Help required with pipeline automation issue!

[JButtery]

Hi! 

So with a client we are working on a pipeline automation but this is causing some issues, so I will try to explain as best as I can but may have to re-write/re-post - All help and suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated! 

So the client makes bespoke rings, and we use deal stages and pipelines for the bespoke customer process. There is a deal stage of 

1. In progress/In Conversation

2. Awaiting Customer Reply

3. Follow Up

Then if the emails are not responded to within 5 days, the deals are manually moved to a Follow Up deal stage which has an attached sequence for follow up emails.

The plan for the automation is first to automate this, and second is that if they reply to the sequence, they are moved back to deal stage ‘In Conversation’, and then the timer begins again incase they don’t reply within 5 days they move back to the follow up, etc.

We are struggling to automate this and would love some ideas! 

Thanks for reading and really looking forward to hearing from you all! 

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @JButtery,

Happy to help here. Could you share a bit more context?

1. Which HubSpot subscription(s) are you working with?
2. When you're referring to emails, are you referring to sales emails exclusively (or automated marketing emails)?
3. "Then if the emails are not responded to within 5 days" – which emails exactly are you referring to? (If you could explain a bit more detail what happens in each pipeline stage, that would be helpful.)

Best regards

[JButtery]

Hey Karsten,

Thanks so much for taking a look.. 

1. We have Sales Hub Professional -  all other hubs are on Starter, and we don't currently have the budget to upgrade these

2. So in the Follow Up stage, there is a sequence with follow ups - if these emails are in a sequence are these classed as marketing emails? 

3. These emails I am referring to are not marketing emails, they are the emails to the customer from our linked email address, they do appear on the customer activity - I hope this helps.

Anymore info that I can provide that will help, please just let me know and I'll send it straight over.

Again, we really appreciate your help - thank you!!

Josh

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @JButtery,

Thank you! You described the follow-up stage – what characterizes the other two stages exactly?

Best regards

[JButtery]

The other stages have little/no automation currently, they are just used to indicate the stage to the internal team."Awaiting Customer Reply" is where deals go when they have reached out via a form, and the team has sent a follow up but no response yet - "In Conversation" is when the team are in an email conversation about their bespoke order.

We would like to automate the move from these lists, so if they have not replied to these emails for 5 days, then set the deal stage to "Follow Up" - Which in turn triggers the Follow Up Sequence (three soft-prompt emails), then once they reply to the emails in this sequence, to move them back to "In Conversation" deal stage, and start the timer for 5 days again.

Is there a way that we can do this with Sales Pro only? I thought about using an "In Transit" deal stage where there is an automation that checks the reply and then moves them back into in conversation or follow up stage

I had an idea to use custom properties (please ignore if this is unhelpful, but this was my original idea) - So I had created a "Follow Up Timer Begins" property that sets a date stamp when deal enrolled in "In conversations" (or "Awaiting Customer Reply"), then delay 5 days and set another property "Date to check Follow Up" to udpate date stamp, then the automation would move them to an "In transit" deal stage which would have automation to check the replies then move back to either "In Conversation" or "Follow Up" - But I am not sure how to do this with the emails that are not marketing emails - and also how to manage the moving back to "In Conversations" when a Follow Up Sequence email is replied to.

I hope that this makes sense, any more questions please just ask! 

Thank you again! 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @JButtery,

My apologies for the late reply. The tricky thing about what you're trying to do is that contacts might be associated with multiple deals. When setting up automation, it's very difficult to let HubSpot know that sequence activity from a contact should only affect the latest deal, for example.

Generally, I would recommend to not use deals this way. A lot of HubSpot customers are tempted to use deals for lead and pipeline management but that's not how they're supposed to be used, see this great overview: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Ask-Me-Anything-and-Panel/AMA-Demystifying-HubSpot-s-lifecyle-stage...

Let me know what you think!