Save time and money by automating these 5 business processes 

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There’s something comforting about a routine. From a tried-and-true evening ritual to a set of tasks to start your workday off right, a good routine can get things done. But comfort and consistency don’t always equal maximum productivity. Are your routines and processes moving your business forward - or holding you back? Are you mindlessly repeating the same tasks just because it’s become a habit? 

Your team juggles a lot. Free up their time and energy by automating some of your processes with Salesforce!

What makes a process a good candidate for automation? 

• It’s repetitive
• It needs to be correct and consistent
• It doesn’t require an employee to “touch” it beyond an initial creation

We listed our top 5 business processes to streamline and automate in Salesforce to save you — and your team— time, energy, and money. 

1. Take Control of Lead Management

Congratulations! Your sales team just got a promising new lead. Now you get to add extra tasks to an already busy day. After assigning the lead to the right team member for cultivation, they’ll send a welcome email and jot down a reminder to follow up in a week on a spare sticky note. If you have multiple employees, chances are they each have an individual approach and style when it comes to contacting and nurturing leads. Some of these may be incredibly effective while others are less so. You know there’s no “one size fits all” approach to converting leads into customers. But there’s got to be a way to streamline so your team can stop churning away at the same repetitive tasks. 

With Salesforce’s automation capabilities, nurturing leads is as simple as creating workflows and emails custom-made for your potential customers. From welcome emails to perfectly timed follow-ups and even phone calls, your sales team can take advantage of customized campaigns — without reinventing the wheel. 

Before automating, look at the methods that have been most effective for your team and maximize those efforts by implementing them across the board. Automation also allows you to track how effective your efforts are — allowing you to see how engagement is impacted by adjustments to content, images, or timing.

2. Opportunity Automation 

It’s been a couple of weeks now and your automated follow-up emails have worked their magic! Your lead is ready to become a customer. But now’s definitely not the time to leave this deal to chance. With Salesforce’s automation capabilities, you can set up big deal alerts so you don’t miss any opportunities. Create tasks to remind team members to periodically check-in. You can even automate reminders to alert managers and other staff to check on any opportunities that may have slipped through the cracks.

3. Account Management 

Once your sales team is running smoothly through the process of prospect to lead to customer, don’t let your accounts get cold. You already juggle so many things throughout the day. To simplify, set up tasks to notify you if the last deal was closed more than 3 months ago, or if there’s been no activity on the account for a year. Instead of keeping a running list of all the accounts you and your team manage, let Salesforce do the work for you.

See also: Top 10 Salesforce AppExchange Apps For Small Businesses

4. Generate Quotes/Contracts

Now that your days are less cluttered with duplicative tasks, you have more time to shine in your interactions with prospects and customers. You can also use automation to pull information to generate quotes and contracts. Once the initial email has been sent, set up customer follow-up reminders to avoid dropping the ball down the road. 

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5. Streamline Your Onboarding Process

Hiring a new employee, especially if your company is rapidly growing, is exciting. Remembering to onboard everyone consistently isn’t. Make sure you never miss a step  — or accidentally skip important information — by automating your onboarding process. 

With each new hire, you can rest easy knowing your process is thorough and consistent. Once you get their user account created in your Salesforce org, you can set up an automatic welcome email with user information. After the initial set-up, you can even add them to the correct groups/teams in Salesforce Chatter and have a welcome post waiting for their first login.

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Need help with automating processes? Work with one of our Salesforce-certified experts through our Virtual Admin Program!