Salesforce is a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) tool, but it can be difficult to keep on top of everything. If you’re looking for ways to automate your Salesforce workflow, there are a few things you can do. From creating custom objects to set up triggers, here are some tips to help you get the most out of Salesforce.
Does Salesforce Have Automation
If you take a look at Salesforce’s features, you’ll notice that it has some automation features. However, this is only the case for Chatter. Salesforce’s Chatter section is fully automated, where users can adjust settings by clicking a button or putting in a post to the Chatter feed.
95% of IT and engineering leaders believe their organisations prioritise workflow automation.
Salesforce doesn’t have any true automation capabilities where you can do things like schedule tasks or emails or trigger processes on events carried out within Salesforce. However, there are a few techniques for automating your Salesforce workflow:
1. Create Custom Objects to Automate Your Workflow
Creating custom objects is a way to introduce some automation into Salesforce. Custom objects are created within Salesforce and can be used for a variety of purposes, such as storing notes or email addresses.
You can create custom objects in Salesforce, and then set up scripts or processes that automatically fill out fields on the custom object based on the lead records you’ve created for your sales reps.
For example, you could set up a script that indexes all emails received in Salesforce and then automatically populates the email field for leads associated to the contact record that receives that email.
2. Create Triggers to Automate Your Workflow
Creating triggers is another way that you can automate your Salesforce workflow. You could have a trigger create custom objects or set up emails, but the trigger could also be used to trigger processes or timed actions, like a scheduled email message.
For example, you could use the ‘Create Lead’ trigger to send emails to all leads created on certain times of the month. This will help keep those leads in an organized manner and make it easier for everyone to get in touch with them without having to manually type in an email address.
3. Use Workflow Rules to Automate Your Workflow
Workflow rules are a powerful feature in Salesforce that allows you to automate actions on standard events. For instance, you could create an ‘after insert’ workflow rule that auto-triggers the creation of a contact or an opportunity when a lead is created.
To assist reduce growing workloads, 71% of service decision-makers are accelerating automation initiatives.
4. Use Salesforce Automation Apps to Automate Your Workflow
Another way to automate your Salesforce workflow is with the use of automation apps. You can search for automation apps within the AppExchange and then install them so that you can get more out of Salesforce by creating custom objects, automating actions, and triggering processes based on events carried out within the CRM platform.
5. Don’t Get Stuck in a Corner
If you think automation is just a luxury of the technical elite, then you’re missing out on a powerful tool that can greatly help your organization and the way that you work. Don’t be afraid to utilize automation-based tools within Salesforce, especially if you have an established workflow already set up for automating your processes.
This automation are perfect for making sure that all leads are tracked as they’re created and managed by various teams, which will ultimately help to keep sales activity organized and ongoing.
8 Benefits of Automating Your Salesforce Workflow
Creating a Salesforce workflow is an excellent way to ensure that all your activity is tracked and organized, but there are also other benefits to consider:
1. Increased Sales EfficiencyÂ
By automating your sales process and workflow, you can ensure that all leads and opportunities are managed in the most efficient manner possible. This will allow you to spend more time on closing deals, rather than managing a scattered sales process that’s hard to keep on top of and prone to error.
Almost 75% of technical executives who have deployed automation have saved at least four hours each 40-hour week.
2. Easier Management of Resources
If you automate the tracking of leads and keep associated records up-to-date for your sales teams, then you can make sure that everyone has access to information about leads in a timely manner. This will also ensure that relevant knowledge is more easily accessible, as well as reduce the amount of time spent on repeating tasks that are already handled by automation.
3. More Accurate Data
By automating your sales process, you can ensure that all your data is captured more accurately. The last thing you need is a bunch of inaccurate leads or contacts to be tracked in Salesforce when you could have eliminated these issues by automating your workflow and ensuring that all your records are up-to-date at all times.
If anything, it’s important to make sure that any automation processes within Salesforce stay updated with changes or new information related to leads and contacts so they can be tracked accurately throughout the sales process.
4. Reduced Time Spent on Repetitive Tasks
By automating your workflow, you can reduce the amount of time that’s spent on repetitive tasks that don’t really add value to your organization. For example, you could set up a trigger to automatically create a new lead within Salesforce when someone mentions your company or its products on social media.
6. Greater Collaboration Amongst Sales Teams
By automating processes and reducing the amount of time spent on repeating tasks, you can also increase the amount of time that’s available for collaboration between sales teams. For example, you could set up processes that trigger the creation of new opportunities or leads within Salesforce at critical points during the sales cycle, where two or more sales reps will need to collaborate on a lead.
7. Increased Visibility of Relevant Information
When you’re tracking leads and other data through a Salesforce workflow, then it will be much easier to see what information is relevant. For instance, if most of your leads are being generated by social media referrals and online reviews and your system is not optimized for this type of engagement, then it probably isn’t enough to just have a report that shows the total number of leads created in any given period. Instead, you’ll need a report that shows the leads that came from social media and an assessment of the quality of these referrals and reviews.
8. Increased Productivity for Sales Reps
By automating your workflow, you can reduce the amount of time that is spent on repetitive tasks like data entry, which can cause friction within your sales teams and lead to frustration among those involved in the process.
Get some automation into your workflow by automating contacts or opportunities, and then shift more time over to working on other tasks that are actually generating revenue, rather than wasting time on redundant activities.
7 Questions to Ask Yourself When Automating Your Salesforce Workflow
There are a few questions that sales managers and business leaders should ask themselves when considering the option of automating their Salesforce workflow:
1. How Effective do You Think Automation Will be
When considering the option of automating your sales process, it’s important to first assess the impact that automation could have on your organization’s workflow. If you’re struggling to keep up with leads in Salesforce, then you need an automated process that is more effective for tracking these leads at all stages of the sales cycle.
For example, if you’re looking at automating your workflows where leads are generated from online reviews and social media, you’ll need to assess how effective this will be for closing deals.
2. Should You Automate the Entire Workflow
According to research, sales process automation will expand by 86% in the next two years.
You may want to consider automating your entire sales process, but it’s important to make sure that this automation is cost-effective. Just because an automated workflow is more efficient and reduces repetition doesn’t mean that it’s the only option for doing business.
If your sales teams aren’t already tracking leads internally through Salesforce and they don’t have access to leading data, then this could actually make it harder to close deals. Start with a few automation processes that are most relevant to your company and evaluate the benefits of automating the entire workflow after this.
3. What Triggers are Available for Your Workflow
When you’re automating your Salesforce workflow, it’s important to understand what triggers are available for the different stages of the sales process. For example, you may be able to trigger an action that creates a new lead into Salesforce after someone has shared your website on social media or mentioned your brand on a public forum.
You could also trigger an action that creates a new lead when someone fills out an online contact form on your company’s website. As you’re choosing how to automate your workflow, think about what triggers are available at each stage of the process.
4. What Types of Things Can be Automated
Before automating your workflow, it’s important to understand what types of actions can be automated and which ones can’t. For example, you may need an integration with a ticketing system for automating some workflow processes or you may need to manually create new leads after someone mentions your brand on social media.
Before implementing any automation processes into Salesforce, consider the predefined automation rules and their limitations. You may also want to consider the external systems that could be integrated with Marketing Cloud so that you can trigger certain actions automatically based on data from these systems.
5. How Will You or Your Sales Reps Interact With the Automation
Once you have outlined the kind of actions that you want to automate into Salesforce, it’s important to also understand how your sales reps will interact with certain features of this workflow.
Will you be automating new leads, opportunities, or contacts via a simple workflow action? Or is there a greater level of customization and complexity to this feature of Salesforce that could require multiple steps and more manual interactions?
When defining how Automation Rules in the Salesforce platform can be used, think about how your sales reps may need to interact with different parts of this process.
6. How Often Will You Need to Update the Automation
It’s important to understand whether or not your Salesforce workflow needs to be updated after a certain amount of time or a threshold has been reached.
For example, when you’re automating leads that are being generated by social media referrals or new website reviews, is there an automation rule that will update the lead owner automatically after a certain amount of time has passed?
Or should you manually create and update new leads at specific points in the sales cycle? It’s important to consider how often you will need to manually apply updates and monitor these automation processes in order for them to be successful.
7. How Important is the Workflow to Your Company
A Salesforce workflow is only as good as the amount of time, effort, and funds that you’re willing to put into creating and maintaining it. When you’re actively automating a process away from your Salesforce team, you need to consider how important this workflow really is for your company.
If you’re automating a workflow that is causing you to spend too much time manually, then consider implementing some automation rules that can automatically do more work for you. For example, when automating lead actions like “Create New Lead” and “Track and Monitor Leads”, it’s important to consider whether or not your workflow is important enough for you or your sales team to stay engaged over the long term.
Asking these questions will help you assess the pros and cons of automating your Salesforce workflow, as well as what types of triggers are available for certain stages of this process. Remember that it’s important to carefully evaluate any option that could be implemented within Marketing Cloud before bringing this automation feature into your Salesforce organization.
Future of Automation in Salesforce
If you’re looking for ways to improve your Salesforce workflow and increase the efficiency of your sales team, consider using Marketing Cloud and its Automation Rules to automate and simplify some of the most tedious parts of your sales process.
Start by assessing how much time, effort, and funding you’re willing to put into automating this process, as well as what triggers are available for different stages within this workflow.
When leveraging intelligent capabilities, high-performing sales teams are 10.5 times more likely than underperformers to see a significant improvement in prediction accuracy.
As you begin building out these automation rules, remember that it’s important to monitor all of these processes after they’ve been implemented in Salesforce. Track these automation rules at each stage of the lead lifecycle so you can see which parts of your workflow need further optimization.
Last Updated on October 9, 2023 by Priyanshi Sharma
