Sales Hub Tools

LloydBirch
Contributor

Should "closed lost" deals be affecting workflows?

SOLVE

So we have deal automation that says "when a deal reaches a certain stage, change the lifecycle stage of the company and all contacts within it to opportunity"

 

This seems to work quite well and removes the need for a person to manually do it (and have to remember to do it)

 

But there seems to be an issue where companies who have previously been through the deal pipeline are being affected by this. One instances that has alerted me to this is a company that had a deal closed lost a year ago, when we enter new details the person is entered with no lifecycle stage but keeps automatically being assigned the stage of an opportunity. I can only assume it is the deal automation doing this.

 

Has anyone else seen this or know a workaround to get it to stop? It says on the automation "when the deal ENTERS this stage" so I assumed it would only trigger when a new deal is added to that stage of the pipeline, not any that have previously been through this stage. Am I mistaken?

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1 Accepted solution
aragon023
Solution
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

Should "closed lost" deals be affecting workflows?

SOLVE

Hi @LloydBirch thanks for sharing the information. I would recommend building the workflow directly in the workflows tool as you will see more functionalities there.  As you can see at the bottom you can click on 'Open in Workflows'. That way you can set re-enrollment triggers if needed. 

 

One important aspect regarding lifecycle stages is that they can't go back unless you clear the property first (using 'clear property value' in a workflow, or manually. So if you want to take a contact back to lead, you first need to clear the lifecycle stage and then you can assign the new value - 'lead'. You can create a list of contacts that you want to clear their lifecycle stage and use it as an enrollment trigger. 

 

The issue you're seeing with the contact is probably because you have auto-sync on between company's lifecycle stage and contact. This means that if the company has the lifecycle stage in opportunity, any contact associated with that company will be assigned the same lifecycle stage.

 

I recommend revising these two resources to clarify. 

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/use-lifecycle-stages

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/manage-how-lifecycle-stages-sync-between-objects

 

Hope this helps!

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4 Replies 4
aragon023
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

Should "closed lost" deals be affecting workflows?

SOLVE

Hi @LloydBirch I'm part of the CSM team here at HS. Would you be able to send a screenshot of the workflow or at least the enrollment trigger, just to verify if you're using "Deal Stage is any of" or any other action?

 

Also, could you verify:

1. That you don't have any re-enrollment

2. That when the workflow was turned on you didn't click on "Yes, enroll existing deals which meet the trigger criteria as of now". 

 

That way we can rule out a couple of things. Thanks

LloydBirch
Contributor

Should "closed lost" deals be affecting workflows?

SOLVE

Screenshot 2020-09-07 at 18.51.41.png

 

Thanks @aragon023, I've uploaded a screenshot of the deal automation, It was created on the pipeline itself so there wasn't any option to enroll existing deals or re-enrollment as far as I'm aware, and I'd like it to allow re-enrollment so that when a deal is closed lost the lifecycle stage is changed back to lead then if it come back through the pipeline stage the automation runs again to change them back to opportunity, as this can be a regular occurance for us.

I don't think the issue is re-enrolment related because the contact was added yesterday to a company with three much older closed lost deals, the most recent of which was closed in April 2020. The contact was added with no lifecycle stage but keeps reverting to opportunity for some reason, and this is the only reason I can think why.

0 Upvotes
aragon023
Solution
HubSpot Employee
HubSpot Employee

Should "closed lost" deals be affecting workflows?

SOLVE

Hi @LloydBirch thanks for sharing the information. I would recommend building the workflow directly in the workflows tool as you will see more functionalities there.  As you can see at the bottom you can click on 'Open in Workflows'. That way you can set re-enrollment triggers if needed. 

 

One important aspect regarding lifecycle stages is that they can't go back unless you clear the property first (using 'clear property value' in a workflow, or manually. So if you want to take a contact back to lead, you first need to clear the lifecycle stage and then you can assign the new value - 'lead'. You can create a list of contacts that you want to clear their lifecycle stage and use it as an enrollment trigger. 

 

The issue you're seeing with the contact is probably because you have auto-sync on between company's lifecycle stage and contact. This means that if the company has the lifecycle stage in opportunity, any contact associated with that company will be assigned the same lifecycle stage.

 

I recommend revising these two resources to clarify. 

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/contacts/use-lifecycle-stages

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/crm-setup/manage-how-lifecycle-stages-sync-between-objects

 

Hope this helps!

LloydBirch
Contributor

Should "closed lost" deals be affecting workflows?

SOLVE

Thanks @aragon023 I think you may be right, I never knew there was an option to sync the company and contact lifecycle stages when a company stage is changed, I'll keep an eye on that. I also never new a lifecycle stage had to be reset before it could go backwards! 

Thanks again.