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Configuring next-best-action use cases

Updated on May 5, 2021

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.

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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 actions section on the Opportunity page

Note: Note: For more information about configuring next best actions, see Next-best-action architecture.

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

Urgent follow-up required (default rank: 100)

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 Urgent follow-up required action is displayed on the dashboard.
  2. To see all the emails that meet these criteria, click Urgent follow-up required action link.
    Result: When a sales rep replies to the email, this next best action is removed.

Follow up on open service case and provide customer an update (default rank: 95)

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.

Update/follow-up on the stale opportunities (default rank: 95)

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/follow-up on the stale opportunities 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/follow-up on the stale opportunities action and select your action.
  3. To see all the opportunities that meet these criteria, click the Update/follow-up on the stale opportunities action link.

Reply to email (default rank: 90)

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 Reply to email 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 Reply to email link.
    Result: After you reply to these emails, this next best action is automatically removed.

Review the new leads (default rank: 90)

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 Review the new leads 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 Review the new leads 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.

Review and close the lead (default rank: 85)

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 Review and close the lead 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.

Send a reminder (default rank: 85)

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 Send a reminder 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 Send a reminder action link.

Reach out to critical contacts (default rank: 80)

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 critical contacts 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 critical contacts 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.

Create renewal opportunity (default rank: 70)

Shows renewal NBA ‘Y’ days before contract expiry date of opportunity where ‘Y’ is configured as BusOppRenewalReminderDays and IndvOppRenewalReminderDays DSS.

Note: For more information on renewal configuration, follow the Configure renewals procedure in Renewals.
To see this next best action, complete the following steps:
  1. Enable CRM renewal.
  2. Close an opportunity as Won.
  3. No renewal opportunity exists for this expiring opportunity.
  4. Contract end date is present, difference in today and contract end date is less than or equals to ‘Y’ days and Sales help to renew is true.
    If contract end is not present then contract end date is considered as one year after opportunity close date.
Result: Create renewal opportunity is displayed in the Next best actions dashboard widget and Create renewal opportunity is displayed in the Next best actions section of the opportunity.

Create contacts for recently interacted prospects (default rank: 65)

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 Create contacts for recently interacted prospects action is displayed on the dashboard. To no longer see this next best action, create a contact in the system for this prospect.

Update notes for past appointments (default rank: 65)

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 notes for past 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 notes for past 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 notes for past appointments next best action is removed after adding meeting notes to the appointment, or on the associated work objects.

Update contacts data with missing key information (default rank: 60)

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 Update contacts data with missing key information action is displayed in the Next best actions section of the dashboard.
  3. To provide missing details, click the Update contacts data with missing key information action link.

Create more top-level contacts (default rank: 55)

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 Create more top-level contacts action is displayed in the Next best action section of the dashboard.

Convey birthday wishes (default rank: 50)

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.

Read battle card for competitor (default rank: 45)

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.

Add contract document (default rank: 45)

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 contract document 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.

Create a new opportunity for household member (default rank: 35)

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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