Siebel Applications Administration Guide > Target Account Selling >

Adding Customer Milestones

Milestones are formal steps in the customer's buying process. The Customer Milestones view helps sales professionals identify and track customer requirements that must be met as the sales cycle progresses. After the milestones are set, use the Our Activities list to target specific activities to accomplish to meet each milestone. These activities might include formal presentations, product demonstrations, benchmarks, proposals, and other activities required to make the sale.

Milestones are similar to Activity Plan templates that are created with predefined activities. For example, the initial milestone, Request Offering, is associated with recommended activities to be performed by you and your sales team. These activities might include understanding the problem or opportunity, defining the customer's Compelling Event and confirming the budget, completing an opportunity assessment, and developing an organization map for the customer's business.

A sample of customer milestone types is included with the Siebel Sales application. Your administrator can change the milestones to suit your business needs. You and your sales team can create, edit and delete activities associated with the milestones that address the opportunity.

This task is a step in Process of Managing Target Account Selling.

To add a milestone

1. Navigate to the Opportunities screen, then the Opportunities List view.
2. Drill down on the Opportunity Name field of an opportunity record.
3. Navigate to the Target Account Selling view, then the Customer Milestones view.
4. In the Customer Milestones list, create a new record, and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Event	Select the type of event. A set of suggested activities appears in the Our Activities list. You must save the type of event for the activities to appear.
   Description	Type a description of the milestone event.
   Customer Responsibility	Select the customer contact who is the key contact and owner of the milestone event.

5. Repeat Step 4 until you have entered all key milestone events.

   Review the recommended activities for each milestone before adding new milestones.

Adding Associated Activities to Each Milestone

Complete the following procedure to add associated activities to each milestone.

To add associated activities to each milestone

1. Navigate to the Opportunities screen, then the Opportunities List view.
2. Drill down on the Opportunity Name field of an opportunity record.
3. Navigate to the Target Account Selling view, then the Customer Milestones view.
4. In the Customer Milestones list, select a milestone record.
5. In the Our Activities list, create a new activity record, and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Type	Select the activity type.
   Resources	Type a description of the resources required to support the activity.
   Owner	Select a new owner of the activity, if necessary. Your user ID appears in this field by default.
   In Display	Select a value to indicate where you want the activity to appear. If you select Calendar and Activity as the display method, then you must enter a start date for the activity so that it appears in the calendar.