More than ever, it is critical for businesses to deliver a superior customer experience or risk losing to the competition. Manual processes slow down sales and marketing efforts and hamper customer service. So, ask yourself: Does your organization struggle with any of these issues?

• Sales: Delays getting quotes to customers, obtaining sales pipeline updates just taking too long, maybe inconsistent sales follow-up.
• Marketing: Completely disconnected with sales; promotions often compete against one another; not sending right messages to right audience; can't measure effectiveness of campaigns.
• Customer Service: Poor customer support due to incomplete or inconsistent information, which results in longer time for case resolution.

Whether you suffer from one, some, or all of these challenges, the end result can be a lacklustre customer experience. Making Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools & techniques the foundation of better business management helps overcome these problems and supports stronger customer-focused strategies, often with the application of fewer resources.

In this two-part article, I wanted to explore the benefits of workflow automation and how it drives user adoption, reduces errors, and improves communication throughout your organization. Well implemented automation can positively impact your overall CRM return on investment (ROI) by supporting the ability to provide fast and consistent customer service and keep customers coming back.

What does workflow automation offer my business?

We all know that errors and redundancy waste valuable time in any process. Workflow automation eliminates those problems and paves the way for smooth processes even in difficult conditions. With a set of predefined and repeatable best-practice workflows in place, you can:

• Reduce administrative errors
  • Automated workflow takes some of the "human element" out of the process. When you design a workflow in Sage CRM, it drives the process through to completion. It ensures that the steps in each process are followed in the right order and that the right people are receiving the information they need at the right time in the process. Best-in-class companies use workflow automation to help visualize, design, and alter processes. Using visual workflow design tools, you can see the bottlenecks and redundant tasks and make appropriate changes to streamline the process. At the same time, managers benefit from increased visibility into processes to ensure that all contact points with customers are handled effectively and efficiently.

• Improve communication and collaboration
  • Sage CRM drives collaboration across the organization with the ability to easily access and share information. By leveraging workflow to send automated communications, you can ensure every department is on the same page. For example, sales can see active marketing campaigns and responses, marketing can match the right communication to the needs of the customer, while customer service can provide timely issue resolution. By using alerts and notifications, you can ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
• Drive user adoption
  • Workflow automation makes the system easy to learn and use. It increases personal productivity by eliminating the guesswork from each process. As you empower each user with the right information at the right time, you get better insight into the customer and enhanced decision-making ability.

Next time - how Workflow Drives Sales Force Automation