How do I track customers through warranty phase?

[ericthomas]

I'm just setting up the CRM now for our design-build remodeling company. I was wondering what the best way would be to track customers through our 18-month warranty program. Do I create a special "deal pipeline" for warranties? Do I create a custom property with warranty status? Has anyone else set up something like this for tracking customers post-sale? Thanks for your help!

[ndwilliams3 · Accepted solution]

@ericthomas,

I would suggest setting the property up as a date property and setting it to the warranty expiration date. That way you don't have to change the status, but can still filter by expired or active based on the expiration date relative to the current date.

As far a tracking waranty claims, I think you solution to use a deal is a good plan. You can add stages and properties to the deal to track the claim.

[ericthomas]

That's a great idea. Thanks!

[edjusten]

Hi @ericthomas . I've yet to see an example of a customer who has tracked warranty status though the CRM. You could set up Warranty property with option in In warranty or  Out Of Warranty, but that would not help you in tracking warranty issues. 

You could also set up a Pipeline to deal with warranty issues, but those would end up mixed with all of your other deals.  You, might want to look at integrating ZenDesk, either directly or through Zapier.

Ed 

[ericthomas]

Thanks for the quick reply, Ed! I like your Zendesk idea, and I checked out the integration, but I think it might be overkill for our needs. We only get about 10 warranty claims per year.

Before I turn to an integration, I think I will just set up a warranty property in Hubspot. I was looking for a way to trigger warranty status to change to "out of warranty" at the end of the 18-month warranty period, but I can set up a reminder to change the contact's status on the expiration date. I will experiment with either adding the customer's warranty claim directly into the notes or to create a warranty "deal" pipeline. I think I should be able to just create views to filter out the warranty "deals" when viewing my real deals.

Let me know if you can think of a better solution. Thanks!