Hello!
We are a healthcare technology company who serves businesses (mostly hospitals).
We would like to learn from others who are using Infusionsoft as a CRM tool to see how you are using it - focusing on business leads (opportunities) vs. focusing on individuals or consumers (contacts).
Thank you. Julie
Hi @Julie_Dooling,
Opportunities are one of my favorite subjects so forgive me if I chatter (I’ll try not to 
)
Opportunities represent a process that starts somewhere (lead source). Stages are just steps in that process. They don’t even have to be related to marketing as they could also be used for things like workflow management tracking (internal or otherwise). Point is, opps represent the funnel and contacts are what goes into the funnel. In a practical sense, you really should have them both as a focus but for different reasons in order to reach a single outcome. The of course there is the tracking it affords to show ROI. In fact, it’s fair to say that opps could be used to manage the process that allows one to focus on the individual in a personal way while providing accountability for those involved internally.
Hi @Julie_Dooling!
We’re a private medical practice ourselves, and we have set up our sales process in Infusionsoft for bringing in new patients.
Whenever someone completes a form on our website, it creates the new Contact record and an Opportunity record. We update the Opportunity record as the contact moves through the process to schedule an appointment. We have stages for Calls (called but unable to reach), Engaging (we’ve chatted via email/phone but they’re not ready to schedule yet), Appt Scheduled, Missed Appt, Canceled Appt, etc.
Within each stage there are follow-up sequences that include adding a Note and sending email, typically.
We use an internal form to do new patient intake, which lets us add/update Contact info and has an option if needed to create a new Opportunity record. After submitting the form, we open the related Opportunity record and manually change the stage.
Since our office uses a separate system to track appointments and payment information, we do not use Infusionsoft for appointment records and financial tracking.
How are you all using it, Julie?