Company StagesThe choice of “Stage” was the pick of lesser evils. Another term may be better suited. Status, Disposition, Group, and Type were all discussed but bring with them other implicit ideas that make the meaning less clear. are used to group or classify the prospects and clients according to the life-cycle buying stage that best reflects them.

Company Stages are user definable, but the following standard Company Stages are defined in the starting OOB dataset:These changes were made in the OOB dataset effective date needed

• Prospect Company Stages
  • Cold Lead
  • Warm Lead
  • Hot Lead
  • Dead
• Client Company Stages
  • New Client
  • Established Client
  • Past Client
  • Dead

Company Stages could be used in several ways, including:

• As a basis for measuring salesperson conversion rates. The Stages correspond to the stages in the sales pipeline/funnel, measuring the conversion rate of customers that move through the pipeline is key to effective sales management. The Company Stage Conversion Report shows number of companies to change from one category to another during a time period, grouped by Company Salesperson.
• As a way to identify target prospect of customer groups, such as VIP customers, slow-pays, etc.

In Account Entry, the company stage drop-down is displayed at the top of the main frame below the Company Name.

The following changes were made in Company Explorer:

• Added a drop-down filter for Stage in the basic Explorer. The filter also supports wildcards like “*Lead”.
• Added the option to display or not display this filter in System Setup | Company Explorer Options. By default, this filter is displayed.
• Added the column for Company Stage to the column chooser (and therefore the grid).
• Implemented sorting on the Company Stage by clicking that column header.
• In Advanced Explorer, added the text criteria Company Stage under the main “Company Critia” group.

The following changes were made in Activity Explorer:

• Added the new Activity Type “Company Stage Change” to the selection criteria.
• In Advanced Explorer, added the new Activity Type “Company Stage Change” to the selection criteria.

In order to make it easy to change the Company Stage while prospecting, this ability is built into the “Complete Activity” frame the pop-ups when you choose to complete the activity. Immediately below the notes field, a drop-down called “Change Company Stage To:” was added. If a value is filled in here, upon save of the completed activity the company stage will be adjusted accordingly.

The following changes were made in all grids showing activities, like the Activity Manager “Activity List” tab:

• Added the column “Company Stage” to the column chooser.
• Made the Company Stage column sortable by clicking on the header.

The following changes were made in all grids showing activities, like the Activity Manager “Activity List” tab:

• Added the column “Company Stage” to the column chooser.
• Made the Company Stage column sortable by clicking on the header.

The following new actions were added:

• Change Stage. This action was added to all prospects and clients and is accessible from Company Explorer. The right-click menu implementation (added to prospects and clients) added a sub-menu of all of the valid Stages.
• Change Company Stage. This action was added to all contact activities with an associated prospect or client. The right-click menu implementation added a sub-menu of all of the valid Stages for that Company.

The following macro changes were added:

• Add these option to Customer triggers:
  • On Company Stage Changed
  • On Company Stage Changed To [ v]
  • On Company Stage Changed From [ v]
• Add a new Company Stage Change macro action that would allow you to change the stage of the selected company (or the company of the selected transaction).

The customer import works as follows:

• Company Stage (text) can now be imported.
• The imported Stage must already exist. If the stage does not exist, it will be ignored and a warning logged.
• Companies imported without a valid stage are set to the default prospect stage.

The following Company Stages options are user defined under System Setup | Company Stage Setup:

• [ x ] Enable Company Stages
• [ x ] Enable Blank Stages for Prospects
• [ x ] Enable Blank Stages for Clients
• Prospect Stages
  • (List w/ Add, Delete, Edit, Set Inactive, Set as Default actions)
• Customer Stages
  • (List w/ Add, Delete, Edit, Set Inactive, Set as Default actions)

The company stage is accessible via CFL as in the following example:

code format="Ada"

IF Company.StageText = “Hot Lead” THEN

"* This is a hot lead!"

ELSE

"* This is not a hot lead. :-("

ENDIF

<code>

The following reports are included with this feature:

• Company Stage Conversion Report by Salesperson
• Sales by Company Stage (for client stages)

Additional technical notes:

• The changing of a company stage is recorded as an activity in the company record.
• A new activity type was used, and records the new station, the previous station, what time it was changed, and by whom.
• There are no Stages on Vendors or Personal accounts. If the Account is not a prospect or client, the Stage drop-down is suppressed (hidden). If the account is both a prospect or client and a vendor or personal account, the Stage is shown and the valid stage options displayed.
• If Company Stages are not enabled, all traces of these enhancements are removed.

The following fields would be added to the database. (Each new field is represented as TableName.FieldName below.)

• sql_structure_-_account_table.StageID (int) - This field would link to the Company Stage located in the sql_structure_-_element_table.
• sql_structure_-_element_table - There are no changes in this table, though the Company Stages are stored as rows. The class types for these records are:
  • 5511 - Prospect (Company) Stage
  • 5512 - Client (Company) Stage
• Store Options - Additional store options are stored in the sql_structure_-_useroption_table (with ParentClassTypeID = 1000 to refer to the store)

The following Class Types were added for this feature:

• 5511 - Prospect (Company) Stage in the sql_structure_-_element_table
• 5512 - Client (Company) Stage in the sql_structure_-_element_table
• 20515 - Company Stage Change Activity
• 23182- Set Company Stage Macro Action in the xxxxx Table

Contributor: Cyrious Software Date: 11/2009 Version: Control 4.4+