Overview
A sales process includes a set of repeatable steps that sellers follow to engage a prospective customer from the early stage of awareness through to closing the sale. You can achieve more consistent sales interactions by following the sales process as it takes you through each stage. This overview focuses on the qualify stage.
The specific process stages and terminology used by organizations vary based on factors such as, industry, sales strategies, product offerings, or the types of customers they target. Though the actual processes are different, a typical sales process resembles a flow shown below:
- Qualify: Part 1 in Dynamics 365 Sales is qualifying your lead. This starts by creating your lead in the system. After you’ve established your lead, qualify your lead and then it converts into an opportunity. Qualifying a lead in Dynamics 365 Sales converts it to an opportunity.
Example In D365
During qualification users gather the basic details about the customer in the lead record. Once basic details are identified the lead can be qualified and converted into an opportunity.
The image below highlights the key functionality of a lead record in D365 Sales:
- Shows the record type = lead and who the lead is regarding
- OOTB fields for capturing lead information
- Shows the user their progress along the OOTB lead to opportunity business process flow.
- Shows the user the steps that are required for the Qualify stage of the OOTB lead to opportunity business process flow
- Users can add connections to the lead record to capture details of stakeholders and competitors (if required)
- Qualify button – once all necessary details have been captured the qualify button can be used to prompt the system to auto create an opportunity record and progress to the develop stage of the process. On the command bar, select Qualify. Depending on the lead qualification experience chosen by your administrator, you’ll either see a prompt for creating the contact, lead, and opportunity records or you’ll see a Processing message and the records will be automatically created.
Business Process Flow Steps:
The table below outlines the OOTB lead to opportunity business process flow steps.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Identify Contact | Select the contact who will be working on the opportunity from the customer’s end. |
| Identify Account | Select the customer for the opportunity. |
| Purchase Timeframe | Select the purchase timeframe of the customer. |
| Estimated Budget | Enter the estimated budget of the customer. This is different from the estimated revenue. Depending on the budget the customer has, you can decide the products that best fits the budget. |
| Purchase Process | Select whether the purchase decision is made by an individual or committee. |
| Identify Decision Maker | Mark as complete if you’ve identified the decision maker. |
Lead Disqualification:
To disqualify, select the lead, and on the command bar, select Disqualify and select a reason for disqualification. You can disqualify a lead only if there’s no opportunity associated with that lead.
You can reactivate the record, including any attachments and notes, without having to re-enter all the data if the lead contacts you in the future.
