CRM Design on Bitrix24
Funnels — The Heart of CRM, and This Is Where Things Usually Break
A poorly designed funnel turns CRM into a junkyard of cards. The typical mistake — 12-15 stages, half of which duplicate each other ("Negotiations," "Discussing Terms," "Clarifying Details" — that's all the same thing). Managers get confused, cards get stuck, analytics lie.
Optimal: 5-8 stages. Each with a clear definition and transition criteria. Names reflect the manager's action: not "Client Interested" but "Proposal Sent" — a concrete action that can be verified.
Funnels we design most often:
Initial sales: New lead → Qualification → Proposal sent → Negotiations → Contract → Payment. Focus on lead-to-deal conversion.
Repeat sales: Need identified → Offer → Approval → Close. Accelerated cycle, the manager works with a warm base.
Tenders: Tender found → Documents in preparation → Application submitted → Results → Contract. Long cycle, tons of documents — mandatory fields at each stage, otherwise half the paperwork gets skipped.
Project sales (IT, industrial): Presale → Estimation → Proposal → Pilot → Contract. Technical qualification is mandatory.
Service: Request → Diagnostics → In progress → Resolved → Feedback. Service funnel with SLA — if the "In progress" stage hangs longer than the norm, an escalation fires.
Multi-funnels — when a company's equipment sales and service maintenance live in the same CRM but are two different processes. Separate stages, fields, and automation for each direction.
Audit: What's Actually Happening
Before configuring anything — we figure out how sales actually work, not how the policy document says they work.
Interviews with sales reps, marketers, support. Where are leads getting lost in email? Why are managers keeping their database in a notebook when the CRM is already purchased? At which stage do deals stall for weeks?
We map out AS-IS (current state), find loss points, and design TO-BE (target state) taking into account Bitrix24 capabilities. Without this step, implementation is a gamble.
Automation: Robots and Triggers
Robots fire when a deal transitions to a stage — without a single line of code, right from the interface:
- Assigning a responsible person by rules (region, source, amount)
- Template email or SMS with data substitution from the card
- Task for the manager with a deadline
- Generating a proposal, invoice, or contract from a template
- Notification to the supervisor if a deal is stalled
Triggers react to client actions: opened an email — deal moves to "Proposal Viewed"; returned to the website — manager gets a notification; called — activity updates automatically.
Business processes for complex scenarios: discount approval (manager requests → supervisor approves → result in the card), complaint handling, automatic lead scoring by budget and data completeness.
Cards: The Manager's Workspace
An overloaded card kills work speed. An underfilled one kills analytics.
Custom fields — only the necessary ones: source, client type, region, industry, budget. No "just in case" fields. Grouping by sections: contact information, deal parameters, finances — everything logical and two clicks away.
Mandatory fields are tied to stages: at each step the manager fills in only what's relevant now. Calculated fields — margin, projected revenue, deal duration — are computed automatically.
Relationships: contact → company → deal → proposal → invoice → documents. Complete interaction picture.
Reports and Analytics
Operational: conversion funnel (conversion between stages, average deal size, cycle duration), manager plan/actual, activities (calls, emails, meetings), overdue tasks.
Strategic: ROI by lead source, cohort analysis, sales forecast based on the funnel, rejection reason analysis.
Dashboards for executives — visual panels with key metrics updating in real time. Open it in the morning — see the full picture.
Integrations
Telephony — inbound and outbound with call recording, automatic linking to contacts. The manager picks up the phone — the card is already on screen. Email — email sync, open tracking. Messengers — WhatsApp, Telegram, VK via open channels, all inquiries in a single window. Website — forms, online chat, callback. 1C — exchange of counterparties, orders, payments.
Timelines
Typical implementation: 3-8 weeks. Audit and design (1-2 weeks) → setup and customization (1-3 weeks) → training (2-3 days) → pilot launch (1-2 weeks) → scaling to the entire team (1 week).
After launch, we support and evolve: new funnels, automation refinements, report configuration as the business grows.