All terms
Business

What is Sales Funnel

Customer journey from awareness to purchase

Sales Funnel — a model describing the customer journey from first contact with a brand to making a purchase and repeat sales.

Classic Stages

  1. Awareness — customer learns about the product
  2. Interest — explores the offering
  3. Decision — compares options
  4. Action — makes a purchase
  5. Loyalty — repeat purchases

Funnel Metrics

  • Stage conversion — % moving to next stage
  • Time on stage — duration at each stage
  • Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) — cost to acquire a customer
  • LTV — customer lifetime value

Funnel Automation

  • Automated email sequences
  • Trigger notifications
  • Lead scoring
  • Retargeting

Tools

  • CRM systems (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive)
  • Analytics (Google Analytics, Mixpanel)
  • Marketing Automation (Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign)

Benefits

Omnichannel Experience. Unified customer experience across all channels: website, app, messengers. Automatic request routing to the right channel. Interaction history in one place. Customer satisfaction grows by 40 points.

How to Start

Step 1: Technology Selection. Conduct competitive analysis of market solutions. Assess compatibility with existing infrastructure. Verify API availability and integration capabilities. Consider long-term platform support and development.

ROI & Efficiency

Operational Efficiency. Team productivity grows 35-45%. Mean time to resolution drops 70%. First call resolution rate reaches 80%. Processed request volume increases 5-7x with the same headcount.

Common Mistakes

No Documentation. Knowledge transfer is impossible without documentation. New employees can't maintain undocumented systems. Document architecture, business rules, exception cases. This is an investment, not overhead.

Who Needs It

Government Sector. Government agencies digitizing citizen services. Municipalities optimizing document workflows. Organizations with high data security requirements. Agencies implementing electronic public services.

Practical Example

Case: Restaurant Chain. A chain of 30 restaurants automated procurement and staffing. Food waste dropped 35%. Automated scheduling saves 15 hours of management time weekly. Revenue grew 12% through operational efficiency.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:How does automation help during a crisis?
Reduces operational costs without quality loss. Enables rapid scaling up and down. Remote work without efficiency loss. Automatic risk monitoring and early warning. Companies with automation recover from crises 2-3x faster than those without.
Q:What if automation isn't working?
Check data quality — it's the cause of 60% of problems. Ensure the process is properly documented. Conduct root cause analysis. Ask users about their issues. Often you need refinement, not replacement: rule tuning, model retraining, new system integration.
Q:How to choose an automation vendor?
Look for industry experience — at least 3-5 completed projects. Check reviews and case studies. Ask for a demo on your data. Pay attention to approach: waterfall vs agile. Ensure the vendor will transfer knowledge to your team, not create dependency.

Related terms

CRMKPI