How to Automate Your Workflow with CRM

Most small business owners feel the pressure of responsibilities, and work overtime; they are unable to manage time properly, and this leads to lower productivity. They also complain about paperwork and cold calling – prospecting that leads nowhere. These problems can be resolved to a great extent through automation by implementing a CRM solution. In fact, over 90% of companies with over 11 employees use a cloud-based CRM system, and it helps sales teams meet and even exceed their targets.

Establishing and building relationships with customers is critical for business growth; when you record customer experiences it becomes easier to improve your processes. You can interact better with customers and retain them, and gain new customers too. A CRM solution helps you do this very effectively.

Identify the Processes to Automate

At first you may feel like automating everything – but you should resist the temptation, as it can prove to be very expensive, and not bring you any real benefits. You need to be sure that you are eliminating redundancies and simplifying repetitive tasks in the apt areas; so first you need to examine everything you’re doing. Let’s say that your sales team can automate the following:

Task results can be measured so that you can pinpoint the ones worthy of automation; set targets so that it helps you see which processes qualify. It goes without saying that your ultimate goal is increasing sales; however, to get there, you should set smaller targets. Measure things like:

You can choose to remove nonperforming tasks from the workflow; discuss it with the employees implementing the workflow to get their inputs too. Make a final shortlist as to what to keep and what to remove.

However, there’s something you should remember: some processes may be effective but costly to automate; some may produce results at a later date; and so on. You will need to use your discretion.

Your sales executives cold calling several hundred leads may produce low results as of now, but has potential to increase your customer base. Rather than keeping your employees tied up in this process, you can automate it and have them perform tasks that are more productive.

2. Boost Everyone’s Performance

Ideally, an automated workflow should be able to boost every employee’s performance; you’ll need to ensure that they are given the tools they need to achieve excellent results. When designing your workflow, you need to take care of all the sales and marketing aspects. This way both departments can easily collaborate and work together to convert more customers and keep them happy.

Pick out the best performers in your team and find out what makes them tick. You can find out from them:

You can use this information to filter out processes that waste time, include ones that will increase productivity, and design your workflow accordingly.

3. Test, Audit, Repeat

Now you have everything ready: goals, workflows, and a support team that can help you understand what works and what doesn’t. The next step of to run and monitor tests. Watch your workflows closely and check whether they are helping the sales department reach their goals.

Testing and auditing need to be performed till you perfect the workflow, but you may need to do it even after that to evolve. You will need to make and implement more changes to keep your sales teams updated.

4. Putting it Together

Eventually you need to ensure that your automated CRM workflow is something similar to this:

Are you looking for a reliable software solutions provider that can help you with your CRM workflow automation? Contact IPIX Tech Services; we have been successfully helping companies across the world with various types of digital solutions.