Leads or commercial prospects are those people who have shown some interest in a company’s products or services and in the process have voluntarily provided their personal data and information in digital forms or through other channels in order to obtain more information, valuable content or a free trial, among others.
Many companies invest large sums of money in digital marketing and advertising to generate business leads month after month, the problem is that usually the amount of leads overflows the capacity of the commercial force available to give them timely and personalized attention.
A good option to reduce the impact of this issue is the qualification of prospects based on profiling strategies (to learn more about how to profile and qualify leads read our article “How to generate the leads your company needs“, however, prospects that do not qualify to be served directly by the company’s sales consultants may remain unattended and most likely the opportunity to convert them into customers later on will be lost. This is one of the scenarios where lead automation plays a crucial role.
What is customer relationship automation?
Automation is the action of performing tasks without the need for human intervention. With the development of digital platforms for marketing, sales and customer service, it is possible to automate part of the commercial process and customer service of companies. Currently we can automate the way to qualify prospects, schedule email messages or chats that will be sent if certain rules of interaction in the process are met, among others.
For example, we can program an automation to send a whatsapp message offering personalized advice to a Lead that has just been qualified as a potential customer or we can send an email with a portfolio of our offer to a Lead that did not qualify as a potential customer in a certain service or product but might be interested in the rest of our offer (cross-selling).
How to start an automation process
The automation process does not start with the programming of the digital platform as many would think, the key to the successful implementation of automation begins with the strategy, followed by the processes, data integration and the dissemination and training to the personnel involved in these processes.
Before starting an automation process, it is necessary to create the relationship strategy, the business objectives, the indicators to be impacted and design the customer journey and the points of contact that the customer will have with the company in order to identify and create the moments and experiences of communication, content to be delivered and the call to action at each of these points.
Only when an organization is clear about these issues and the message and content packages developed, does the programming stage of the automation tool begin.
Tools available for customer relationship automation
Today you can find different marketing automation, CRMs and customer service platforms on the market. They are available at different price levels, free and with different functionalities from basic to very robust tools. Here are just a few that can be found in the market:
Marketing automation platforms:
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- Hubspot Marketing
- Marketo
- Pardot (Salesforce)
- Mailchimp
- Sendinblue
- Campaigner
CRMs:
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- Hubspot Sales
- Salesforce
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Zoho
- Freshsales
- Pipedrive
- Sugar
Customer Service Platforms
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- Freshworks
- Zendesk
- Hubspot Service
- Service now
- Zoho desk
- Salesforce Service Cloud.
- LiveAgent
The benefits of implementing an automation system
It is VERY important that whatever platform or platforms your company chooses and implements, there must be integration in the experience and data across the ENTIRE customer journey, i.e. marketing, sales and customer service actions must provide a consistent and memorable experience for your prospects and customers and the data these generate must be integrated, processed and available in real time so that those charged with leading these areas can make strategic decisions.
If your company successfully implements an automation process, it will most likely not only improve the customer experience, but also increase sales, referrals, cross-selling, close business cycles and build customer loyalty by providing excellent service and timely communication.
At Focux Digital we are experts in the development of customer relationship automation strategies and the implementation and management of this type of platforms.
