Your Guide To CRM Automation: What, Why, And How?

Work is hectic. And there is always more of it to be done. And as much as we'd like to be able to do everything within an eight-hour window, it's simply not possible.

So anything that can offer significant time-saving abilities should be viewed with the utmost importance.

Consider the following: A company has a 50-person sales team. Each sales rep on that team spends one hour a week prioritizing leads. By automating that step using a scoring trigger, they collectively save 50 hours a week, and over 2,500 hours annually that can instead be put towards other, more important sales activities.

This is where automation comes in - CRM automation, to be exact.

On the surface, it saves you immense amounts of time, but when you go a little deeper, you'll see that CRM automation can actually do much more for your business.

What Is CRM Automation?

In CRM automation, the system automatically handles repetitive, manual tasks in order to streamline work and improve productivity.

CRM systems have the ability to support a wide range of automations. Some of the most common involve marketing, sales, and customer service.

• Marketing automation, whichIncludes email drip campaigns, welcome emails, and data syncing.
• Sales workflow automation, which includes pipeline stage transitions, task assignments, and call scheduling.
• Customer service automation: Includes things like AI chatbots and case routing.

Benefits Of CRM Automation

You may think that the only benefit of CRM automation is the time-saving aspect. Yet with that increase in efficiency, you end up benefiting in a host of other ways. With CRM automation, you design the workflow, identify the triggers, and create the content. Then you can put your energy into more productive things and let the automation handle the rest.

Below are examples of how CRM automation can benefit your entire company:

• Save time: Streamline tasks so you can focus on the projects that really matter without sacrificing valuable hours in the process.
• Raise lead qualification rates: CRM automation improves the lead generation process by allowing you to gather more leads and increase qualification rates because you're able to follow up faster.
• Increase conversions: Free up time to focus on the best leads and then pair them with the best sales reps.
• Improve customer satisfaction: Customer issues are identified and addressed promptly by logging any form of customer reachout and integrating with chatbot
• Drive higher retention rates: Through the culmination of these benefits, you'll see higher customer retention rates.

CRM Automation vs. Marketing Automation: What's The Difference?

Marketing and CRM automation serve a lot of the same purposes. Yet CRM automations have a broader focus, whereas marketing automation systems are designed to deliver marketing campaigns.

The key features of marketing automation systems are:

• Lead nurturing : Create email templates that can be sent to the right leads at the right time.
• Content delivery: Send gated content to leads when they opt-in to receive notifications.
• Customized workflows: Develop workflows that best support targeted marketing campaigns.
• Campaign analytics: Review performance analytics to inform future decision-making.

Sound familiar? CRM automation systems offer a lot of the same features, while also providing valuable insights to sales and customer service teams. With CRM automation, you can achieve a better level of department alignment that results in increased growth and productivity. In fact, 87% of sales and marketing leaders say collaboration between sales and marketing enables critical business growth.

Run a Better Business with CRM Automation

When you use automation features offered by your CRM, you're getting the most out of your platform while reaping additional benefits.

The more your team and customer list grows, the more information you're going to need to track. And the more information, the harder it becomes to track (and use it).

CRM automation allows you to better manage your data, put it to good use, and save time doing so.