Hi Community,
Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions of how best to set up a CRM system after the initial sales cycle has concluded (aka we have won the contract and have to implement it).
Is it best to set this up as a new pipeline where each milestone of onboarding is a step or is there a better tool to use for this - keen to hear suggestions as I’m sure this is a common occurrence!
Thanks
Hi @NMartin40,
A common option would be to use a pipeline, indeed. By default, you can choose between using a deal pipeline or a ticket pipeline for this and there are different philosophies about which one to choose. I’ll outline pros and cons.
If you use a deal pipeline, it feels a bit more organic and fitting. Records flow from sales into fulfilment and it just makes sense. However, HubSpot is maintaining fields like Number of associated deals on contact records. These would not reflect the actual sales reality anymore as the number would include onboarding and not just actual opportunities. Also, if you have workflows which are looking at associated deals, these onboarding “deals” might create problems. Whatever you do, do not move a sales deal from one pipeline into another. Always create a new one. Moving deals between pipelines breaks most default reports in HubSpot and makes reporting overall more complicated.
If you use a ticket pipeline, that might feel a bit weird simply because a ticket should be a customer service tool and using it for onboarding seems a bit off. However, it works quite nicely. You don’t have the downsides of using a deal pipeline but have the full flexibility of moving a customer through onboarding stages.
You could also explore third-party tools, this depends on your exact requirements. If there’s anything you think cannot be done with a ticket pipeline, for example, that’s when those become more interesting. If not and if logging information to a ticket is sufficient, I would keep everything in HubSpot as you can see relationships between tickets (onboarding), deals (sales) and contacts/companies more easily.
Hope this helps!
Thanks karstenkoehler this was a hige help!
Much appreciated