Case Study : Catching Backward Deal Movement Before It Slips Through the Crack

Use Case :

Ever had a deal quietly move backwards in your pipeline — and no one noticed until it was too late?

That’s exactly what a client flagged recently. They needed a simple way to know the moment a deal regressed to an earlier stage — often a sign of hesitation, churn risk, or just something that needs a quick recovery.

Unfortunately HubSpot doesn’t alert you natively when that happens, so here’s how we built a workaround that works.

Solution :

Step 1: Created 3 custom properties

• Previous Deal Stage – stores what the stage was

• Previous Stage Index – converts the previous stage into a numeric value

• Current Stage Index – converts the new stage into a numeric value

Step 2: Smart Workflow Logic

• When a deal stage changes, we store the previous stage & its index

• Then compare the two indexes

• If the new index is less than the previous → trigger an internal alert in HubSpot

The result?

No more flying blind. Teams now get notified instantly when a deal moves backwards — giving them time to step in, ask questions, and re-engage.

This can be extended to Contacts, Tickets and any other Objects that captures Lifecycle stages.

Small tweak, big impact.