9 workflows to automate your sales process from lead to deal

A salesperson’s day is split into many tasks that can be broadly categorized as revenue-generating and non-revenue generating. The first set of tasks include high-touch sales activities like sales calls, product demos, and other interactions with prospects. They are intertwined and highly dependent on the second set of tasks that are low-touch sales activities. The low-touch activities include lead qualification, segmentation, outreach campaigns, and more which are largely repetitive in nature.

A high number of incoming leads is always a source of joy for salespersons, but the largely manual work to qualify these leads can be frustrating. These tasks chip away at their time—time that could be spent actively speaking to prospects. So how do you, as a salesperson, make sure that you spend your time more efficiently? The solution isn’t to put in extra hours to complete these tasks. You need to make better use of your in-hand time and focus solely on selling.

The road to productivity is paved with automation!

At Freshworks CRM, we’re dedicated to improving sales productivity. And that’s why we introduced Intelligent Workflows. What are workflows? Simply put, it takes your otherwise manual, time-consuming sales tasks and automates it. When a condition is satisfied on a record, it triggers a set of actions like sending an email or updating a record field.

Workflows in Freshworks CRM are made for sales teams of all sizes. Smaller sales teams may struggle with balancing tasks with the limited manpower available. Workflows can help delegate the manual tasks to the CRM and have them completed automatically, thus enabling them to function as effectively as a larger, well-staffed team.

With larger sales teams, the challenge lies in streamlining processes. Each salesperson may be following their own process to complete their tasks and there would be no effective process in place. Using workflows, the larger sales process can be set and within that, individual salespersons can create smaller workflows to match their personal process.

Workflows can be applied on six types of records in Freshworks CRM—Contacts, Accounts, Deals, Tasks, Appointments, and Call Logs. In this post, we’ll discuss how you can automate your sales process using workflows, right from onboarding a lead to marking a deal won.

From lead to deal, here’s how workflows can help improve your sales productivity:

1. When a new lead comes into Freshworks CRM

Welcome emails have an average of 4 times more open rates than standard emails. This makes them a “must-have” in your onboarding journey for new leads. Shoot out a quick email to the lead once they sign up. When a new lead enters Freshworks CRM, a workflow triggers three actions: a) a welcome email is sent, b) the lead stage is updated, and c) a follow-up task is created and assigned to the lead owner.

2. Updating lead fields

Your welcome email can be a simple thank you email or an onboarding guide. Depending on the content, the response to the welcome email can also vary. They may have a query, complaint, or might not be interested in your business. The second workflow triggers a task for the salesperson to follow-up on the response email and also updates the lead stage simultaneously.

3. Auto-converting the lead as sales qualified lead

If the lead is interested in your business, you can update the Lifecycle Stage as Sales Qualified Lead.

4. Sending out emails

Salespersons spend up to 4.8 hours a week scheduling meetings, sending emails back and forth to find a time that works for all parties involved. Workflow makes this easier. When a contact is updated as “Qualified Lead”, an email is triggered that includes a Calendly link with the available time slots for the meeting. The contact can choose any available time slot and a confirmation email is sent to the salesperson and the contact.

5. Reminders to prepare for appointments

Sales meetings aren’t always easy but they can be with the right amount of preparation. Set up a workflow that is triggered when the appointment is due in a day. It creates a task for the salesperson, reminding them to prepare for the meeting well in advance.

With the above workflows, we’ve automated the sales process from sending a welcome email to scheduling an appointment. An appointment can have three likely outcomes—no show, not interested, or interested. You can create unique workflows for each outcome.

6. Appointment outcome #1 – no response

If the contact does not show up for the appointment, you need to understand why. Once the appointment outcome is updated as “No response”, a task is created for the salesperson to follow up with the contact.

7. Appointment outcome #2 – not interested

If the appointment was unsuccessful and the contact isn’t interested in taking it further, the outcome stage is set as “Not Interested.” The workflow automatically updates both the contact and account status as “Unqualified.” This is extremely crucial as it helps you maintain data sanity within your CRM.

8. Appointment outcome #3 – interested

A successful meeting warrants further follow-up to take the deal forward. When an appointment is marked as successful, the deal stage is moved to the next stage in the pipeline. Along with this, a task is created for the salesperson to follow-up after the meeting. You can edit the task to include the post-meeting checklist like sending meeting summary and relevant collaterals.

9. The deal is marked as won

Time to celebrate because you just won the deal! ?And helping you update Freshworks CRM is this workflow that triggers four actions each time a deal is won:

a) The account status is marked as active

b) The deal is moved to Customer Onboarding pipeline

c) A webhook triggers an invoice to contact

d) An email is sent welcoming the customer onboard.

The above-mentioned are examples of how you can incorporate workflows into your sales process, from lead to deal. You can create any number of workflows that suit your business and its processes.

Work smarter with workflows

Workflows are the easiest way to improve sales productivity. Each workflow can be created depending on other workflows, easily automating the entire process. To summarize, workflows help with timely reminders for upcoming tasks and appointments and also keep your records up-to-date. You can boost your customer experience by sending out timely emails that are automatically triggered. Also, use webhooks to integrate with external apps and maintain all processes within Freshworks CRM.

Here’s how Byond Travel, a travel agency, uses workflows in their sales process.

—Aashray Patel, Partnerships and Marketing

Read the case study here.