Should you change due dates of activities/tasks in a CRM?
To change or to not change the due dates of activities, that is the question.
The most often debated topic when working with activities or tasks in CRMs like Pipedrive is whether you should change the due dates of overdue activities.
I will present what I think is the best thing to do with overdue tasks or activities.
Problem
On any given day, a salesperson has to do a number of tasks. Life happens and they may not be able to get through their tasks for the day, even if the number of tasks is manageable. Moreover, more often than not, salespeople are burdened with more tasks than they can handle. So any task they are not able to complete on a given day becomes an overdue task the next day.
The argument in favor of changing due dates is that people do not want to deal with the burden of having ‘overdue tasks’.
The biggest problem with moving due dates is that you lose context of how overdue you’re. On any given day, it is impossible to tell apart a task that is actually due for today from a task that was rescheduled for today. So there is a very high chance that activities that have been overdue for long will continue to be overdue because you will always have more activities than you can reasonably complete in a given day.
Secondly, it gives you a false impression that you’re on top of your sales pipeline and that things are fine when they’re actually not. The workload in the upcoming week far outweighs the workload in the weeks after.
So, my advice is to not move due dates. When you start your day, focus on everything that’s due for today. Once done, move to the Overdue list, and get cracking. Over time, you will get rid of overdues, but if you keep moving due dates of tasks, you will have to do this due date moving activity every day, which is a complete waste of time.
Scenarios where you need to change due dates
Apologies if this heading got you excited.
But I am going to rule out every case where you want to change the due date of the activity or, in simple words, move the activity.
Moving an activity without talking to a lead
Don’t do that.
If you do that, you’re asking the prospect to move according to your pace, where in fact, you should be responding to the prospect’s needs by moving along their pace.
Moving an activity when your outreach attempt was not successful
If your outreach attempt was unsuccessful, mark the activity as done, and schedule a new activity for a future date.
If you do that, you will get a clear idea of the number of attempts you’ve had to make to finally get in touch with somebody. This information will be very useful when you try to model “what happens if our leads increase by 10%”.
If you don’t do that, you will lose sight of how hard you’ve tried to reach out to somebody, and if you have tried enough. At some point, you have to give up on trying to reach out to a prospect, right?
Moving an activity with an incorrect due date
This one’s easy.
Just be careful when creating activities. Make it a habit to check these details when creating activities to avoid wasted time and effort, and frustration.
Be patient and diligent.
Moving an activity to follow up in the future
Again, don’t do that.
Just mark the previous activity as done, jot down your notes, and schedule the next activity. Let the logged data tell you and your team how many activities are required to get prospects into a particular stage of the pipeline. This will help them plan staffing requirements too.
Conclusion
My advice was always going to be ‘don’t do it’.
I just wanted to rule out every case one would think of to justify moving activities.
So, don’t do it.
It’s better to have overdues than to move due dates of activities or tasks.
Need help with Pipedrive?
Visit amitsarda.xyz/pipedrive or book a call.
Need a 30-day FREE trial of Pipedrive?
