9 workflows to automate your sales process

Automated workflows are a highly effective tool for optimizing your sales process. Businesses are rapidly turning to automation allowing them to cut costs and increase their output. Automation can also increase transparency and boost efficiency in small business operations. 

Integrating automated sales workflows into your sales process can eliminate repetitive tasks and data entry. This can offer you a competitive advantage over your competitors who may use costly manual labor to operate an inefficient and flawed sales process. 

Continue reading for a breakdown of 9 sales workflows you can use to automate your sales process. This piece will cover the entire sales process from lead to deal, so you can optimize your sales and increase your profits.

What is workflow automation?

Workflow automation helps you automatically handle certain tasks in your sales process. Workflow automation solutions help you set conditions to accomplish repetitive tasks, like data entry. They can also be used to handle a number of managerial and administrative tasks, freeing up time for your sales manager.

Workflow automation has become more accessible and affordable in recent years, which has led many businesses to integrate it into their day-to-day operations. Workflow automation has the power to dramatically reduce labor costs, improve efficiency, and alleviate errors throughout business operations. 

Benefits of workflow automation:

Workflow automation offers some unique advantages to businesses. The adoption of automation is being likened to the industrial revolution, in terms of how it will completely reshape the business landscape, and offer so many advantages that every business will need to adopt the technology sooner or later. 

Here are some of the top benefits of including sales workflow automation in your operations: 

1. Leverage your sales team’s skills 

Your sales team has the skills and knowledge needed to reach new leads and manage your current customers. They can help you define their tasks, and priorities to set appropriate rules and deadlines for the system. This will ensure a successful implementation of your workflow so your sales team’s time is spent selling instead of operations.

2. More concise workflow

Manual workflows are slow and inefficient. They require people to send emails or physically go and see another salesperson to complete tasks. Manual workflows are prone to errors as people may be busy or hard to reach, which can stall your operations.

An automated workflow resolves this issue by clearly stating different stages in a process, setting deadlines for each stage, and sending reminders when tasks are due and overdue. This simplification of the sales workflow allows you to identify when work is getting completed and ensures that your sales process is running smoothly throughout the day. 

3. Data accuracy/accessibility

Introducing an automated sales workflow offers a huge increase in the accuracy of your data regarding communications, paperwork, and data entry. Automated workflows allow you to gain insights into where your systems are operating optimally and where there is room for improvement, allowing you to make informed decisions. 

And with the advent of low-code and no-code automation workflows, businesses now have more access to the technology. When no coding experience is required, the barriers to entry are greatly reduced, opening the technology to small and medium-sized businesses. 

4. Less mistakes

One major benefit to removing human input from certain stages of your sales process is a reduced risk of human error. Humans are prone to making mistakes, especially when entering vast amounts of information like phone numbers or addresses for potential clients. When you can get a system to transfer data to the necessary parties, you can reduce the risk of errors. 

5. Better onboarding process

Onboarding is a time-consuming and often stressful process in a business. Integrating new team members requires constant check-ins by supervisors and can take multiple team members away from their typical work duties. You can avoid this headache with an automated workflow system.

An automated sales workflow will give new team members a clear roadmap of what they need to do while approving their work and ensuring they are adequately set up to perform their new duties.

6. Customer understanding

Understanding your customers is an immense advantage when it comes to sales. Knowing your customers gives you the ammunition you need to break through the noise and create an excellent customer experience. Understanding what frustrates, motivates, and deters your customers allows you to tailor your services and processes to accommodate their expectations. 

A sales workflow automation process will collect data on your customers. This offers actionable insights into customer needs and habits. For instance, your workflow automation may register which emails certain customers open, and which they ignore. This will allow you to personalize email campaigns to improve your customer relationships and increase your click-through rates. 

7. Higher conversion rates

The ultimate marker of success in a sales department is a high conversion rate. A high conversion rate indicates that your sales process is effective, and is successfully converting early-stage leads into customers. Implementing an automated workflow into your sales operations offers improved lead generation, actionable insights to motivate purchases, and ultimately, higher efficiency in your sales process, leading to an increase in your sales conversion rates.

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

Though specific approaches may vary depending on a company’s industry and its target audience’s preferences, most sequences follow a basic structure regardless of these variables.

1. When a new lead comes into Freshworks CRM

The sales cycle begins when a fresh lead makes its way into your Freshworks CRM system. But this is no ordinary start – an automated workflow kicks into gear, assigning this promising lead to the most suitable sales rep. It weighs factors like geographic location and product interest, ensuring the right fit from the get-go.

But that's not all. This workflow also sends out a personalized welcome email, introducing your company and offering relevant resources. This outreach is a warm virtual handshake that makes that critical first impression count.

2. Updating lead fields

As your sales team engages with the lead, an automated workflow prompts them to diligently update specific fields within the CRM. No more scattered notes or missed details – all pertinent information is meticulously captured and organized, from contact preferences to pain points and beyond.

This wealth of data becomes a powerful tool for lead scoring, prioritization, and tailoring follow-up actions. Your sales team can now make informed decisions, nurturing each lead with a personalized touch that resonates.

3. Auto-converting the lead as Sales Qualified Lead

Certain actions or achievements signal a lead's readiness to progress further down the sales funnel. Maybe they hit a lead score threshold, downloaded a whitepaper, or attended a webinar. Whatever the predetermined criteria, an automated workflow can swiftly convert this lead to a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL).

After lead qualification, it's assigned to the most appropriate sales rep, primed for focused nurturing and closing the deal. No more guesswork or manual tasks – the workflow ensures a seamless transition to the next stage.

4. Sending out emails

Email is a powerful sales strategy, but only when used effectively. Automated workflows can be choreographed to send tailored email sequences to the target audience at specific intervals or are triggered when their actions meet certain criteria.

These emails can offer relevant content that addresses their pain points, promote special offers aligned with their interests, or request additional information to deepen the relationship. Each interaction is designed to shepherd the lead further along the sales journey, keeping them engaged and invested.

5. Reminders to prepare for appointments

We've all been there – a meeting scheduled, but preparation falls through the cracks. Not with an automated workflow in place. When a lead schedules an appointment or meeting with a sales rep, the workflow ensures both parties receive timely reminders.

No more missed deadlines or half-baked presentations. Everyone's prepared, and the likelihood of unproductive meetings is minimized. It's a simple yet effective way to keep the sales process running smoothly.

6. Appointment outcome #1 – No response

Sometimes, leads go quiet – it happens. But with an automated workflow, you're prepared. If a lead fails to respond or attend a scheduled appointment, the sales workflow can swing into action, sending a follow-up email or rescheduling the appointment.

After a certain number of no-responses, the workflow can automatically move the lead to a different stage or reassign it to another sales rep for further nurturing. No lead is left behind or forgotten – each one receives the attention it deserves.

7. Appointment outcome #2 – Not interested

Despite your best efforts, some leads may explicitly express disinterest during an appointment. It's disappointing, but an automated sales workflow can soften the blow. It'll remove them from active nurturing campaigns and move them to a "cold" or "inactive" stage within the CRM.

This way, your sales team's resources can refocus on more promising opportunities. But fear not – those cold leads aren't forgotten. A workflow can be set to periodically re-engage them, keeping the door open for future interest.

8. Appointment outcome #3 – Interested

When a lead expresses interest and meets the criteria for becoming an opportunity, it's the right time to strike. An automated sales workflow can create a new deal within the CRM and assign it to the appropriate sales rep.

From there, the workflow can help initiate the next set of steps – sending a proposal, scheduling a follow-up meeting, or any other crucial actions needed to move the deal forward. Your sales team can focus on what they do best – building relationships and closing deals.

9. The deal is marked as won

The ultimate goal? Marking that deal as "won" in the CRM. But an automated workflow ensures that this victory is just the beginning. As soon as the deal is closed, the sales workflow can trigger a series of actions to nurture this new customer relationship.

It might send a warm welcome email, create a support ticket for seamless onboarding, or update sales reports and forecasts. The workflow can also initiate post-sales processes like invoicing or scheduling follow-up activities for cross-selling or upselling opportunities and preventing churn.

Best practices for implementing workflow automation

It’s important to implement sales workflows correctly. A poorly set up and integrated workflow will cause substantially more problems than it solves, leading to delays, breakdowns in communication, and poor results.

To ensure your automated sales workflow works as intended, and without any hiccups or drama, you need to follow some general best practices.

Here are a few effective rules and strategies you could implement into your workflow.

1. Do research on business needs/customer base

Before implementing any workflow automation, it is important to do thorough research on your unique business needs and your target customer base. Take time to understand the key pain points in your existing sales process and the goals you want to achieve. 

Also analyze your customers' journeys, preferences, and common objections. This research will help identify the optimal workflows to create and ensure they are tailored to your specific situation.

2. Streamline and standardize processes

One crucial aspect of effectively implementing workflow automation for your sales process is simplifying your process with a standardized procedure. Clearly define each step, the work needed to be completed at each stage, and the specific roles required to perform each step. 

Try to get your sales process down to as few steps as possible without hindering the outcome. Here is an example of an effective sales process workflow:

• Prospection and lead generation.

• Lead qualification

• Data enrichment and updation

• Respond to objections and persuade the potential buyer 

• Close the sale

• Nurture relationships with customers after making a sale

3. Regularly review and update workflow automation as needed

After implementing your workflow automation, you can get access to data that can offer insights into how to improve your workflow for the future. For example, if you notice there are consistent delays at a certain step in your workflow, you may want to allocate more time or team members to that step. 

You will also need to review how the automatically handled tasks are coming along. Maybe you need to make adjustments to the notification settings, so team members are aware of changes made by the system. Or maybe you can even remove an entire step in the process to streamline operations and optimize costs.  

4. Use data analysis for decision making 

Whenever you are making important business decisions, as a decision-maker you should leverage data whenever possible. Data can offer you unbiased factual information about how your operations are performing. Where issues occur, what opportunities you are missing, and so much more. When you are using an automated workflow, the system will keep a record on every step of the process.

This information can deliver actionable insights. For instance, if you notice one of your staff members is late completing a task every day, you may want to check in with them to discuss their performance.

5. Provide the sales team with proper training/resources

When implementing any new technology into your business operations, you need to coach your sales team on how to use it and provide them with the resources required to keep the system in operation.

This could mean spending a day teaching your team how to operate the workflow, and what's expected at each stage, or it could be documents containing operating procedures, troubleshooting pages, and FAQ sections to answer any question that may arise during implementation. 

Integrating workflow automation with CRM

Integrating your sales workflow automation system with your CRM is essential to mapping out the entire customer journey from initial lead to closed deal.

By using your CRM’s automation capabilities, all data such as new leads, contacts, opportunities, emails, notes, and more will be automatically logged into a centralized location. This centralized view provides opportunities to consistently qualify leads by setting criteria for moving leads between stages.

For example, you could trigger a stage change when a lead downloads a whitepaper from your website. The integration also allows for automatic assignment and routing of leads, opportunities, and tasks to the appropriate sales reps. This ensures the right people are working with the right accounts based on territory, industry expertise, or other attributes.

Additionally, the CRM integration allows trigger-based follow-up actions like emails, calls, or meetings to systematically move prospects through the sales funnel. All data collected from various sources like websites and social profiles is populated into a comprehensive customer profile to detect the ideal customer.

Integration also provides visibility into key metrics through automated reports on your sales pipeline, forecast, and past performance pulled directly from the CRM.

Work smarter with Freshsales workflows

Freshsales makes it easy to streamline sales processes with automated workflows. Dynamic staged workflows can be created to model multi-step processes end-to-end. Conditional routing is also supported to allow branching in workflows based on criteria. The platform also offers workflow templates for common sales use cases, making it easy for you to get started with automation.

Set up workflows of customer onboarding and billing. Set conditions to trigger different follow-up actions for high-value deals. Schedule tasks like follow-ups, reminders, and alerts at set timed intervals directly in the workflow.

Additionally, the Freshworks platform integrates with multiple tools like Google Suite, Slack, and Zapier, enabling triggers of actions outside the CRM system. Each workflow run is logged in activity streams within records for auditing, compliance, and easy revision history access. Power users can further customize complex automated processes through developer APIs and no-code configuration options.

Role-based access controls also provide selective delegation of workflow creation and editing rights across teams.