Skip to main content

Design a pipeline that fits your business

A method for choosing the stages, the goal, who closes the sale and how the bot moves leads, for any kind of business​

A good pipeline mirrors the way your customers really buy. This page is a method, not a list of recipes: answer the questions, make the six decisions, then decide on a second pipeline, build it and review it. Worked examples: appointments and real estate, sales closed by a person, shops and food orders.

Step 1 — Answer eight questions​

  1. What counts as a won lead? A confirmed order, a confirmed appointment, a payment, a signed contract, an enrollment. Name one event.
  2. How does the sale close? In the chat, by the bot taking an order or booking an appointment? By a person who quotes or negotiates? Or by your team calling the customer back?
  3. What happens between the first message and that event? List the real steps in the customer's words: "asks", "tells us what they need", "picks an option", "books", "pays".
  4. How long does it take? One conversation, a few days, or weeks with several conversations.
  5. What must you know before a lead is worth a person's time? For example budget and area, the service and the date, the quantity.
  6. Which steps happen outside the chat? A visit, a phone call, a bank transfer someone checks, a contract.
  7. Who follows up, and who owns the leads? One person, or several who should share them.
  8. Do you serve clearly different kinds of customers? For example buyers and suppliers, or patients of two specialties with different teams.

Step 2 — Make six decisions​

1. Who closes the sale​

Your answer to question 2Choose
The customer can order or book in the chat, from your catalog or your servicesThe bot completes the sale
A person must quote, negotiate or confirm before the customer commitsA person closes the sale
Your team contacts the customer later, by phone or after reviewing the caseThe team contacts the customer

With the last two, the bot does not take orders or book appointments for the leads of that pipeline, so do not write stage instructions that ask it to.

2. The stages​

Start from the steps of question 3 and apply three tests to each candidate stage:

  • Does the lead need something different here? If the bot's instruction would be the same as in the previous stage, merge them.
  • Can you tell when it ends? Every stage needs an observable end. If you cannot say what the customer does or says to leave it, it is not a stage.
  • Does a different person or the bot take over? A change of hands is a good stage boundary.

Most businesses need three to five open stages plus Won and Lost. A short sale closed in one conversation needs fewer; a sale of weeks needs one stage per real milestone, not one per message. Keep the first stage as the entry stage, where the bot finds out what the person needs.

Name stages by the state of the lead ("Choosing a time", "Quote sent"), not by a task of yours ("Call").

3. Who handles each stage​

  • Only the bot — the step happens in the chat and the bot can do it.
  • Bot and a person — the bot keeps working it, and someone on the team also acts, for example confirming an appointment.
  • Only a person — the step happens outside the chat (question 6): a negotiation, a visit, a payment someone verifies. The bot keeps answering but does not move the lead; a person drags the card.

4. Automatic events​

If "won" or a milestone is something ReadyChatAI records itself, let the event move the lead instead of anyone's judgment:

  • Put Appointment booked on the stage where leads with a confirmed appointment belong.
  • Put Order confirmed on the stage where leads with a confirmed order belong. The General sales and Online orders templates put it on their Won stage, so a confirmed order closes the lead as Won by itself.

5. How the bot moves contacts​

  • Start with Suggest a move. For a week or two, read the suggestions and the reasons the bot gives.
  • Switch to Move them automatically when you find yourself accepting nearly all of them. The bot still never closes a lead as Won or Lost and never moves one backward.
  • Choose I move them myself when your stages describe things the chat cannot show, such as "Visited the showroom".

6. The goal​

One or two sentences: the outcome you want and the path to it. "Take each customer to a booked appointment for the service they need." Leave the details of each step to the stages. See Write stage instructions and exit conditions.