The client journey

Statuses and types answer different questions, and the most common taxonomy mistakes come from asking one field to answer both. This page is a best-practices guide to modeling the client journey honestly — including the two situations every service business hits: the finished project client, and the work that's parked on the client's side.

The three axes#

A client relationship moves along three independent axes:

• Relationship — do they see you as their vendor? (prospect → client → former client)
• Commercial state — is money flowing? (active agreement → project-based → nothing right now)
• Work state — is anything currently in motion? (active work → parked → idle)

In AspirePro, the Type carries the relationship (Client, Prospect, Vendor, Past Client…), the Status carries the current state (Active, Dormant, On Hold, Inactive), and agreements, projects, and tickets carry the commercial and work reality. Keep them separate and each field stays truthful.

The finished project client → Dormant#

A one-time project wraps — the website launched, everything's paid. They have no active work and no agreement, but you're still the company they'll call next time. That's a Dormant client, not a Past Client:

• Type stays Client. Reserve Past Client for relationships that actually ended — they moved on, went in-house, or you parted ways. "The invoice cleared" is not the end of a relationship.
• Status → Dormant. The seeded Dormant status means: relationship alive, nothing running, future work expected.
• Add the "Dormant Client Check-in" lifecycle (twice a year) so staying in front of them is a tracked commitment, not a memory. A useful touchpoint writes itself: their site's software is a year older, their last review was 12 months ago.

Dormant clients are the cheapest pipeline you own — the trust is built and the sales cost of the next project is nearly zero. The check-in lifecycle is how that next project comes to you instead of whoever emailed them last.

The parked project → On Hold#

Signed, maybe paid, and stalled on the client's side — the classic case is a finished site sitting on staging because the client is too busy to review it. They're still a client, but "Active" implies motion and nothing is moving:

• Status → On Hold. The relationship is fine; the ball is in their court.
• Add the "Stalled Work Nudge" lifecycle (monthly) so the follow-up is systematic — each nudge names the one thing you need from them.
• Give parked work a deadline. A deliverable that sits for months quietly rots (software versions age, designs date, relaunch scope grows). A friendly forcing function — "we'll refresh and launch by this date, or we archive the stage and relaunch becomes a small re-engagement" — protects both sides.

What the app does with these states#

• Health scores clients only, and skips Dormant and Inactive ones. A company is scored when its type counts as a client (only Client out of the box), or it has an active lifecycle or an agreement in force — never because calls were logged against it. The Dormant and Inactive statuses ship left out of health: a dormant client with no tickets or meetings is in its expected state — scoring it at risk would just bury the real warnings. Their check-in lifecycle still runs and still reminds you. (The toggles are hidden while client health is switched off for the organization under System → Lifecycle.)
• The Lifecycle worklist watches for clients going dormant. Companies still marked Active that were real clients once (a project, invoice, or agreement exists) but now have no open project, no agreement that has not ended, no ticket in six months, and nothing logged in six months surface on a Looks dormant tile — one dialog moves them to Dormant and, optionally, adds a check-in lifecycle. The tile only exists while a status called Dormant does.

Quick reference#

For the full argument behind this model, read the guide: Active, Dormant, or Done? The three axes of a client relationship.