Deals

Overview

After each analysed conversation linked to a deal or lead in your CRM, Aelo writes down the state of that deal: the previous state plus this conversation. A state answers the questions a manager asks before the next contact:

Status — At risk, Needs attention or On track — and the chance to close, with what changed against the previous state;
Why this status, with a quote from the conversation it was said in, when there is one — a reason that still stands keeps the quote of the earlier conversation in the next states; once that conversation is deleted, its quote is not carried any further, and states already built are not changed (the CRM comment quotes only the latest conversation);
the next action with its due date, and what to say at the next contact;
commitments and objections from the conversations, the BANT qualification (need, budget, timeline, decision maker) and the customer’s interest (high, medium, low).

The advice follows the sales methodology of the deal’s pipeline — see Sales methodology.

The state reaches people in three places: the Deals screen in Aelo, a comment in the deal’s timeline in the CRM, and a CRM task you create from the deal card. On request Aelo also writes a draft message to the client from the current state — see Draft a message to the client.

Available on Pro and higher plans. On other plans the Deals menu item keeps its lock and the plan name. While the organization still has demo data, the queue and the demo deal cards open filled with it (Demo deals), under a banner, «This is demo data. On {plan} and higher, your calls will appear here», with a See plans button (or a note to ask the account owner, for roles that cannot open billing). Without demo data, opening it shows what the feature gives and a See plans button (or the note). The deal switches are not shown. The queue and the card are screens of the Aelo web app. Bitrix24 receives the comment and the task, and the Aelo tab of a deal or lead card there shows the same deal card, without the queue — see The Aelo Tab in CRM Cards.

Who sees what

A deal is visible to whoever can see the conversation its current state is built on — the same boundary as for records:

Owner and Admin — every deal of the organization;
Supervisor — the deals of their assigned projects and of the people under them in the org structure;
Agent — the deals whose latest conversation is their own call.

References to conversations you cannot see are hidden on the card. A conversation deleted after the state was built is shown as «Conversation deleted» instead of a link. Those who see all of the organization’s conversations keep the quote; the others see only the mark. The text of a conversation is shown only to those who have the right to read it. See the permission matrix for who can create a CRM task.

The deal queue

Open Deals in the sidebar. The screen opens with three groups — At risk, Needs attention, On track — each with the number of deals and the amounts in the CRM, per currency. Click a group to show only its deals; click it again to show all. Deals closed in the CRM are not in the groups: they are counted by a separate Closed in the CRM tile, which opens them as a list.

The table has one row per deal or lead:

Deal or lead — its name from the CRM, or Deal #… when the CRM name is not available; a lead is marked Lead. Under the name is the reason for the status, as on the card; it is shown only to those who have the right to read the conversation text;
Status, with the close chance under it;
Next action, with its due date under it — overdue ones are marked with the number of days;
Amount — the amount at the time of the latest conversation (the CRM can change it later);
Employee — who held the deal’s latest conversation, with the date of that conversation under the name.

The queue is read page by page — Show more loads the next one. A deal appears after its first conversation is analysed.

A lead converted into a deal (Bitrix24 or Uspacy): the deal’s first state continues the lead’s state as of the deal’s first conversation, in the same project, instead of starting from scratch (a later call on the lead does not count), and once a conversation of the deal is analysed the lead leaves the groups for Closed in the CRM. The lead’s earlier states stay on the lead’s card; the deal’s history starts with its own first state. Under the title, the deal’s card shows Continuation of lead #… with a link to the lead’s card — if you can open that lead. In Uspacy, the lead is the linked lead that Uspacy marks as converted: a lead linked to the deal by hand does not count.

The deal card

Click a row to open the card. At the top are the title, the amount and stage from the CRM with the date they are shown as of, and Open in CRM, a link to the deal or lead in your CRM.

Now — status and chance to close (with what it was in the previous state, if it changed), interest and the methodology the state was built by;
Next action — what to do, by when (an overdue date is marked with the number of days) and why; Create task in CRM (see below) and Draft a message to the client (see below);
Why this status and What to say at the next contact;
Commitments (open, done, overdue) and Objections (open, resolved);
Qualification (BANT) — what is known and what is not, and how many of the four items are known;
State history — every state, newest first, with what changed. A conversation that arrives late — older than the current state — is folded into the current state and marked added later; earlier states are not rewritten;
Deal conversations — the calls and chats behind the deal, each opens the conversation.

Comment in the CRM timeline

After each new state Aelo adds a separate comment to the timeline of the deal or lead in the CRM (Bitrix24, Uspacy): the status and the chance to close against the previous state, what changed, why, the next action, what to say, commitments, objections, qualification and interest. Its last line, Full deal history in Aelo, opens the card.

The switch — Analysis settings → CRM updates, Deal state comment, above the field settings (for Uspacy it is the only setting there). It is on by default and is changed by the Owner and the Admin. It does not depend on the switches of the call report’s comment and note — see Data Sources.
Which CRM — only the organization’s active CRM: the one that receives call reports. If call reports go to another CRM, or delivery to this one is off, the switch says that comments are not being published.
Which conversations — only conversations up to 7 days old: a comment about a month-old call would reach the timeline as news. A late conversation folded into the history gets no comment.
Once per state. A rare repeat is possible when the CRM accepted the comment but its answer was lost.

Task in the CRM

Create task in CRM on the deal card writes the next action into your CRM as a task — one click, no retyping:

the title is the next action, the description is the reason, the due date comes from the card; the task is assigned to the one responsible for the deal in the CRM, when the CRM names one, and carries a link to the card (a task created from the Aelo tab in Bitrix24 carries no link to it);
one task per state: a second click does not create another. When a newer state has appeared, the card shows the newer one;
there is no task for the actions Wait for a reply and Do not spend time on it;
Bitrix24 and Uspacy. In Bitrix24 the CRM connection must be allowed to create tasks (the card says if it is not). In Uspacy the task is a planned activity on the deal or lead, assigned to the employee responsible for that deal or lead in Uspacy when Aelo knows them — Aelo learns it together with the deal state once the organization has confirmed processing instruction 1.17 or later; until then, and when Uspacy names no one, Aelo sets no responsible employee and Uspacy assigns the task by its own default. While processing of the Uspacy portal is paused or withdrawn, or the organization has not yet confirmed the current processing instruction, the button is inactive and the card says why.

The button is available to those who can see the deal and have the right to act on it: the Owner and the Admin for every deal, a Supervisor for deals of their projects and people, an Agent for their own deals.

Draft a message to the client

Draft a message to the client on the deal card, next to Create task in CRM, writes a short follow-up for the customer from the deal’s current state:

What it is built from. The texts of the current state — the next action, the open objection, commitments, qualification and interest — and the sales methodology of the deal’s pipeline with your company rules for it. Phone numbers, emails, card numbers and IBANs in them are masked again before they are sent. No call transcript, no quotes from conversations, no conversation identifiers and no deal name, amount, stage or responsible employee go to the AI provider.
A draft to check. One short message in the analysis language of the deal’s project, addressed without a name (add the name yourself). It opens in a panel under the next action: edit the text there, press Copy, Write again for another version, or Close. Read it through before you send it — it is an AI suggestion, and you send it yourself from your mail or messenger.
Not stored, not sent. A draft lives only on the screen: it is not saved in Aelo, is not written to the CRM and is not sent to the customer. A newer state of the deal or leaving the card discards it.
The latest state only. If a newer state has appeared while you were looking at the card, the card shows the newer one, and a draft is written only from the latest state — press the button again.
Who can press it. Whoever sees the deal and the text of its state. A person whose analytics access is limited by a grant (Settings → Team) needs a grant that lets them read records and their text; otherwise the button is not shown, because the draft restates the state’s texts.
Plan and demo. Pro and higher, like the deal state. It works on demo deals too — it needs no CRM.
Limits. At most 3 drafts a minute, 30 an hour and 60 in 24 hours per person, and 5 a minute, 60 an hour and 200 in 24 hours for the organization. When a limit is reached the card says so in words; if the limit counter cannot be read, no draft is written.
Cost. Aelo pays for it: nothing is deducted from your balance and the button is not locked when the balance runs out. If the organization has its own active key for the AI provider, the request is made with that key and the cost is the organization’s.

Sales methodology

The advice in a state is built by a sales methodology — one per pipeline. Open Analysis Setup → Sales methodology — a step of its own, on Pro and higher plans; the Sales methodology button on the Deals screen leads there too for the Owner and an Admin — and the block of a pipeline:

the framework — BANT, SPIN, MEDDIC, Challenger, or BANT + SPIN (the default);
company rules (optional) — what you sell and to whom; approved answers to objection reasons; next-step rules and the longest pause in contact for each stage of this pipeline; prohibitions (discounts and promises that must not be offered). When rules are filled in, recommendations take the specifics from them, and the state names the methodology as “framework + company rules”.

The block is edited by the Owner; an Admin sees it read-only. Reset to default returns the pipeline to BANT + SPIN and deletes the rules. Pipelines are listed from an active Bitrix24 or Uspacy connection (a Bitrix24 pipeline or a Uspacy funnel) — see Evaluation Profiles. Leads follow the default methodology (BANT + SPIN), and there is no pipeline setting for them. A Uspacy deal follows the default too when its funnel cannot be read from the portal at that moment. While processing of a Uspacy portal is paused or withdrawn, no state is built for its deals and leads at all — whether or not a methodology is set for the funnel.

A new methodology is saved for up to 100 pipelines of your CRM. A methodology of a pipeline later deleted in the CRM is kept and shown in the The pipeline no longer exists in the CRM block, where it can be reset; such methodologies do not count toward the 100, but together with the rest at most 200 are stored for one connected CRM. At either limit a new methodology is not saved, and the screen says what to reset. Methodologies belong to the CRM they were saved in: with both Bitrix24 and Uspacy connected, the step shows the Bitrix24 pipelines, and a Uspacy deal still follows the methodology saved for its Uspacy funnel.

Demo deals

A new organization’s demo data includes demo deals, so the screen is not empty before the first real conversation. They have no CRM link and no CRM task, but a draft message to the client works on them, and they leave the queue once the organization has real data, like the rest of the demo. Below Pro the demo deals show too, under the banner; there the draft message to the client, the CRM task and the Sales methodology button are unavailable and say «Available on {plan} and higher plans».

Good to know

A state is built by the AI from the conversation transcript after personal data is masked, the previous state and the deal’s data in the CRM (stage, amount). Treat it as a recommendation, not a verdict.
It is built for conversations linked to a deal or lead. A conversation without one is not part of any deal.
Deal states and draft messages to the client are built on Aelo’s own account with the AI provider, at no charge to you. If the organization has its own active key for that same provider, the request is made with that key instead and the cost is the organization’s; either way Aelo does not charge for it.
An amount the CRM does not give — as for Uspacy — shows as —.
A deal state is kept for the organization’s retention period. Deleting a call does not delete a deal state already built from it.