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Configuring next-best-action use cases

Updated on December 21, 2020

When you configure next-best-action strategies for Pega Sales Automation, you can view the Next best actions widget on your sales representative's or manager's dashboards.

The widget shows the top ten (ranked) actions for sales reps and managers. Next best actions for individual lead, opportunity, contact, and organization work objects are displayed as notification banners at the top of an open work object or as embedded widgets only for opportunities. Each action includes a tooltip that displays the trigger for the action. The action is displayed as a hyperlink that you can click to access the screen or form that is required to complete the recommended action. The Next best actions widget with top recommendations displayed on the dashboard is shown in the image below.
The Next best actions widget on the dashboard populated with the top recommendations

Next best actions are associated with leads, opportunities, contacts, and organizations. Next best actions are displayed for these work objects on the dashboard. In addition, next best actions are displayed as a widget for individual opportunities as shown in the following illustration:

The next best action section for an opportunity populated with the top three next best actions

You can see the following next best actions in Pega Sales Automation (listed in the default rank descending order):

Note: Note: For more information about configuring next best actions, see Next-best-action architecture.
This next best action is displayed when sales reps receive emails that have a negative sentiment, from contacts or leads, so that they can take immediate action to improve communication.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. As a contact or a lead, send an email to a sales rep with a negative sentiment.
    Result: The X emails may need immediate attention action is displayed in the X emails may need immediate attention section of the dashboard.
  2. To see all the emails that meet these criteria, click the X emails may need immediate attention action link.
    Result: When a sales rep replies to the email, this next best action is removed.
This next best action is displayed when no sales rep has acted upon the opportunity within the last week.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Create an opportunity.
    Result: The Update or create task or appointment is displayed in the Next best action section of the opportunity.
  2. To update an opportunity, create a task, or create an appointment, click the actions menu next to the Update or create task or appointment action and select your action.
    Result: The X opportunities have had no engagements in the past week action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard.
  3. To see all the opportunities that meet these criteria, click the X opportunities have had no engagements in the past week action link.
This next best action is displayed when new leads are assigned to a sales rep, so that they can do the initial outreach to those leads or if there is any lead in the system that has not had any interaction within the last week.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Create a lead.
    Result: The X new leads have been assigned to you in the past week action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard.
  2. To see all the leads that meet these criteria and perform initial actions, click the X new leads have been assigned to you in the past week action link.
    Result: When you create an activity, a task, or associate an appointment or email with the lead this next best action is removed.
This next best action is displayed in the system when a contact has an open service case that was created in either Pega Sales Automation or Customer Service applications. If a contact has multiple open service cases, the oldest service case (based on the pxCreateDateTime property) is displayed first.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Open a contact.
  2. Click Actions and select one of the following service actions:
    • General service request
    • Complaint or compliment
    • Schedule activity
    Result: After you add the service action, it is displayed on the Engagement Profile tab in the Recent service cases section for the contact.
  3. Open an opportunity associated with this contact.
    Result: The Follow up on open service case and provide customer an update action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the opportunity and in the Next best actions widget on the sales rep's dashboard with the number of days the service action has been open.
  4. To open the service action and follow up with the customer, click the Follow up on open service case and provide customer an update action link.
This next best action is displayed when emails from contacts or leads have been waiting for a reply from a sales rep for more than 2 days. This helps remind the sales reps to reply to their unanswered emails.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. As a sales rep receive an email that requires a response.
    Result: The X people are waiting for your email response action action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard after 2 days.
  2. To see all of the emails that meet this criteria and perform an action, click the X people are waiting for your email response action link.
    Result: After you reply to these emails, this next best action is automatically removed.
This next best action is displayed when there is no interaction on the lead by the owner in the last Y weeks. To see all the leads that meet these criteria, add tasks, and close these leads, click the X leads that are inactive for more than Y weeks action link. After a sales rep creates an activity, or a task, or associates the created appointment or email to the lead, this next best action is longer displayed. This next best action is displayed when contacts or leads do not reply to emails sent by sales reps within 2 days, so that sales reps can follow up on their unanswered emails.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Send an email to a contact or a lead.
    Result: The Follow-up required for X emails action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard after 2 days.
  2. To see all the emails that meet these criteria and perform an action, click the Follow-up required for X emails action link.
This next best action is displayed when there is no interaction made for a contact that has open opportunities in the last 2 weeks (DCR Configurable), or if there is any contact in the system with open opportunities with this contact set as primary and there is no interaction made on this contact in the last 2 weeks.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Create a contact and then create an opportunity with this contact as a primary contact.
    Result: The Reach out to contact action is displayed in the Next best action section of the opportunity.
  2. To call this contact, send an email, or create an appointment, click the actions menu next to the Reach out to contact action and select your action.
    If there has been no interaction with this contact with open opportunities in the last 2 weeks, the You have no interactions with these contacts with open opportunities in the last 2 weeks action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard.
  3. To see all the contacts with open opportunities that meet these criteria and to call or email this contact, click the You have no interactions with these contacts with open opportunities in the last 2 weeks action link.
This next best action is displayed in the system when organizations with an open opportunity show a negative trend for the download, subscribe, or login activities.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Create an organization.
  2. Create at least one opportunity, and then associate it with the organization.
    If any of the activities show negative trends for the configured time period (the default is 30 days), the Customer engagement is trending negatively for X organizations action is displayed. The system calculates the trends for the current month (30 days back from yesterday) and last month (31 days to 60 days back). To change the 30-day time period, edit the NBA_OrgTrendDays property located in the crmAppExtModel data transform. To no longer see this next best action, select it, and then create a task on the displayed form.
This next best action is displayed one year after the date when an opportunity is closed.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Open an opportunity that is not yet closed.
  2. Close this opportunity and enter a closed date one year prior to the current date.
    Result: The Create renewal opportunity action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the opportunity.
  3. To reopen the opportunity, click the Create renewal opportunity action link.
This next best action is displayed after 24 hours from the start of an appointment if there are no meeting notes made on the appointment, or on the pulse post of the work objects associated with the appointment.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Create an appointment and add attendees.
    Result: The Update meeting notes for X appointments action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard.
  2. To take action for all of the appointments that do not have meeting notes, click the Update meeting notes for X appointments action link.
  3. To update the meeting notes for a particular appointment, click the Pulse icon next to that appointment.
    Result: The Pulse post is updated for the appointment, and also on the Pulse post of the work objects it is associated with. The Update meeting outcome for X appointments next best action is removed after adding meeting notes to the appointment, or on the associated work objects.
This next best action is displayed when a sales rep interacted with a prospect by exchanging emails or creating appointments in last two weeks (DCR Configurable), but there is no contact or lead associated with these interactions in the system.

Note: Before you begin, you must setup your email account, Microsoft Outlook synchronization, Email Listener, and appointments functionalities. For more information, see Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Outlook integration in Pega Sales Automation.

To see this next best action, send at least two emails to the prospect or create at least one appointment with the prospect. The You have interacted with X prospects in the last 2 weeks, but no contact has been created action is displayed on the dashboard. To no longer see this next best action, create a contact in the system for this prospect.

This next best action is displayed when the contact that the sales rep recently met has any of the key information missing. Work email address, work phone number, title, and department for B2B contacts are considered the key information for contacts within organizations. Private email address and private phone number for a B2C contacts is considered the key information for contacts not associated with any organization. The recently met condition applies only for contacts with associated activities, emails, or appointments created in the last 2 weeks, not for days set in the NBA_InactiveDays property of the D_crmAppExtPage data page.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Open a contact that has some key info missing.
  2. Add an activity, or email, or appointment to this contact.
    Result: The <Contact Name> has been added to X contacts that you recently interacted with are missing key information action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard.
  3. To provide missing details, click the <Contact Name> has been added to X contacts that you recently interacted with are missing key information action link.
This next best action is displayed when there are no top-level contacts for organizations owned by the sales rep and when there are no open opportunities associated with these organizations.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Create an organization and associate at least one open opportunity with it.
  2. Ensure that there are no top-level contacts associated with this organization.
    Result: The Gather more top-level contacts action is displayed in the Next best action section of the dashboard.
This next best action is displayed under the following circumstances:
  • On the opportunity level, if the contact of the opportunity has a birthday on a given day. The Convery birthday wishes action is displayed and available for seven days in the Next best actions section of the opportunity and the Next Best Rep Actions widget on the sales rep's dashboard.
  • On the organization level, if any contact in an organization has a birthday on a given day. The Convery birthday wishes action is displayed and available for seven days in the Next best actions section of the opportunity and the Next Best Rep Actions widget on the sales rep's dashboard.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Open an opportunity.
  2. Open a contact and change the contact's date of birth to today's date. The Convey birthday wishes to Contact action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the opportunity.
  3. To open the email client and send birthday wishes to the client, click the Email action link. The To and Subject fields have default values for the contact and the activity. The body of the email has default text for the birthday message.
  4. Click Send.
This next best action is displayed in the system when a user adds a competitor to an opportunity.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Log in to the application as a Sales Ops.
  2. In the User portal navigation pane, click ToolsCompetitors, and then select a competitor for which you want to add a website URL.
  3. In the Battle card field, add the website URL and then click Submit.
  4. Open an opportunity.
  5. Click Edit and under the Competitors section, add a competitor. The Read Competitive battle card for <Competitor Name> action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the opportunity.
  6. To see and review the details about this competitor, click the Read battle card action link.
This next best action is displayed when there is no contract-type document already attached to the opportunity, while this opportunity is in the negotiation stage.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

Note: Before you begin, under the Next best action section of the opportunity, see if there is a suggestion to add a contract-type attachment or if the document is already attached as an attachment under the Attachments tab. If any of these conditions are met, you no longer can proceed with the task, unless you remove the attached documents.
  1. Open an opportunity and move it to the Negotiation stage.
    Result: The Add documents action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the opportunity.
  2. To open the contract document flow, click the Prepare contract action link.
  3. To add contract documents to the opportunity, click Add documents.
This next best action is displayed so that a sales rep creates a new opportunity when a household member for an opportunity contact turns 18 in the current month. This action applies only to individual opportunities and is displayed for the entire month.

To see this next best action, complete the following steps:

  1. Open an opportunity that includes a household.
  2. Change the contact's date of birth so that it is eighteen years prior to today's date. The Create new opportunity for household member action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the opportunity.
  3. To see the contact for whom to create a new opportunity, open the tooltip, by clicking the i icon next to the Create new opportunity for household member action.
  4. To open the Opportunity form and create a new opportunity, click the Create new opportunity for household member action link.
    Result: The form fields contain information from the contact record.

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Pega Sales Automation 8.5

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