Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are essential to understanding customers and engaging with them. CRMS is excellent, but it becomes something else altogether if workflow automation is added. Hours spent answering and replying to emails could have been better utilised to answer the call for growth.
The answer to that conundrum is CRM workflow automation. By automating multiple processes, businesses streamline their operations, increase efficiency, and finally improve customer experience.
In this guide, we will examine 7 examples of workflow automation every business should have in its CRM, along with real-life examples.
What is CRM Workflow Automation?
CRM workflow automation is the technology used to set up automatic actions that carry out a ta,sk performing tedious tasks automatically within a CRM. If you configure rules and triggers, then you can make certain business operations run reliably without manual intervention.
Importance of CRM Workflow Automation
As with most things in the workplace, automating workflows saves you time, minimises human error, and creates time for your team to work on higher-value tasks. Automation keeps track of the leads, sales, and customer relations that must be addressed.
This is how you could engage with CRM workflow automation to start the fundamental transformation across your business.
Lead Management Automation
Smart lead management is essential for turning prospects into actual customers. By automating lead management with CRM, the process becomes seamless.
Automated Lead Capture
No more manually entering leads into your CRM. Automation tools can pick up leads from different sources, such as web forms, landing pages, emails, or even social media ads. For example, your CRM can automatically generate a new lead record when a visitor completes an inquiry on your website (this action saves you a lot of time).
Lead Scoring and Routing
There are different types of leads, and they are not all equal. Lead scoring can be automated by assigning a certain number of points to leads based on the job title or company size or by tracking how many of your emails your enquirers have engaged with. After scoring, leads can be directed to the right sales rep to make sure that hot leads are handled right away.
Sales Process Automation
Sales processes are often the most well-structured processes of every successful business. That process is kept organised and efficient with the help of CRM automation.
Automated Task Creation
Sales teams have a lot to do, including follow-ups, proposals, and more. You can use triggers to automatically create tasks with CRM automation. Create a task when a lead enters a new deal stage, such as “Send Follow-Up Email” or “Schedule a Demo.”
Deal Stage Updates
Automation can handle the pipeline stages. Under certain situations or conditions say, when a proposal is signed, or your client makes an initial payment your CRM can advance the deal to the next phase of the sales funnel.
Customer Service Automation
A prompt and attentive customer service experience fosters loyalty. This is how you can simplify your support with CRM automation.
Automated Ticket Creation
For instance, if a customer submits a query via email, chat or through the contact form, then your CRM may receive it as a support ticket automatically. A prompt and responsive way to track the issues with customers without manual data entry.
Escalation Rules
The primary level of support does not always hold all customer complaints. You can automate escalation rules; for example, if a ticket has been open for 48 hours, you can escalate it to a manager or assign it to another team member. This allows you to respond to issues much faster.
Marketing Automation
Marketing and CRM go hand in hand, and automation is what can help you deliver them to the correct set of audiences at the right time.
Automated Email Campaigns
Email marketing is the bread and butter of customer engagement, and email marketing automation by CRM elevates the game. Workflows allow you to send customized emails automatically triggered by a customer’s birthday, abandoned cart, or former purchases. These efforts can easily be automated because most CRMS allow seamless integration with tools like HubSpot and Mailchimp.
Social Media Posting
CRM integrations with social media platforms allow the scheduling and automation of posts that keep brand communication consistent. Your CRM can then automate posting new blog announcements or proposals at prime times.
Data Management Automation
Ultimately, having clean and accurate data in your CRM is how you make all the better decisions. Thanks to automation, which eliminates repetitive work, you can manage your database with updated information.
Data Cleansing
Having Automation tools integrated into the CRM can detect and fix database errors. For instance, if duplicate records are detected, they can be flagged to merge or even deleted automatically to keep your contacts, leads, and customer profiles up-to-date and accurate.
Data Enrichment
Data enrichment automation automatically fills in missing data fields, such as job titles, company details, or social media accounts, to different third-party tools similar to Clearbit. This means you always have the most accurate and relevant info for your contacts.
Automating Analytics and Reporting
Your growth will depend on how well you understand your business’s performance, and this is where a report will help. With CRM automation, you can automate everything and make reporting easy.
Automated Report Generation
So, making manual reports is a heavy task that no one enjoys. Your CRM can automate reports on metrics such as sales conversion rates or how many people opened your email at a frequency you set. You can even send these reports to be emailed to your teams.
Performance Tracking
Create live dashboards with automatic KPI updates. With these dashboards, your team can monitor performance and fine-tune strategies as they see fit instead of waiting for end-of-month reports.
Ensure your CRM workflows are automated.
Workflow automation in CRM is no longer a luxury but a basic necessity of business. Your business can save time, ensure accuracy, and improve performance by automating tasks related to lead management, sales, customer service, marketing, data management, and reports.
And now it is time to move forward. Seeing is believing, so to witness this power for yourself, start implementing one of the workflows above in your CRM system today.
If you need some tools to make it easy, contact a sales rep or demo the latest CRM automation software to see what SQLS offers.
