Sales Pipelines

Sales Funnels: Why You Need Them and How to Use Them

What Is a Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a visual representation of the customer’s journey from the initial contact to closing the deal, broken down into sequential stages (for example: “New Lead” → “In Progress” → “Negotiations” → “Payment” → “Closed”). Each deal is displayed as a card that moves through the stages as the customer progresses toward a purchase.

Why use sales funnels?

• Transparency of the sales process. At any given moment, you can see how many deals are at each stage, where customers tend to “get stuck,” and at which stage purchase refusals most often occur.
• Monitoring manager performance. A manager can track each employee’s workload, the speed of request processing, and the quality of deal management without having to request separate reports.
• Automation of routine tasks. Using triggers at each stage of the funnel, you can automate many actions—from sending a message to a customer to assigning a task to a manager—without having to do it manually for every deal.
• Reducing customer churn. A clear stage structure helps ensure that customers who are in the decision-making process are not overlooked and that they are engaged in a timely manner.
• Analytics and forecasting. The sales funnel allows you to assess conversion rates between stages and build more accurate sales forecasts based on real data rather than intuition.

How to get started with sales funnels

You can use sales funnels in the “Chats and CRM” section by clicking the tab of the same name:

To build and configure a sales funnel tailored to your business goals, we recommend reviewing the following knowledge base articles:

• How to Add a New Sales Funnel — a step-by-step guide to creating a funnel and configuring its stages.
• Setting up triggers at funnel stages — how to automate actions when a deal moves between stages (sending messages, creating tasks, notifying managers, etc.).
• Merging Duplicate Records in Sales Funnels — how to avoid duplicate deals for a single customer.
• Additional sales funnel settings—an overview of advanced features: customizing the color palette, integration with Altegio.

These articles will help you not only create a sales funnel but also configure it so that it truly streamlines the sales team’s work and increases conversion rates at every stage.