case with our Product team as feedback so they can further check for the future improvements.0 -
Kreete K said:
Hi @Justus Lubahn!
Thank you for bringing this up. In this case we do suggest to have deals copied and move them to next Pipeline as you are already doing. But I do understand this can clutter the account a bit. I will share the case with our Product team as feedback so they can further check for the future improvements.That's great news, thank you! Since Pipedrive offers multiple Pipelines and they are often chained, it would make a lot of sense (at least to me) to have a dedicated functionality here.
1 -
We manage the entire process from lead to order and then manage the project. And all in Pipedrive.
We have a pipeline called The Kick Off. This is where we create the deal. And this is where the first contact takes place (mail / call / etc). In different stages of course.
If the lead is warm enough, we move the deal to pipeline acquisition. Here we monitor and manage the sales part. If it becomes an order, we set it to win and move the deal to the Current orders pipeline. There we make the deal visible again with a filter. We manage the orders in this pipeline. The final stage in this pipeline is Aftersales.
If we think the customer is ready for a new deal, we create a new deal. Depending on expectations, back in the pipeline The Kick Off, but often right in the pipeline Acquisition.
Bottom line, we do this because we keep everything that goes on during the process together.
We use everything from Pipedrive (Proffesional license); email sync, drive sync, calendar sync, caller and smart docs
0 -
Bert Calatz said:
We manage the entire process from lead to order and then manage the project. And all in Pipedrive.
We have a pipeline called The Kick Off. This is where we create the deal. And this is where the first contact takes place (mail / call / etc). In different stages of course.
If the lead is warm enough, we move the deal to pipeline acquisition. Here we monitor and manage the sales part. If it becomes an order, we set it to win and move the deal to the Current orders pipeline. There we make the deal visible again with a filter. We manage the orders in this pipeline. The final stage in this pipeline is Aftersales.
If we think the customer is ready for a new deal, we create a new deal. Depending on expectations, back in the pipeline The Kick Off, but often right in the pipeline Acquisition.
Bottom line, we do this because we keep everything that goes on during the process together.
We use everything from Pipedrive (Proffesional license); email sync, drive sync, calendar sync, caller and smart docs
Thank you so much for the insight!
When moving a Deal from Acquisitions to Current Orders, you don't duplicate anything, you just move the Deal that is marked as "won" and work with a filter to ensure visibility? So you loose the insights information on sales performance, since the Deal ist no longer in that Pipeline?Do you only do aftersales or is there also a significant customer support aspect taking place in your Pipedrive implementation?
0 -
Bert Calatz said:
We manage the entire process from lead to order and then manage the project. And all in Pipedrive.
We have a pipeline called The Kick Off. This is where we create the deal. And this is where the first contact takes place (mail / call / etc). In different stages of course.
If the lead is warm enough, we move the deal to pipeline acquisition. Here we monitor and manage the sales part. If it becomes an order, we set it to win and move the deal to the Current orders pipeline. There we make the deal visible again with a filter. We manage the orders in this pipeline. The final stage in this pipeline is Aftersales.
If we think the customer is ready for a new deal, we create a new deal. Depending on expectations, back in the pipeline The Kick Off, but often right in the pipeline Acquisition.
Bottom line, we do this because we keep everything that goes on during the process together.
We use everything from Pipedrive (Proffesional license); email sync, drive sync, calendar sync, caller and smart docs
Basically we do consulting. When the project is completed, it will remain in the final pipeline in the last stage after sales.
The overall picture is important to us. We work with a fixed price and with a guaranteed result. What is important is the total turnaround time from first contact to the end of the assignment and the sum of all activities carried out therein.
How we work in Pipedrive is not ideal, but for now it works.
We are therefore eagerly looking forward to the project module. Which, I can tell you, is going to be workable.
0 -
Have you considered adding fields to the deals that include a "Won Date", "Lost Date", "Fulfilled Date", etc. and using those instead of won/lost for analysis?
Then you could simply set an automation to trigger when the deal hits a certain stage to populate that date with the current date and move the deal to the next pipeline if appropriate.It means more manual reporting, but pulling the deals out of Pipedrive for reporting in Excel, data studio, whatever, would still be possible, but you wouldn't have all the duplicates.
0 -
Steve Robinson said:
Have you considered adding fields to the deals that include a "Won Date", "Lost Date", "Fulfilled Date", etc. and using those instead of won/lost for analysis?
Then you could simply set an automation to trigger when the deal hits a certain stage to populate that date with the current date and move the deal to the next pipeline if appropriate.It means more manual reporting, but pulling the deals out of Pipedrive for reporting in Excel, data studio, whatever, would still be possible, but you wouldn't have all the duplicates.
That's a possibility, yeah. Thank you! That way we would keep the insights - even though less convenient - and also avoid duplicates.
I just think that those workarounds should not be necessary. There are a ton of companies using Pipedrive for more than sales and the fact that there is no proper way of chaining Pipelines confuses me. I really believe there should be a native solution to this.0 -
We have some deals in workflow, which we move around. For example from sales pipeline to after-sales pipeline. You can move deals in different pipelines - open them again, keep them won, does not matter, you still work with the same deal, you only need to adapt view in pipelines.
0 -
Martin Pecha said:
We have some deals in workflow, which we move around. For example from sales pipeline to after-sales pipeline. You can move deals in different pipelines - open them again, keep them won, does not matter, you still work with the same deal, you only need to adapt view in pipelines.
The issue is, that you cannot have the Deal in different Pipelines at the same time and therefore loose the insights from a Pipeline, if you move deals out of it.
0 -
Martin Pecha said:
We have some deals in workflow, which we move around. For example from sales pipeline to after-sales pipeline. You can move deals in different pipelines - open them again, keep them won, does not matter, you still work with the same deal, you only need to adapt view in pipelines.
that is true - what you can do is move it out and create duplicate in previous pipeline in order to track some metrics and see, that deal was there - but it is also a trade off
0 -
Martin Pecha said:
We have some deals in workflow, which we move around. For example from sales pipeline to after-sales pipeline. You can move deals in different pipelines - open them again, keep them won, does not matter, you still work with the same deal, you only need to adapt view in pipelines.
Yeah, that in turn causes lot's of duplicates, cluttered search results, etc. That is exactly why I think, Pipedrive should fix this and create actual functionality around chained Pipelines.
0 -
Martin Pecha said:
We have some deals in workflow, which we move around. For example from sales pipeline to after-sales pipeline. You can move deals in different pipelines - open them again, keep them won, does not matter, you still work with the same deal, you only need to adapt view in pipelines.
Justus - I couldn't agree more. What is being proposed is far from ideal. I have to make copies in order to keep the Deal insights on the Sales Pipeline but a copy of the deal in Customer Success to manage the "account management" piece. It's far from ideal but I like the idea of linking or created chained Pipelines so you still get the Insights from the Won deal in Sales but you can keep working on that sale Deal in a different department of your business. Looking forward to hearing what Pipedrive has to say.
1 -
Kreete K said:
Hi @Justus Lubahn!
Thank you for bringing this up. In this case we do suggest to have deals copied and move them to next Pipeline as you are already doing. But I do understand this can clutter the account a bit. I will share the case with our Product team as feedback so they can further check for the future improvements.For our company too, we experience the same issue!
0 -
Kreete K said:
Hi @Justus Lubahn!
Thank you for bringing this up. In this case we do suggest to have deals copied and move them to next Pipeline as you are already doing. But I do understand this can clutter the account a bit. I will share the case with our Product team as feedback so they can further check for the future improvements.Any update @Kreete K ?
A possible solution would be the possibility of completely duplicating the deal and not just title, contact person, organization, value and stage.
This is very urgent! We want to use pipedrive for the entire business process and not just as a sales funnel!
Thank you to start this conversation @Justus Lubahn !
0 -
Kreete K said:
Hi @Justus Lubahn!
Thank you for bringing this up. In this case we do suggest to have deals copied and move them to next Pipeline as you are already doing. But I do understand this can clutter the account a bit. I will share the case with our Product team as feedback so they can further check for the future improvements.Yes, I'd love an update on this, too @Kreete K. This is probably one of the most significant changes to the use cases that pipedrive can cover.
And I agree with @Caio Hohlenwerger, if the actual Deal was copied with all of it's activities would also already be a big improvement.0 -
Kreete K said:
Hi @Justus Lubahn!
Thank you for bringing this up. In this case we do suggest to have deals copied and move them to next Pipeline as you are already doing. But I do understand this can clutter the account a bit. I will share the case with our Product team as feedback so they can further check for the future improvements.Hello!
We do not have a full update, unfortunately. This is shared with the team, but we do not have any ETA on the implementation to give out right now. However this is taken into account to set future plans.1 -
+1 on relevance of "chained pipelines", in particular regarding the usefulness of an overall reporting for the entire chain.
1 -
Hi all, I really enjoyed reading your comments, definitely got some good ideas. I'm currently implementing Pipedrive for a comparatively smaller business, but I've worked with local and international companies in sales/BDM roles for 15 years. I've used so many CRMs and project management suites, but a process that takes 1 "item" or account or object, however you'd like to call it, and have that one item represent the customer, I've never seen it, and I've never had it really work perfectly. It's taken me 6 or so weeks to get to the point with Pipedrive where the "won" deals just sort of disappear, and the thread is broken. There are countless stages after the 'close' before reaching a long-term happy customer. I do like Bert Calatz suggestion, if I'm getting it right, just not using the "won" stage. It always requires a work around, and then "x" item won't show in "y" report. Why can't a CRM company notice that the only way to effectively manage a relationship with a customer is to not change who the customer is, or what they're called, or how many of them there are? I guess I don't feel hopeful that Pipedrive will come to this realisation, but this thread is the closest I've seen, so I hope my comment re-highlights it to the gang. Unless there's been an update to help me in my woes since 2021? I'd love to learn about it!
0
