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Closed lost is the CRM status of a deal your team did not win. In Salesforce it is an Opportunity in the Closed Lost stage, and in HubSpot it is a Deal in a pipeline’s Closed lost stage. Closed-lost re-engagement brings those deals back to sales when the timing may have changed: some months after the loss, or when someone from the account shows interest again. In Default, a workflow notices that moment, Match Record finds the closed-lost opportunity or deal in your CRM, and Send Slack Message alerts the rep who worked it.

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Closed-lost re-engagement at a glance

The steps below use Salesforce. HubSpot works the same way with Company and Deal, with 1 difference in how the deal is found. See Salesforce and HubSpot differences.

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Setup for closed-lost workflows

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How a workflow finds a closed-lost opportunity

Default has no closed-lost flag of its own, so the workflow asks your CRM. In Salesforce, a Match Record node on Opportunity looks for an opportunity whose Account ID is the account you matched and whose Stage is Closed Lost. Match means the account has a closed-lost opportunity, and later nodes can use its owner, name, and close date. No Match means it has none. The Account Signal and Form Submission triggers don’t know your CRM accounts. The Account Signal carries the visitor’s company domain, and a form carries an email. A first Match Record turns either one into the CRM account. See Match an account by company domain. If your CRM already keeps a field on the account for this, for example a checkbox or a last closed-lost date that a Salesforce flow or HubSpot workflow sets, you can skip the opportunity match and branch on that field with Multi-Branch after you match the account.

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Play 1: revisit a deal some time after it closes lost

This example alerts the opportunity owner 90 days after a Salesforce opportunity closes lost, unless someone reopened it in the meantime.
1

Add the trigger

In Workflows, create a workflow and add CRM Record Updated. Set CRM to Salesforce and Record to Opportunity. Under Condition, add 2 conditions joined with and: Stage equals Closed Lost, and Fields Updated contains any of Stage. The second condition starts the workflow only when the stage changes, not on every later edit to a lost opportunity.
2

Wait

Add Time Delay and set it to 90 days. The longest delay you can set is 365 days.
3

Check that the deal is still lost

Add Match Record. Set CRM to Salesforce and Record to Opportunity. Under Match Details, match Opportunity ID to the opportunity ID from the trigger, and Stage to Closed Lost. An opportunity someone reopened during the wait takes No Match, and the run ends there.
4

Alert the owner

On Match, add Send Slack Message. Set Recipients to the owner of the matched opportunity. In Message, type {{ to insert the opportunity name, the account, and the close date. To also post to a team channel, set Slack channels.
5

Test and publish

A test waits the full delay, so set Time Delay to 1 minute while you test. Select Test and fill in the ID of a test opportunity that is closed lost in Salesforce. The test checks the trigger’s Condition, so also set StageName to Closed Lost and add StageName to the fieldsUpdated list. Select Run Test. When the Slack message arrives, set the delay back to 90 days and select Publish. Check that the status next to the deployment switch reads Live. A new workflow goes live when you first publish it. If the status reads Paused, turn the switch on.
A run that is waiting shows Suspended in Runs until the delay ends. It keeps the version of the workflow it started with: publishing changes doesn’t change it, and pausing the workflow stops new runs but not runs already waiting. The check after the delay is what keeps a reopened deal from sending an alert.
To add a contact to a re-engagement sequence instead of alerting the owner, match that contact first, then add a sequencing node. Each run adds 1 person, so pick 1 contact, for example with Match Record on Opportunity Contact Role for the primary contact, then on Contact for their email. See Send routed leads to sales sequences. For a wait longer than 365 days, or a timer your CRM team wants to own, have a Salesforce flow or HubSpot workflow set a field when the time comes, for example a Re-engage checkbox. Then start the Default workflow with CRM Record Updated and a Fields Updated condition on that field, and leave out the Time Delay.

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Play 2: alert the owner when a closed-lost account visits your site

This example tells the opportunity owner when someone from an account with a closed-lost opportunity views your pricing page.
1

Add the trigger

In Workflows, create a workflow. Select Add Node, then Triggers, and choose Account Signal. Set Page URL pattern to /pricing and select Create Trigger.
2

Find the account

Add Match Record. Set CRM to Salesforce and Record to Account. Under Match Details, choose Website with the domain matches operator, and pick the company domain from the trigger.
3

Look for a closed-lost opportunity

On Match, add a second Match Record with Record set to Opportunity. Under Match Details, match Account ID to the ID of the account from the previous node, and Stage to Closed Lost. Under Prioritize matched records by, select Add tiebreaker and sort by Close Date, Newest first, so the most recent loss wins.
4

Alert the owner

On the second node’s Match branch, add Send Slack Message. Set Recipients to the owner of the matched opportunity, and insert the account name, the page, and the opportunity’s close date in Message. Leave both No Match branches empty, or send them to your usual visitor workflow. See Website visitor to outbound.
5

Test and publish

Select Test, fill in the domain of an account that has a closed-lost opportunity, and select Run Test. Then select Publish and check that the status reads Live. If it reads Paused, turn the switch on.
To skip accounts that already have a new deal in progress, add a third Match Record on Opportunity for the same account where Stage is any of your open stages. Send the alert only from its No Match branch.

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Play 3: route a returning form submission to the previous owner

  1. Start the workflow with Form Submission and set Connected Form to your form.
  2. Add Match Record on Account. Match Website with domain matches to the email from the form, and choose Domain from email.
  3. On Match, add the closed-lost opportunity Match Record from play 2.
  4. On its Match branch, if the form shows a calendar, add Display Scheduler, turn off Use event hosts, and set the host to the owner of the matched opportunity. Set Fallback Host (Optional) for when they’re away. See Connect a scheduler to your form.
  5. Add Send Slack Message to the same owner. With a scheduler, put it on the Booked and Not booked branches, so the alert doesn’t delay the calendar.
  6. Send every No Match branch to your usual routing, for example a Round-Robin node.

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Salesforce and HubSpot differences

For play 1, set CRM to HubSpot and Record to Deal, with the conditions Deal Stage equals your closed lost stage and Fields Updated contains any of Deal Stage. To check the deal after the delay, match the Deal by its Record ID and Deal Stage.For plays 2 and 3, match the Company by its Company Domain Name with domain matches. To find the Deal, add Match Record on Deal and turn on Match by association. Set Source record type to Company and Source record to the matched company. With association on, Match Details doesn’t apply, so:
  1. Under Prioritize matched records by, add Prefer records where Deal Stage is your closed lost stage, then sort by Close Date, Newest first.
  2. Add Multi-Branch with a branch where the matched deal’s Deal Stage is your closed lost stage. Send the alert from that branch, and leave Else empty.
The Multi-Branch check matters: a company with no closed-lost deal still matches its other deals, and the preference falls back to them.
In HubSpot, each pipeline has its own closed lost stage. Pick the closed lost stage of every pipeline you sell through. In Salesforce, if you renamed the lost stage or use more than 1, match Closed equals true and Won equals false instead of Stage.
If you record why a deal was lost, for example HubSpot’s Closed Lost Reason property or a custom Salesforce field, add a Multi-Branch condition on it before the alert. Leave out deals lost for reasons that don’t change, such as No fit.
Salesforce pushes opportunity changes to Default as they happen. Default checks HubSpot for updated deals every few minutes, so play 1 starts a little later in HubSpot. See How Salesforce changes reach Default and How HubSpot changes reach Default.

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Check that closed-lost re-engagement works

  • Runs: open the workflow and select Runs. Play 1 runs read Suspended while they wait. Filter by status to see every run still waiting. See Run logs.
  • Run Details: each Match Record step shows the condition and the record it matched. Expand Show data under a step to see the values it read and wrote.
  • Watched fields: on the Salesforce or HubSpot page in Settings → Integrations, Opportunity or Deal no longer reads No active triggers once a play 1 workflow is published.
  • Account Signal: it starts 1 run per company per hour, so a second visit within the hour doesn’t start another run. Visitors on home networks or a VPN often stay anonymous.

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Troubleshoot closed-lost workflows

Related: Sales workflow software from Default