3 Types of CRM Automation You Should Know

When evaluating a CRM, it can be a little overwhelming trying to figure out whether or not a system will provide the proper functionality for you and your team.

At Salesforce, we’ve found that a lot of evaluators are looking for ways to cut down on repetitive and manual record-keeping. That’s so they can focus on scalability and growth — one way to achieve this in a more efficient manner is with process automation.

Process automation is a way of having a common process happen on its own without the need for user action in Salesforce. It allows you to trust that the process is always done correctly and on time, which allows your team to spend more time on important tasks.

Essentially, the purpose of process automation is to cut down on repetitive tasks and remove redundancies.

We’ll cover three types of process automation that are critical for Salesforce and CRM:

1. Task automation
2. Email automation
3. Opportunity management

Tasks in Salesforce are “to-dos” for your team, like scheduling a follow-up call with a client or creating a proposal. This ensures that reps know exactly what they need to do and when that deadline is.

They’re the most common way for Salesforce Starter users to keep themselves and their team on track for completing their work for the day. If your workflow uses a lot of common, repetitive tasks that need to be done on a daily or weekly basis, it may be smart to automate.

Here’s an example: if your sales reps follow up with customers who have expressed interest in your company, but they’re not able to get in touch, you’ll still want to make sure your reps get in touch over the next few days. Doing so will prevent it from getting lost in the mix of new leads coming through the system.

Task automation ensures that after a call is logged in Salesforce, a follow-up task can be created with a due date set for two days later. By doing this, your reps are able to bring up a list of their tasks for the current day and see exactly who to follow up with, so as to not get behind the sales cadence set by your company.

A great example of email automation occurs with Service Cloud, a customer support-focused tool that allows service agents to solve cases with a detailed view of every customer interaction.

If one of your customers has their support inquiry resolved, you’ll want feedback to ensure you’re providing the best customer experience possible. This customer feedback can be captured by utilizing a feedback form that is sent out after their support case is closed or resolved — with email automation, there’s no need for the support agents to send that out.

By setting up a process that automates an email to share the feedback form every time a case is closed or resolved, you can ensure that it concludes every customer’s support experience. Once the form is filled out, the information will automatically update a record that can be viewed in Salesforce.

This type of automation deals with an opportunity, or a deal that’s already in-progress. Anytime you’re actively selling to a customer, you’ll want to create an opportunity to track and manage the sales process.

An example of a typical sales process in Salesforce is:

1. Meeting Scheduled
2. Analysis of Needs/Challenges
3. Create & Send Proposal
4. Negotiate Price
5. Close Deal

Imagine you won a customer’s business after following the sales process you created in Salesforce. Now, almost a year later, it’s time for them to renew their contract. The big question is: How do we know when to follow up with this customer and ensure that this is also top of mind for them?

The answer is to kickstart an automated process using the Salesforce data pertaining to the customer. Once the contract end date is entered in Salesforce, you can use automation to achieve a few things:

• Create a specific sales task to follow up with the customer at a set time prior to the renewal
• Send an email to the customer stating that their renewal date is approaching
• Automatically create a new Renewal Opportunity to keep track of the deal

The bottom-line with automation is that the less work you have to do in CRM, the more you can put your efforts towards working with customers and giving them a great experience. In Salesforce, it’s all up to the user to figure out what works for them and will make their team as efficient as possible.