Running a business involves a lot of tedious and manual tasks, but automation can streamline some of that work and complete it more efficiently.
Workflows are HubSpot’s automation tool that work across the Marketing, Sales and Service Hubs.
There are five standard objects you can base workflows around: contacts, companies, deals, tickets, and quotes. Additionally, if you’ve created custom objects, you can base workflows on those as well. You can view and create workflows by going to the “Workflow” section of HubSpot.
You can also create workflows specific to certain Hub functions within other tools and in settings. For example, you can build survey follow-up workflows directly in the feedback surveys tool and you can create workflows based on a deal changing stages through the sales section of settings (the gear icon in HubSpot’s navigation).
If you are building workflows from the main Workflow section, there are templates for each standard object that serve as a good starting point for determining how you can leverage automation.
Here are examples of how you can use each type of workflow:
Company: Set Companies as ICPs
Our primary uses of company-based workflows are to assign companies to the correct ideal customer profile and to map properties between contacts and the companies they work at.
In the example workflow above, companies that fall within a set of industries with between 51–100 employees are assigned to one of three ICPs based on their annual revenue.
However, since that information about a company is collected at the contact level through forms, you can also use contact qualification and lists to accomplish the same goal by ensuring a contact’s associated ICP matches that of the company they work with.
Mapping companies to the correct ICPs helps you segment your communications and determine how to prioritize leads for sales outreach. By using workflows to do it, you’re ensuring no company is accidentally mislabeled or overlooked.
Deal: Ensure Deals Are Up-to-Date
Deal-based workflows can help sales teams with pipeline management. Reps and managers alike need to be aware of what’s in pipeline at a given moment, and if deal information is out-of-date, then your forecasts will also likely be inaccurate.
In the example workflow above, deal owners are assigned a task as soon as a deal close date is in the past so they can update that data and ensure that its value is being forecasted in the proper time period.
Contact: Lead Rotation
At the contact level, you use workflows to do things like qualify leads, re-engage contacts who’ve gone cold and rotate new leads amongst sales reps.
In the example workflow above, once a contact’s lifecycle stage is marked as “MQL,” they’re automatically assigned to a member of the SMB sales team. Doing this smooths the marketing-to-sales handoff and helps prevent leads from getting lost in your CRM.
Tickets: Notify People of New Support Requests
Managing your tickets can help you create better experiences for customers so that they feel heard and like their needs are being addressed. Workflows allow you to create an automated process through which you can use tickets to better engage with and manage your customers.
In the example workflow above (created in ticket settings), automated communications are sent out whenever a new ticket is created and once a ticket is resolved. This ensures the proper person is notified whenever new tickets come in and that customers are told when their issue has been fixed.
Quotes: Send Notifications When Quote is Paid
As you get into the final stages of closing a customer, it’s important to be highly responsive and stay on top of everything. Being aware of when quotes require approval or when changes are requested on a quote helps create a more seamless sales process. You can build workflows around quote expiration dates or approval status to help with that.
You can also create workflows around the payment status of quotes, like the example pictured above, to enable smooth service delivery.
The Takeaway
If you’re relying on people to complete a lot of tedious tasks manually, it takes a lot of time and leaves room for human error. Workflows can not only complete those tasks faster, but they can also create process adherence.
From making sure your deals are updated to ensuring relevant contacts are informed of changes in ticket status to aligning data points between companies and the contacts that work at them, workflows can improve efficiency in all aspects of your business.
