Zoho CRM automation is one of the biggest benefits to selecting Zoho CRM. There are endless ways to set up this automation and it can you help accomplish many things within the system. Read on below and we will cover these in more detail.
Email Notifications
We all spend a lot of time sending emails. While some are personalized, many of the emails we send are effectively the same and these are a prime opportunity for Zoho CRM automation.
Within Zoho, you can set up workflows to send email notifications for all kinds of reasons. Examples would include:
- Notify leads their submission was received if you have set up your leads to automatically populate in Zoho
- Reach out to leads or contact based on specific fields you have in your record layouts:
- birthday or anniversary messages
- renewal reminders
For all of the above you will need to set up email templates that can be attached to the workflow. A best practice we use is to always create the templates in Plain Text so they look like emails that came directly from you vs. a system.
User Notifications
The email notifications mentioned above are aimed at leads/contacts. There is also a lot you can be notifying your users about including:
- Notify lead owners when they have been assigned a new lead
- Remind record owners to do some follow up based on:
- last activity or any other date field
- the relative importance of a record (i.e., you can rate your leads, contacts, accounts or opportunities and use these ratings to determine how often users should follow up)
- number of days an opportunity is sitting in the same stage with no activity or movement
- Remind opportunity owners to check in with their contacts at a specific time (i.e., 1 year) after the opportunity closed
Built-in Zoho CRM Automation Tools
Zoho CRM comes with many automation tools right out of the box. The email and user notifications mentioned above can all be set up with workflows but you can also do a lot more with workflows and the other automation tools in Zoho.
- Workflow rules allow you to set triggers and criteria to then do any of the following actions:
- field updates in records across a number of modules
- email notifications
- assign owners
- add tags
- create tasks for meetings
- create another record
- apply customized actions using coding
- Blueprints force your users to follow certain actions at each stage of an opportunity (or other process) before they can move on
- Assignment rules to automatically assign records to users based on specific criteria
- Case Escalation rules to move cases to the next level if they are not resolved quickly
- Scoring rules allow you to quantify your records to better determine next actions
- Approval processes to allow another user to review records as part of a standard process
Record Formatting Tools
In order to drive CRM adoption, it is important that your you have things set up to make it as easy as possible for your users. You don’t want to overwhelm them with too many fields to fill out or too many choices to scroll through. Zoho CRM provides some helpful tools to help make the user experience a positive one. These tools include:
- Layout rules allow you pick which fields to either show or require based on what is selected in other fields
- Dependency mapping lets you limit the number of fields shown in a picklist based on what was selected in another picklist
- Wizards will break down a complicated and lengthy layout into separate screens so the user will be guided through to enter the record data rather than see a long page of fields to fil in
As you can see Zoho CRM has many ways you can automate or customize your setup so it works best for you and minimizes the number of touches you and your users have. We have many more ways we can help make Zoho CRM an effective tool for you so please reach out to us with your Zoho needs.
Did you know The Marks Group is offering Zoho CRM Admin training? Check out our Events page to sign up! Also, don’t forget to check out our Zoho Training Video library on our YouTube channel for more assistance with Zoho CRM and many other Zoho products! Feel free to contact us at info@marksgroup.net with any questions or if you need Zoho support. Feel free to comment below. We’d love to hear your thoughts!
