What Is a Funnel, and Why Do Organizations Use Them?
A funnel is a visual or conceptual model that illustrates how prospects or customers progress through a series of stages—from the very first stage or interaction to a final outcome (e.g., a purchase, a solved case, or a closed ticket). Organizations rely on funnels because they:
Identify Bottlenecks and Broken Process: If a large percentage of individuals/leads never move from one stage to the next, you know where to investigate and optimize.
Track and Optimize Performance: With a bird’s-eye view of each stage, you can focus on areas that need better processes, more training, or refined communication.
Provide Clarity: By breaking complex processes into discrete stages, teams can pinpoint where leads or clients drop off or succeed.
Improve Forecasting: Funnels make it easier to predict future revenue or resource needs by analyzing how many leads typically convert (and how fast).
The main concept of Funnel is stages. An example of stages in a sales funnel is shown below:
An example of a sales funnel containing three stages in Ender Turing is shown below:
Common Use Cases for Funnel
Sales & Marketing: Tracking leads from initial interest to final purchase.
Customer Service & Support: Monitoring how tickets or service inquiries are handled, from first contact to resolution.
Onboarding & Product Adoption: Guiding users step-by-step through product setup or training sequences.
Recruiting & HR: Visualizing candidate pipelines from application to hiring decision.
In the Ender Turing app, funnels are designed for sales and service conversations. They show the path each call or conversation takes, revealing opportunities to improve agent performance and customer satisfaction.
Setting Up Your Funnel in Ender Turing
Step 1️⃣: Define the Funnel Stages—Before configuring the Funnel, define Clear stages that you would like to track.
Open the ‘Funnels’ Section: Locate and click “Create New Funnel” (naming may vary slightly).
Give It a Name: For example, “Sales Funnel Q2” or “Support Ticket Resolution.”
Create Your Stages, each in a separate column:
Sales Example: Lead Generated → Interested → Negotiation → Closed Sale.
Service Example: New Ticket → In Progress → Escalation (optional) → Resolved.
Service Example: Total Ticket → NPS>5 → NPS>7 → NPS>8 → NPS>9.
💡 Tip: Keep your stages logical and sequential. This ensures you can clearly track where and why people progress or drop off.
Step 2️⃣: Configure each Stage Criteria
Use Filters, such as Topic, CRM Status, or simply defining which keywords push a call to the “Interested” or “Resolved” stage.
Save Each Stage: Verify that your definitions match real-world activities (e.g., reps tag calls “Interested,” or a call includes “I’m interested in learning more”).
💡 Tip: If your team is new to funnels, consider starting with broad categories before adding more nuanced stages.
💡 Tip 2: Most used Filters in Funnels: Topics, CRM Statuses, Search through Generative Summaries.
Step 3️⃣: Validate Your Funnel Setup
Preview & Validate: Ensure calls or tickets automatically fall into the correct stages. You can quickly jump to calls and tickets by pressing 🔗 icon.
Check for Edge Cases: Confirm there’s a precise stage for calls that “drop off” or are “lost” so they don’t skew other data.
How to Interpret the Funnel
Funnels are usually read from right to left (in a horizontal layout). Each next stage usually represents the completion of all previous stages in the conversation (if the stage is sales closed, the interest stage was already completed at an earlier stage).
Example:
Once data populates into your Ender Turing funnel, you’ll typically see such type of funnel:
Total Calls/Leads: The pool of calls with opportunities (e.g., 100 total leads).
Interested: The number of calls where clients were interested (e.g., 13 leads).
Converted: The number of calls with closed deals/sales (e.g., 5 leads).
Clickable and numerical elements of Funnel
Stage-Specific Absolute Counts: How many calls/leads are at each funnel stage? If an Agent calls the same client a few times, this will count as one lead.
Funnel Conversion: How many calls/leads achieve the current stage compared to the first stage? For instance, 13% were converted from Total to Interested, and 5% moved from Total to Converted.
Abandoned or Dropped at each Stage: The number (and percentage) of leads and calls that fail to progress through the funnel.
Conversion Between Each Stage: How many calls/leads convert from one stage to another? These percentages help reveal where the most significant drop-offs occur. If a stage is losing a disproportionate amount of leads, it signals a need for deeper analysis or intervention.
Fast Filters: Want to check only Incoming and only Calls? Change Months? This is the place to quickly select Type, Direction, and Dates.
The Jump to Conversations and Helper buttons allow you to jump to Conversations of the current Stage, Download Leads/Contacts of the current Stage, or just check the filter defining the current Stage.
Funnel Editorial Menu: After creation, the Funnel is in read-only mode. You can Edit, Remove, or Download it.
Reset Cache: The funnel report is pre-cached for load speed purposes. If you track Funnel for the current day, you would like to reset the cached numbers.
by Agent: If you need to compare Funnel performance Agent to Agent, you can select the 'By Agent' checkbox.
When and Where to Apply Funnels
High-Volume Inbound or Outbound Sales Calls: Sales teams that handle large call volumes benefit from funnel insights to manage lead distribution and follow-up.
Customer Service Hotlines: Support teams can measure how quickly issues move from initial report to resolution, pinpointing training needs or procedural gaps.
Marketing Campaigns: When generating leads through ads or events, funnels help assess the campaign’s ROI by showing exactly how many leads turn into paying customers.
Complex Processes: Anytime a conversation has multiple steps—such as onboarding a new client with multiple discovery calls—a funnel clarifies each milestone.
Leveraging Funnel Data for Improvement
Script Optimization
Sales: If the script loses leads right after they express interest, fine-tune how reps handle common objections or build trust.
Service: If reps get stuck on certain issues repeatedly, create scripted guides or FAQs to speed resolution.
Performance Coaching
Pinpoint reps who excel or struggle at each stage. Configure Generative AI recommendations and comments, share best practices from high-performing reps, and provide targeted training for those who need support.
Automated Notifications
Use Ender Turing’s automation features to remind Agents or send notification emails to Team Leads if an event is triggered above or below. This can significantly boost conversions.
Refining Criteria
If you notice conversations aren’t appropriately categorized, adjust your stage filters. For instance, if “Interested” captures too many false positives, tighten your Generative Topic description or rely more on CRM Statuses or Tagging.
Monitor Trends Over Time
Compare funnel metrics month-to-month or quarter-to-quarter. Observe if your optimization efforts lead to improved conversion rates or faster service resolution.
Best Practices & Tips
Simplicity First: Start with a basic funnel (3–4 stages). You can expand as you get more comfortable or your process gets more complex.
Team Alignment: Ensure that sales or service Agents understand the definitions of each stage. Consistent usage keeps funnel data accurate.
Regular Check-Ins: Integrate funnel reviews into weekly or monthly team meetings. Discuss what worked, what didn’t, and where you can improve.
Combine with Other KPIs: For deeper insights, pair funnel data with average handle time, customer satisfaction scores, or revenue metrics.
Utilize Ender Turing Analytics: The app provides call transcripts, sentiment analysis, and more. These data points enrich your funnel analysis to drive meaningful changes.
Getting Started
Create your funnel in Ender Turing by naming your stages and defining filters.
Integrate your calls and conversations to assign them to stages automatically.
Analyze the funnel to spot high-abandonment stages or hidden opportunities.
Optimize scripts, coaching, and follow-up processes based on real data.
Real-World Example
A sales team notices that only 5% of leads become closed deals. By examining call transcripts in Ender Turing, they find that most leads mention budget concerns, so they revamp their pricing discussion approach. Over the next month, the funnel showed an increase of 8% in closed deals—a tangible ROI of using funnel insights.
Conclusion
Funnels are a fundamental tool for visualizing and optimizing sales and service processes. In Ender Turing, creating funnels is straightforward: you define stages, set clear filters, and let the platform track each conversation’s path. Regularly reviewing your funnel data and making iterative improvements can boost conversion rates, speed up service resolution times, and ensure a consistently positive customer experience.
Ready to Dive In? Log in to your Ender Turing workspace and start building your funnel today. With the right setup and ongoing analysis, you’ll have a powerful method for driving performance improvements in both sales and service operations.