Workflows - Good uses?

[Tucker1]

Hello all, I recently created my first workflow which allows my team members to receive an email if a contact has been out of sequence after a certain period of time in order to get contacts back into sequence when they should be.. 

I am curious of some other workflows that might benefit my team. A bit of information about us, we are a small group of inside sales reps for a logistics company. I have 4 guys. 2 of them cold call, qualify prospects and then pass prospects to the other two "Closers". The closers also cold dial and generate new leads when they have time. 

We currently have our entire sales processed built out with sequences. So that a contact is enrolled into a sequence from the initial call / email all the way through them becoming a customer and even have a sequence after they have became a new / current customer for us.

Our initial sequences will send automated emails and have call tasks. Once the prospect is in touch with a "Closer" the closers have sequences that have general tasks to check in. 

I am not sure what other info might assist with identifying other worflows that can help my organization, but I am all ears and can provide any additional information needed to get the perfect work flows implemented. 

I look forward to hearing some of your ideas! 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Tucker1,

Great question! I'm sure @Jnix284, @jolle, @danmoyle and @franksteiner79 have good ideas for this one.

Let me kick things off with a few ideas:

• Chasing sales reps: If contacts have a specific Lead status or Lifecycle stage and sales reps should be following up with these contacts, you can use Last contacted to remind them to either to do or update the Lead status or Lifecycle stage. E.g. Lead status is open but Last contacted is more than 14 days ago? Something's off.
• Company activity: Notify sales reps when a new contact is added to the CRM for a company they're already working. This can be done by looking at the Number of associated contacts on the company object.
• Follow-up tasks based on call outcomes: You can automatically create tasks for follow-up calls based on specific call and meeting outcomes.
• Relevant contact activity: I'm not necessarily thinking email opens and clicks here (these unfortunately are not being measured reliably anymore) but page views and form submissions, especially relevant page views like pricing page, product pages etc. If I were a sales rep, I'd love to know about these. Same goes for hard bounces and unsubscribes.
• Data quality: You can enroll contacts in a workflow when properties are empty. Let's say there's a specific field you want to be filled at a certain stage – you can notify the contact owner to fill that field with a value.

Best regards!

[danmoyle · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the tag @karstenkoehler - and love those ideas! 

@Tucker1 nice to connect. I like the scenario y'all have set up. Looks like you're doing good work and making adjustments to keep getting better. Love that. 

One small thought is this: Are you and the reps finding any leads falling through the cracks? That may be a place to find the need for a workflow. If, at some point during the journey, reps find a lead that's lost in the process, I'd then ask why and how we can raise the red flag with an active list (the criteria being the property that tells us they're lost) and then launch a simple notification workflow. 

Another question I'd ask: Are there any tasks reps are doing that are repetetive and "mundane" they'd like to ditch? If it can be automated, let's do it! 

For a few more specific ideas, here are my thoughts: 

• I found this great ABM resource from Terminus and loved the ideas they propose. If your reps are out hunting and cold calling, account based marketing & account based selling could help. These workflows like accelerating hot leads, pre-targeting, and not-ready-yet nurturing are all good recipes to spark more ideas. 
• With a small team as you've described, regions may not matter (yet). But what if there's another designation that matters to the team? This article from Intelligentia has some foundations for workflow ideas. 
• @webdew has a great resource here for nurturing leads through a Deal-based workflow, if your team is uding Deals. I think Deal-based workflows are often forgotten.

I hope that helps spark some ideas! 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Tucker1,

Great question! I'm sure @Jnix284, @jolle, @danmoyle and @franksteiner79 have good ideas for this one.

Let me kick things off with a few ideas:

• Chasing sales reps: If contacts have a specific Lead status or Lifecycle stage and sales reps should be following up with these contacts, you can use Last contacted to remind them to either to do or update the Lead status or Lifecycle stage. E.g. Lead status is open but Last contacted is more than 14 days ago? Something's off.
• Company activity: Notify sales reps when a new contact is added to the CRM for a company they're already working. This can be done by looking at the Number of associated contacts on the company object.
• Follow-up tasks based on call outcomes: You can automatically create tasks for follow-up calls based on specific call and meeting outcomes.
• Relevant contact activity: I'm not necessarily thinking email opens and clicks here (these unfortunately are not being measured reliably anymore) but page views and form submissions, especially relevant page views like pricing page, product pages etc. If I were a sales rep, I'd love to know about these. Same goes for hard bounces and unsubscribes.
• Data quality: You can enroll contacts in a workflow when properties are empty. Let's say there's a specific field you want to be filled at a certain stage – you can notify the contact owner to fill that field with a value.

Best regards!