Salesforce is a powerful CRM system that can dramatically increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales operations. Some of the most powerful features in Salesforce are the configurable automation tools. Today we'll look at three different ways to utilize automation tools within a Salesforce account to improve organizational efficiency.
1. Lead Generation
At the core of all good CRM systems is the automation of creating new leads. In addition to adding leads directly into Salesforce, users can also gather leads through API's and web-to-lead applications which connect external websites with their Salesforce system.
By using either of these tools, Salesforce users can connect their external website with their Salesforce system. For example, a company could choose to integrate their "Contact Us" form with their Salesforce account so that each submission would create a new lead. By giving thought to the type of information a company values most, companies can create fields on their web forms to collect the data they want on their lead records in Salesforce. This type of early-stage data collection on potential leads is critical to an effective sales funnel.
2. Lead Assignment
As leads begin pouring into a company's Salesforce account, whether by API integration or the Salesforce Web-to-Lead application, one of the first conditional decisions a company should make is who to assign a new lead to within their organization. In Salesforce, companies can use the Lead Assignment feature to set up criteria for how leads get assigned to various staff . For example, in many organizations, leads are divided geographically with each Account Manager responsible for leads from a certain range of zip codes or states. When a company divides its sales territories geographically, it is critical that they also require some type of geographic information on their website forms. By requiring the same information on their web forms as is used to assign leads to different Account Managers, a company can add conditional criteria to their lead assignment logic in order to automatically assign leads to the appropriate Account Managers that match with the territory assignments.
This holistic approach to lead capture ‚ considering everything from the external website contact forms to the territory assignments of the sales team ‚ enables a company to fully leverage another layer of automation within Salesforce. With this cohesive process in place, companies can improve their Sales Team's efficiency and effectiveness.
3. Workflows
The last crucial component to leverage, in order to maximize the automation of the lead capture process, is the use of the Workflow tools within Salesforce. Salesforce has three primary tools that can be used to create workflow applications:
- Flows
- Workflow Rules
- Process Builder
Each of these applications can be used to create both simple and robust workflow solutions to optimize a company's response to new leads. Depending on the goals and scope of the workflow a company wants, one application may be more effective than another, but the goal is to leverage these tools to automate as many routine actions as possible.
Common configurations of these workflow tools center around creating an automated process for task creation for sales staff members. Using these tools, conditions can be created within the logic to prioritize leads, send reminders for sales staff, and create tasks with lead-specific information. This final piece of creating workflows enables organizations to automate their operations and reduce the management overhead required to fill their sales funnel.
In Closing
Many companies use Salesforce, but aren't tapping into its potential. When customized to fit your business, Salesforce can leverage real-time data for informed decision-making, improved sales processes and increased staff efficiency. Key reports can be set up to grant business owners and sales staff the ability to see everything that's happening in the sales pipeline ‚ empowering them to strategically manage people and measure results.
If you need help with your Salesforce configuration and customization, get in touch‚ it's a core competency of ours at GRAYBOX and we'd love to help you out.