Creating Relationships

Capturing standalone activities is enough to begin analyzing when and how frequently certain events take place. However, creating relationships between activities opens a world of new possibilities when it comes to reporting on progress and changing the course of events in real time!

What do we mean?

Let's imagine you have 3 standalone lead activities called 'Assigned', 'Phone Call' and 'Made Contact'. You'll immediately be able to report on when the lead is first and last assigned (and how many times), when the first and last call took place (and how many calls were made), and you'll be able to track when you first and last made contact with a lead (and how many times you connected).

However, by creating a relationship between these activities you can learn even more:

'Assigned' to 'Phone Call' - This relationship will tell you how long it took the lead owner to action the lead. It will also tell you how many times the lead was assigned/reassigned before a call was made. You can use this data to track speed of response and drive faster responses to increase conversion.
'Phone Call' to 'Made Contact' - This relationship will tell you how long it took to make contact with the lead after the initial call attempt and how many calls were required before you made contact i.e. the level of effort required. You can use this data for measuring cost of sale and identifying what is a 'normal' or acceptable level of effort for a given lead from a given source.
'Assigned' to 'Made Contact' - This relationship will reveal how effective the company is at making contact with the lead? Are some sales professionals getting in contact faster than others? If so, what are they doing differently?

This opens a world of new possibilities for gathering insights into day to day operations. But it's not just about reporting and insights, it's also about allowing Act On It to step in at key moments throughout the day for real time intervention. For example...

If there's a case that has been viewed multiple times without action and has been left for X hours, maybe that indicates it is being avoided and the manager should be notified.
If a lead that has been assigned and not yet 'seen' after x amount of hours/days, perhaps we should notify the lead owner to bring it to their attention.
If there is lead with 5 call attempts they have still not made contact, you might want to proactively recommend an alternative approach.

How to create Activity Relationships?

Creating Activity Relationships is as easy as adding a record in Salesforce. However, to understand how to configure relationships it helps to first understand the data model.

Creating Relationships

What do we mean?

However, by creating a relationship between these activities you can learn even more:

'Assigned' to 'Phone Call' - This relationship will tell you how long it took the lead owner to action the lead. It will also tell you how many times the lead was assigned/reassigned before a call was made. You can use this data to track speed of response and drive faster responses to increase conversion.
'Phone Call' to 'Made Contact' - This relationship will tell you how long it took to make contact with the lead after the initial call attempt and how many calls were required before you made contact i.e. the level of effort required. You can use this data for measuring cost of sale and identifying what is a 'normal' or acceptable level of effort for a given lead from a given source.
'Assigned' to 'Made Contact' - This relationship will reveal how effective the company is at making contact with the lead? Are some sales professionals getting in contact faster than others? If so, what are they doing differently?

If there's a case that has been viewed multiple times without action and has been left for X hours, maybe that indicates it is being avoided and the manager should be notified.
If a lead that has been assigned and not yet 'seen' after x amount of hours/days, perhaps we should notify the lead owner to bring it to their attention.
If there is lead with 5 call attempts they have still not made contact, you might want to proactively recommend an alternative approach.

How to create Activity Relationships?

Creating Activity Relationships is as easy as adding a record in Salesforce. However, to understand how to configure relationships it helps to first understand the data model.