Lead Status Field vs Funnel Stage Field in SFDC - Do You use Both? | Community
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Iryna_Zhuravel4
Iryna_Zhuravel4
Level 6
November 28, 2015
Question

Lead Status Field vs Funnel Stage Field in SFDC - Do You use Both?

  • November 28, 2015
  • 4 replies
  • 7217 views

We have these 2 fields in SFDC: Lead status (lead only) and Funnel Stage (both lead and contact).

Lead Status field has the following values: Open, Working, Unqualified, Recycled, Converted; whereas the funnel stage field has all our RCM stage names and there is a set of trigger campaigns in Marketo that updates the Funnel stage field whenever a lead/contact moves to a new stage in RCM, this field is also view only to all our SFDC users (except the Marketo user naturally), so it's more just a window into the RCM rather than a lead lifecycle field.

This system was set up long before my time in the org, but it always seemed disjointed to me - both fields serve a very similar purpose, but lead status is just an incomplete version of the funnel stage field + plus it exists only on the lead object so it is very difficult to get any adequate reporting out of it (my theory is that lead status, sfdc system field, was used before the company got Marketo and was just left there unchanged atfter the funnel stage field was added).

Since the people who set all of this up are no longer with the company, I can't get any background on why lifecycle was set up this way, and keep wondering if I am missing some potential benefits of having these 2 parallel fields, so I thought I would seek out the Nation's collective wisdom and see if anyone else does it this way

I am debating between 2 ways to rebuild the system:

1. Ditch the lead status field altogether and switch to the funnel stage field, make this field editable by sales and use it for all the lifecycle campaigns etc

2. Add contact status field and update the values in lead/contact status fields to refelct our lead lifecycle and leave the funnel stage field unchanged

I am more inclined to go with the 1st solution, seems simpler and cleaner to keep everything in one field; the 2nd solution might be safer and require less reworking of the exisitng infrustructure in Marketo though

So to sum it up: does anyone use lead/contact status field parallel to funnel stage or any other similar field? If so, what are the benefits of maintianing 2 parallel fields? Which solution, 1 or 2, do you think makes more sense to implement?

All thoughts and suggestions are very much appreciated

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    4 replies

    Grégoire_Miche2
    Grégoire_Miche2
    Level 10
    November 28, 2015

    Hi @Iryna Zhuravel​,

    I totally agree with you, you should have only 1 field. A few pitfalls you should avoid :

    • Avoid "Vanity" statuses such as "working", "In progress", etc... Statuses must correspond to decisions that someone (marketing or sales) made and give indication about what to do next. These vanity statuses are there not to show a decision but to pretend someone is doing something. If sales want to prove they are working, they should use CRM tasks and events. Good statuses are "Call Ready", "Recycled", "Marketing Qualified", "Sales ready", ...
    • Make sure that sales cannot mess up with statuses they should not use or enter contradictory information. For instance, we often encounter leads that have an "opportunity" status but are still unconverted leads. To avoid this, we do not let sales edit the status field. We provide them with buttons for the authorized actions such as accept/convert, dismiss/recycle and discard

    So you should have a contact status with roughly the same possible values as in the lead (some statuses may not be needed for contacts, but the SFDC sync rules for picklist values requires that you add them still, otherwise these picklist values will not show up in Marketo).

    -Greg

      A
      Anonymous
      November 28, 2015

      One thing I can say is that you may have multiple funnels for various product lines and departments so your lead stage may not really be relevant.  In this case it would be better to have multiple funnel stage fields.

        Grégoire_Miche2
        Grégoire_Miche2
        Level 10
        November 28, 2015

        On top of Jamie's point, if you do have multiple funnels, you can still keep one field, but use SFDC record types so that you can manage different lead processes (with different status field values, but 1 field).

        -Greg

        Josh_Hill13
        Josh_Hill13
        Level 10
        November 29, 2015

        This is a great thread. Here are some thoughts, and they are thoughts only, because these are decisions that should be made with Sales and managers.

        • lead Status + Lifecycle Stage fields - I've tended to use both and when I do, the Lead Status/Contact Status fields are the ways Sales makes that decision. I like that Greg says that there should be buttons and a wizard for Sales to streamline things and make it clear to them they are making a real Change and Decision. Since SFDC uses Lead Status as a default for lots of things, you may want a separate Lifecycle Field to handle history or other items, esp if you are rebuilding.
        • Reporting and Rebuilding - Everyone has this problem. Even in a new build, the funnel reports will be useless for about 3-6 months. To handle this, be sure to explain this to your managers and anyone who uses the report.
        • Add Contact Status - unless the Stages are really a problem, I would do a few things instead, which should avoid reporting issues
          • add Contact Status and make the first item the appropriate Stage the record should be in at Conversion.
          • Lead Status - consider modifying the NAMES as appropriate, but not really changing much.
          • Lifecycle Stage - why do you need SAL?
        • Rebuilding this - i'm always tempted to do this when I'm in a new system and don't totally agree with what was done previously. I'd urge you to step back and do a full documentation of the RCM/LLC before you do anything. I understand everyone left, so be sure you understand the flows before going to your management to pitch the change.
          A
          Anonymous
          February 18, 2016

          I just want to stress Josh's point that decisions like these should involve your users, as well. When I took over our SFDC and Marketo instances, I had a lot of questions that were not answered in descriptions or documentation of any kind. My initial reaction was always "this doesn't work. It makes no sense. I should change it."

          Instead of doing that, I sat down with each of my users, learned how they used the tools. I found that some of them could answer those questions about why we had seemingly random or redundant fields. And a lot of times they were needlessly redundant, but if I had just moved forward, I would have made some changes that would not have worked for my users.

          Finally - do NOT delete the field right away. Hide it from users. If you delete the field, you will lose all of the data, and if you find that you need to bring it back for some reason, you're out of luck. Hide the field first, then users will get used to not having it.

          A
          AlokRa4
          Level 10
          November 30, 2015

          Thanks for posting this question. The discussion on this topic is really very helpful.

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