How to best track post-sale activities (do you use Tickets or Deal Stages?)

[amandafann]

In the HS Academy Lesson, Defining the Steps of Your Sales Process, @KyleJepson and one of the other presenters talk about using Post-Sale Deal Stages to track steps that need to happen after the Deal Closes. The examples given were Closed-Won; Handoff to Implementation; In Process Implementation; and Gone Live. 

I thought this was a really interesting usage of additional Closed-Won Deal Stages and wondered if anyone here is using a similar setup? Are there any benefits and/or pitfalls you've realized that you can share? I'm especially curious how this impacts Reporting. 

I've found that Tickets are a good way to track the post-sale activities. The Customer Success Team uses Tickets automatically created when the Deal is Closed-Won to capture additional details (such as technical requirements) that are needed for implementation. This has worked well for us, especially since we integrate the HS Ticket with Jira. 

Additionally, I've read about other HS Customers using separate post-sale Pipelines to track Customer Success activities.

Curious how others are tracking Post-Sale stages and activities in the customer journey, and if you've found pros/cons or best practices? 

[HubDoPete · Accepted solution]

Hi Amanda,

We have set up companies on HubSpot for all the scenarios you describe.

The business model and processes, and the reporting requirements, play a part.

Using extra closed-won deal stages:

• Pros: Does not require Service Hub or duplicated deals. Good for when a single owner takes the deal forward in several project stages.
• Cons: Can affect sales reporting having multiple closed-won stages or changing the Deal owner
• How: Create an extra deal property called Deal Status, to reflect the more granular sub-stages within a funnel stage. Use another property to record the post-sale delivery manager.
• For example, a company that finances building investment properties, has the project lead use deal status to reflect the key construction stages once the deal is won

Separate post-Deal pipeline

• Pros: Does not require Service Hub and also preserves sales reporting. The project lead can own the post-sale deal. Cleaner reporting.
• Cons: requires automation to clone the won deal into the post-won funnel
• How: create extra deal properties in a post-sales group, to record the HubSpot owner of the original sale so that automation can keep them aware of key delivery stages (if required)
• For example, agency sells a project or retainer, the new deal is created to reflect the project management of that retainer,  in either the project deal funnel or the retainer funnel

Tickets for post-sales delivery

• Pros: uses HubSpot more as it was designed. Allows for a more task-oriented delivery of services when delivery of different products varies. Multiple tickets related to a single win, can each have different owners and timelines. Tickets can all be attached to and visible on the deal.
• Cons: requires service Hub. Can complicate the process of showing a dashboard of the post-sales delivery status. Other tools like Zapier don't have as rich a set of automation tasks for tickets, compared to what you can do with deals. Document apps like PandaDoc that are often used post-sale, do not integrate natively with tickets like they do deals.
• How: create post-sales delivery funnels in Service Hub and use automation to create tickets when the deal is closed-won.
• For example, A company plans events, where each closed deal spurs multiple parallel activities each with different owners. Many companies like this will prefer to use an event project management app integrated with HubSpot.

Further alternatives are possible, especially with Custom Objects but that requires Enterprise.

I hope that helps, and I'd love to know more about the pros and cons you have experienced with your use case.

cheers

Pete

[JonPayne]

I can't add anything useful to @HubDoPete's answer - it's brilliant. We've done similar things for clients too but I think he's done it better! 👏👏👏👍

[HubDoPete]

Thanks @JonPayne  🙂

[HubDoPete · Accepted solution]

Hi Amanda,

We have set up companies on HubSpot for all the scenarios you describe.

The business model and processes, and the reporting requirements, play a part.

Using extra closed-won deal stages:

• Pros: Does not require Service Hub or duplicated deals. Good for when a single owner takes the deal forward in several project stages.
• Cons: Can affect sales reporting having multiple closed-won stages or changing the Deal owner
• How: Create an extra deal property called Deal Status, to reflect the more granular sub-stages within a funnel stage. Use another property to record the post-sale delivery manager.
• For example, a company that finances building investment properties, has the project lead use deal status to reflect the key construction stages once the deal is won

Separate post-Deal pipeline

• Pros: Does not require Service Hub and also preserves sales reporting. The project lead can own the post-sale deal. Cleaner reporting.
• Cons: requires automation to clone the won deal into the post-won funnel
• How: create extra deal properties in a post-sales group, to record the HubSpot owner of the original sale so that automation can keep them aware of key delivery stages (if required)
• For example, agency sells a project or retainer, the new deal is created to reflect the project management of that retainer,  in either the project deal funnel or the retainer funnel

Tickets for post-sales delivery

• Pros: uses HubSpot more as it was designed. Allows for a more task-oriented delivery of services when delivery of different products varies. Multiple tickets related to a single win, can each have different owners and timelines. Tickets can all be attached to and visible on the deal.
• Cons: requires service Hub. Can complicate the process of showing a dashboard of the post-sales delivery status. Other tools like Zapier don't have as rich a set of automation tasks for tickets, compared to what you can do with deals. Document apps like PandaDoc that are often used post-sale, do not integrate natively with tickets like they do deals.
• How: create post-sales delivery funnels in Service Hub and use automation to create tickets when the deal is closed-won.
• For example, A company plans events, where each closed deal spurs multiple parallel activities each with different owners. Many companies like this will prefer to use an event project management app integrated with HubSpot.

Further alternatives are possible, especially with Custom Objects but that requires Enterprise.

I hope that helps, and I'd love to know more about the pros and cons you have experienced with your use case.

cheers

Pete

[EMarten]

we have enterprice and only just discoved that tickets maybe the best way to organise our events. I was wondering how others organise conferences and smaller events...using hubspot? Maybe a seperate custom object for speakers, attendees and events (or just events)... Thank you.

[HubDoPete]

Hi Edward, 

Yes you could use tickets for events, flowing in a dedicated ticket pipeline, but as you have Enterprise have you considered using Custom Objects for the event itself, plus the other custom objects you mentioned?

I recommend that you start with your outputs and outcomes, which will guide you on on how far you want to engineer multiple associated objects, versus properties on fewer objects. 

If your main aim is just knowing which contacts are associated with each event, a Plugin like Marketing Event Management might suffice. I understand Hapily is also working on a HubSpot App with rich functionality. You can sign up to their beta interest group here. ~These are just alternative suggestions (I am not a reseller of these apps)

Keep it as simple as you can, while delivering the outputs and outcomes you need.

You could certainly start with tickets and enjoy the default functionality you get from ticket objects, and replace it with a custom object once you want to go further.

best

Pete

[katherineladue]

Hi Pete, I am helping a client design a post-sale pipeline for their HubSpot CRM right now and found your answer super helpful. Question about this point: 

• Cons: requires automation to clone the won deal into the post-won funnel

Can you explain more about why you'd want to clone the won deal into the post-won funnel rather than just moving the same deal to the different pipeline? 

For context, my client manufactures custom jewelry where most people pay in installments over time, so here's what we're thinking for their setup:

1. Pre-sale pipeline ends in the customer placing a deposit

2. Deal proceeds to the post-sale pipeline where it goes through the manufacturing and shipping process, and the customer finishes their final payments

3. Deal is closed/won in the post-sale pipeline when the order has been shipped and final invoice paid

I don't think this would mess up our reporting too much but wanted to get your insight on cloning deals vs. just progressing the same deal all the way through to the end. 

[HubDoPete · Accepted solution]

Hi Katherine thanks for your question

The primary reason I recommend cloning the original deal into a new pipeline is to preserve the original pipeline for accurate reporting on win/loss conversion rates for that first sale when the deposit is taken. If you remove the won deals from the original pipeline, it turns into a pipeline graveyard 🙂

This isn't a hard rule though, as I see the benefit in taking a deposit and future payments in the same deal.

I assume you want to use a deal board for handling the stages of manufacturing and shipping, but for that, I would consider using tickets associated with the original deal , keeping the associated financial transaction on the original deal.

Do deals go bad from time to time, where a deposit was taken but the order never completes? if so, I'd also consider having a single deal pipeline where closed/won is the final stage, but there is an interim stage of say 95% weighting, when the deposit is taken, moving to closed/won when the deal completes and is invoiced in full. (With a ticket handling the associated manufacture and delivery)

Pros and cons in each direction. I just hate losing data insights so I tend to be averse to moving a won deal into another pipeline, leaving only the in-progress and dead deals 🙂

I hope that helps!

best

Pete

[CDeveloper]

I accidentally posted my question from the wrong account, editing and reposting so I get the email replies!

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @amandafann,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community! This is a really interesting topic! I wanted to tag in a couple of subject matter experts to see if they have any input on this matter:

Hi @Edyta7510, @Dan1, @Jonno_Price, @JonPayne, @HubDoPete, any tips or best practices you can share? 

Thank you! 

Cheers
Mia, Community Team