A common theme being discussed at several of my customers at the moment is the idea that now is a perfect time to review current business processes and look for ways to make improvements. Tools available within CRM such as Workflow and Email templates allow for automation and standardization if your business processes can be agreed upon and documented. As companies are facing downsizing and tough economic times, perhaps CRM can be configured to automate and streamline processes at your business.

Start with the Basics

Every business owners should have all of the business processes documented, and if you have not completed this exercise, please do so immediately. Why you might ask? In getting decision makers to agree upon the process, the standard procedure is established and quality software can be built to assist in these processes. Trying to build the application too quickly without first identifying how the software will be utilized to accomplish the tasks can be a mistake. Define each step in all processes and determine when an employee would be using CRM and if record creation will be manual or automated in any way. Agree upon when it is appropriate to send alerts/tasks and clearly identify ownership and responsibilities.

Sales Cycle….Simple, Complex, or “It Depends”

How long and complicated your sales process is depends upon the products and services your company sells. If you can clearly define steps which always occur, you’d be a good candidate for automatic workflow, such as when a new Opportunity is created and related tasks are automatically created without human intervention.

In the event that there are far too many variables to always have the same sequence of events occur, you might opt to build manual workflow rules. This allows for some human review and intervention to take place prior to launching the next part(s) of the process. Designing a series of manual workflow rules to assist in the process could be a good fit for this kind of business.

Eventually you’ll identify situations where you might use both automatic and manual workflow and your process will dictate when and how each rule will be used. The ability to reach out via Email templates as either: the sales rep owning the record, a specific CRM user, or from the entire organization.

What Happens after the Sale?

What processes do you have in place after you have completed the sale? Do you send a confirmation or thank you Email? Do you always perform a follow-up call after the sale has been completed or when the customer uses your service? If the answer is “Yes” to any of these questions, then you might have the opportunity to use automation to assist in generating these Emails and tasks/phone calls to assist in improving the overall customer experience. You may want to consider sending your customer a survey or link to a site where they can execute the survey online. Think of creative ways in order to keep your customers engaged and interested in additional products and services which you offer.

Be Careful of Overkill

While the automatic created of Email notifications and task creation is powerful and can save human man hours versus manual keystrokes, there is a time when too much defeats the purpose. Be careful not to send so many Emails and/or create so many tasks that CRM Users become numb and begin to disregard and ignore the records. This happens when companies introduce too much workflow and this is no good either. Find a way to strike the right balance to keep the business running smoothly and efficiently while also making staff aware of different deals and steps within the sales cycle and events after the customer has been sold.