How to mark an opportunity as lost and restore it later

When a customer will not buy, open the opportunity, click Lost, choose a Lost Reason (for example Too expensive) and click Mark as Lost. The opportunity leaves the pipeline but is not deleted: you can analyze lost reasons in the reports and click Restore if the customer comes back.

Who

Salespeople mark records as lost; a Sales Administrator manages the list of lost reasons.

App

CRM

Before you start

Have a lead or opportunity, see How to record a lead or an opportunity.

How do I set up lost reasons?

Most deals are lost for a few recurring reasons: price, timing, a competitor, no decision maker, product not suitable. Listing them lets you see which ones cost you the most.

  1. Go to CRM ‣ Configuration ‣ Pipeline ‣ Lost Reasons.

  2. Click New, type the reason, for example Competitor offered a better price, and press Enter. Click an existing reason to rename it.

    List of lost reasons in the CRM configuration

How do I mark an opportunity as lost?

  1. Open the lead or opportunity and click Lost.

  2. Choose the Lost Reason and, if useful, write what happened in Closing Note.

    Mark Lost window with Lost Reason and Closing Note

  3. Click Mark as Lost.

The record gets a red Lost ribbon, its probability becomes 0% and it is archived, so it no longer appears in My Pipeline. The reason and note are logged in the chatter.

Opportunity with the red Lost ribbon and its lost reason

How do I find and restore a lost opportunity?

  1. In My Pipeline (or Leads), open Filters and choose Lost.

  2. Open the opportunity and click Restore.

    Restore button on a lost opportunity

The opportunity is back in the pipeline, in its last stage. To restore several at once, select them in the list view and click Actions ‣ Unarchive.

To see why you lose deals, open CRM ‣ Reporting ‣ Pipeline, filter on Lost and group by Lost Reason, see How to analyze your leads and opportunities in reports.

Common errors

Problem

What to do

A lost opportunity cannot be found in the pipeline.

It is archived. Use the Lost or Archived filter.

There is no Restore button.

The record is archived but not lost (probability above 0). Use Actions ‣ Unarchive.

Next steps