An Overview of Task Outcomes

Enabling Task Outcomes lets you quickly complete tasks while giving you the data and the insight to learn from each customer interaction. You can quickly scan activity history, identify important activities without needing to browse through notes and run reports to identify trends, wins, and opportunities for improvement.

This article provides an overview of the Task Outcomes feature for deal and contact tasks.

What is a Task Outcome?

A Task Outcome is a list of possible results from an interaction with a prospect or a customer. Outcomes are used to resolve tasks quickly and to identify what’s working and where there is an opportunity for improvement in your engagement with your prospects or customers.

You can use Task Outcomes to select a deal or contact task outcome. For example, you can set a task to call someone, and the outcome is that they want to buy your product. Here's what this will look like in a deal task:

How to set up and use Task Outcomes

Click each section below to learn specific process steps.

To Enable Task Outcomes

Here are the steps to enable Task Outcomes for both deal and contact tasks:

1. Click Deals > Task Settings on the left menu. 
2. Click the "Task Outcomes" toggle to set it to the On position. 

To Create Task Outcomes

Here are the steps to create a Task Outcome for both deal and contact tasks:

1. Click Deals > Task Settings on the left menu.
2. Click "Manage Outcomes" in the "Task Types" header.
3. Create an outcome and assign a label. This is what the team will see when they complete their tasks.
4. Select the sentiment for the "Task Outcome" between Positive, Negative, and Neutral. This will display in reporting. The sentiment field will default to Neutral.
   
   
   
   
5. Click "Save."

Assign an outcome to a task type

Choose an outcome from the dropdown below the task type to assign an outcome. You can assign multiple outcomes to a task, but there is a limit to the number of outcomes you can assign.

Here are a few things to note about assigning an outcome to a task:

• Each task type must have at least one outcome
• Each task type may not have more than 20 outcomes
• Outcomes can be used across multiple task types. As an example, if you create a “Meeting Scheduled” outcome, you could make it available for your "Call" task type and your "Lunch" task type
• After task outcomes are added to task types, click “Save Changes.” The page needs to be saved. This will enable task outcomes in the account.

To complete a task, an outcome will be required. Requiring an outcome allows you to learn what happens in each interaction with your prospects or customers. Identify what is working, and where there is an opportunity for improvement.

Complete a contact task

Here are the steps to complete a contact task:

1. Confirm that task outcomes are enabled under Deals > Task Settings.
2. Go to a contact record and find an existing contact task or create a new one.
3. Click the checkmark to complete the task.
4. Choose an outcome for the task.
5. Optional: Add notes for reference in the “More Info” field.
6. Click on "Mark Complete" to complete the task.

Note that if you use the “View Open Tasks” (default) setting and mark the task as complete, it will disappear. You need to change to “View Completed Tasks” to view the recently completed task.

Complete a Deal Task

Here are the steps to complete a Deal Task:

1. Confirm that task outcomes are enabled under Deals > Task Settings.
2. Go to a deal record, find an existing deal task, or create a new deal task.
3. Click the checkmark to complete the task.
4. Choose an outcome for the task.
5. Optional: Add notes for reference.
6. Click "Mark Complete" to complete the task.

Note that if you use the “View Open Tasks” (default) setting and mark the task as complete, it will disappear. You need to change to “View Completed Tasks” to view the recently completed task.

Report on Task Outcomes

After you or your team have completed a few tasks with outcomes, check out the results. The Task Overview Report can filter task outcomes to provide valuable customer insights.

There are two ways to access the Task Overview Report:

1. Click Reports > Deals > Task Overview 
   -OR-
2. Click Deals > Task Overview

Once you are in the Task Overview Report:

1. Click the “Related to” task type dropdown and select “Any,” “Contacts,” or “Deals.”
2. Choose the parameters for the report, such as Task Type, Task Outcome, and Task Owner. Note that the parameter options will update based on your chosen task type.
3. Scroll down to view task outcomes by a user, sentiment, and other parameters.
   
   
   

Learn more about the Task Overview Report.

Additional information about Task Outcomes

• An admin can enable or disable task outcomes for their account:
  
  • • When task outcomes are enabled, we will:
      
      • • Show the outcome dropdown
        • Require that at least one outcome is selected
        • Show the task outcome dropdown on the task completion screen in Contact and Deal records
    • When task outcomes are disabled, we will:
      
      • • Ask if this action was intended and notify the admin that they won’t be able to add task outcomes for any task types
        • If the admin agrees to the action, we will remove all task outcomes for task types and hide the "Manage task outcomes" option.
• An admin can add task types and task outcomes (if task Outcomes are enabled for their account)