A customer asks for a quote, a salesperson sends a proposal, and a week later nobody remembers when to follow up. The deal is in the CRM, the amount is recorded and the stage looks reasonable. Yet the sale is going nowhere.
In this situation, it helps to review both the pipeline and the next step for each customer. Here is how to organise that review in Bitrix24 and establish working rules that keep the team on track.
Why having a deal record does not mean the customer is being followed up
The “Proposal sent” stage describes something that has already happened. It does not tell you who will ask about the decision, when they will do it or what they need to find out.
Consider a hypothetical equipment supplier. A buyer receives an estimate and promises to discuss it with a technical specialist. “Waiting for a response” leaves too much uncertainty. A more useful agreement is: “On Thursday, ask about the technical specialist’s comments and arrange the next conversation.”
A simple rule for active sales is that every deal has an owner, a clear next action and a deadline. Define exceptions too. A paused project may have an agreed date for resuming contact, while a closed deal should not appear in the daily sales queue.
Which deals to check first
Start with one pipeline and its active stages. Mixing current opportunities, closed deals and old records will quickly make the problem list less useful.
In Bitrix24, open deals, add the activities field to the filter and create separate selections. The Russian interface labels below match the linked documentation:
- “Нет дел” (No activities): check whether further work is planned.
- “Входящие” (Incoming): enquiries that require processing.
- “Пора выполнять” (Due now): activities requiring attention now.
- “Просрочены” (Overdue): a separate queue of accumulated delays.
One detail matters: according to the official documentation, “Просрочены” shows activities overdue by more than a day. Activities that became overdue today appear under “Пора выполнять”. Checking just one filter may therefore give an incomplete picture.
Do not treat every selected record as a salesperson’s mistake. Read the history first: the customer may have declined, agreed to a pause or continued the conversation through another channel. The purpose is to establish the actual state of the sale. See the official guide to CRM counters and activities for filter names and behaviour.
How to turn a problem list into an action plan
For each deal you find, choose one of three outcomes: continue work, record a justified pause or close the deal with a clear result.
If work continues, describe the action so another colleague can understand it without a verbal explanation. Replace “Call” with “Check whether the budget is approved and who makes the decision.” Replace “Message the customer” with “Send the revised specification and agree when it will be reviewed.”
Bitrix24 CRM activities let you plan calls, meetings and other actions. The shared list is under “CRM — Ещё — Мои дела” in the Russian interface. Managers can use “Все текущие дела” to review their subordinates’ unfinished activities, subject to configured permissions. See the official CRM activities guide.
Test the workflow using the manager’s role as well as the administrator’s. If an employee cannot see some deals or edit an activity, investigate access first. Otherwise, the report will show only the portion they can access.
For a more precise review, filter deals by the status, type and deadline of associated activities. For example, select open outbound calls scheduled for tomorrow. See the CRM filtering instructions.
Why simply closing every old activity does not help
Bulk closure clears the list but does not itself restore contact with the buyer. Moving every deadline to tomorrow without checking agreements is equally unhelpful.
Instead, distinguish the reasons for delays. Did the salesperson forget to follow up? Are they waiting for an estimate from a colleague? Has the customer postponed the project? The reason determines the next action: a reminder, an internal task, a process change or an agreed pause.
If you use telephony connected to the CRM, review missed calls separately. Bitrix24 shows a corresponding status and an incoming activity. A closed activity does not prove the customer’s issue has been resolved: check the conversation outcome and the next agreement. See the guide to incoming and missed calls.
What to automate once the basics are in order
First describe the rule in plain language: which event triggers the action, who receives it, what the deadline is and when it is no longer needed. Then choose the appropriate configuration or development work.
For example, you could define an automation requirement to remind the deal owner to arrange the next contact after sending a proposal. This is a proposed workflow; the implementation must be checked on your portal, taking account of your plan, available tools and exceptions.
Testing must cover returning a deal to a previous stage, changing its owner and an activity that already exists. Otherwise, automation may create duplicates or remind someone who no longer handles the customer.
Before configuring it, read our overview of CRM implementation mistakes. Many problems stem from unclear process rules.
How to tell whether the review is useful
Choose a small set of indicators and compare them using consistent rules:
- the share of active deals without an agreed next action;
- the number of overdue activities at a fixed point in time;
- recurring reasons for delays;
- the quality of agreements in a sample of records.
Keep the pipeline, stages, team composition and review time consistent. Do not compare today’s active sales with the entire historical database from last month.
Start with a few real deals and a short team review. If you are unsure whether the issue lies in configuration or the process itself, discuss a Bitrix24 audit with QQDev. Bring examples of stalled deals and explain what should have happened. This makes it easier to identify what needs attention: working rules, permissions, settings or an integration.