CRM Hack #6 Notify the manager/higher-ups on unattended new leads

CRM Hack #6 Notify the manager/higher-ups on unattended new leads



Hello everyone !

Strike when the iron is hot', they say. This is perfectly true in sales. Research shows that a whopping 35%-50% of sales goes to the vendor who reaches out first! And here is the bigger deal- the chances of converting is 9x more if you reach within the first 5 minutes! And I share this stats for a reason :) This week's hack is for the sales supervisors or managers who have a tough time dealing with new leads that are left unattended.

I'm sure you've faced instances where a Lead or Contact is not touched beyond the threshold period, say, for over 2 or more days since it landed in your database. Tracking such unattended leads down manually and following up with your team is not only frustrating or time-consuming, but is also not productive. So, here are two things I'd recommend to get this hurdle out of your way -  

i) keep reminding the above stat to your team ;) 

ii) employ smart automation in your CRM so both, your team and you are on top of your sales targets!

Let me show you an effective hack that helps you leverage a checkbox field to meet this requirement. This hack requires you to:
  1. Create an email template (what you want emailed to your managers/higher-ups when the threshold is breached) 
  2. Create a checkbox field
  3. Create two workflows

Create an email template : Follow the documentation here.

Create a checkbox field : Go to Setup->Modules and Fields ->Leads->Drag and drop a checkbox field into the layout and save it.

Create workflows :

Workflow 1

  1. Go to Setup->Workflow rules->Create Rule -> Select the module as Leads..
  2. Choose 'On a record action->Create.
  3. Select 'Records Matching the Conditions' and set the condition for the check box you just created as 'Not Selected'
  4. Click on 'Scheduled Actions'-> Next-> Execute after 2 days ( or specific schedule based on your requirement) -> Next ->Send Email-> Give an appropriate name -> Choose the email template and the Email recipient to whom you want to notify.
Workflow 2

  1. Go to Setup->Workflow rules->Create Rule -> Select the module as Leads.
  2. Choose 'On a record action-> Edit.
  3. Select 'Records Matching the Conditions' and set the condition for the check box you just created as 'Not Selected'
  4. Set up an Instant action->Field update -> Choose an appropriate name, against 'Update', select and check the the check box you just created . 
How it works.

The first workflow sends an email to the manager if no modifications are done for 2 days from the day a lead is created. If the sales person modifies any field in the lead before 2 days, the checkbox field is updated to 'Selected" which nullifies the first workflow. So, no email is sent. The same hack is used for all the other modules where similar notifications are triggered when a record is (i'm assuming 'they' refers to a record?) dormant for some days from the time it is created.

Did you like this hack? Try it and share your feedback or queries here. Happy to help. Will be back next week with another cool hack!

    Access your files securely from anywhere






                    Zoho Campaigns Resources




                          Zoho Developer Community



                              Bootcamp
                              Community
                              Pricing
                              Webinars
                              What's New
                              Integrations
                              Contact Support
                              Contact Sales
                                Zoho Survey Resources
                                  Features
                                  Survey Templates
                                  Integrations
                                  Community
                                  iOS Mobile Surveys
                                  Pricing
                                  Android Mobile Surveys
                                  Insurvey Blogs
                                  Insight Blogs
                                  Tips & Tricks





                                              Latest Feature Updates

                                                • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                • Digest


                                                • Functions


                                                • Meetups


                                                • Kbase


                                                • Resources


                                                • Glossary


                                                • Desk Marketplace


                                                • MVP Corner


                                                • Word of the Day


                                                • Ask the Experts




                                                    Zoho SalesIQ Resources

                                                          • Sticky Posts

                                                          • How to reach the official Zoho Support channels and avoid fake ones.

                                                            Dear Customers, Thanks a lot for choosing Zoho! Our applications are built to help achieve your day-to-day business goals. We are committed to engaging with you, to understand and develop solutions that enhance your productivity.  We are happy and ready to help you use our services effectively. Understanding and avoiding fake support Just like using popular bank names and financial applications for phishing purposes, using Zoho and claiming to be providing Zoho Support or services with false numbers

                                                          • Function #35: Close all tasks associated with a lead and create a new task.

                                                            Welcome back everyone! Last week, we learnt how to close all tasks of a deal depending upon the deal stage. This week, let's look at a custom function that lets you close all of the tasks associated with a lead while simultaneously creating a new task, like when you need to halt all progress towards a lead while the lead is not available at the moment but create a reminder task. Business scenario: The success of a company, in one way or another, is determined by the leads it gets. Each lead is just

                                                          • Zoho CRM Webinar - Redesigning Daily User Experiences with Canvas

                                                            <br> Your users across roles use the CRM for day-to-day tasks that are necessary. Whether they perform their tasks on time, the right way, or at all depends on a lot of factors, including User Experience. Many businesses struggle with rigid layouts,

                                                          • Join us at the Canada ZUG Meetup: What’s New in Zoho CRM

                                                            Hello Zoho Community! Start your year with fresh insights into Zoho CRM’s latest updates and tools. Whether you're a CRM beginner or a experienced user, this meetup is crafted to help you optimise your processes and leverage new features. Explore practical

                                                          • CRM Hack #2: Automate sending of birthday greetings to your customers.

                                                              Hello everyone! What sets you apart as a sales person is your ability to add that personal touch to your business relationship with your customers. Sending a gift on a special day, or leaving a note wishing them on their birthdays, are small, yet significant actions that show your customers that you care. And these are actions done without any expectations :) You must be engaging with a lot of customers and it is highly unlikely that they all are your friends on Facebook or some social channel,


                                                          Manage your brands on social media
                                                          Access Zoho Social

                                                            Zoho Pagesense Resources


                                                                Zoho TeamInbox Resources

                                                                  Zoho DataPrep Resources


                                                                    Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                      Zoho Books Resources


                                                                        Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                          Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                            Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                              Qntrl Resources


                                                                                Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                    Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                    • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                      CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                    • Kaizen

                                                                                      Kaizen

                                                                                    • Functions

                                                                                      Functions

                                                                                    • Meetups

                                                                                      Meetups

                                                                                    • Kbase

                                                                                      Kbase

                                                                                    • Resources

                                                                                      Resources

                                                                                    • Digest

                                                                                      Digest

                                                                                    • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                      CRM Marketplace

                                                                                    • MVP Corner

                                                                                      MVP Corner







                                                                                        Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                        Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                        Get Started Now


                                                                                          Zoho Show Resources


                                                                                            Zoho Writer Writer

                                                                                            Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                                                                                Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                    ご検討中の方




                                                                                                          • Recent Topics

                                                                                                          • Zoho Calendar soft bounce on @hotmail.com and @yahoo.com email addresses

                                                                                                            Hello, our Zoho calendar recently does not send the calendar invites to emails with hotmail and yahoo domains and comes back with a "soft bounce". other domains like Gmail works fine. Also sending "email" to the same emails to the above domains work well

                                                                                                          • ERROR CODE :512 - 5.4.4 DNS error:NXDOMAIN.

                                                                                                            Suddenly we cant send mail, we are getting this error for all outbound mail to multiple domains.

                                                                                                          • Can Zoho Flows repeat Actions more than once?

                                                                                                            I'm attempting to make an intentional Zoho Flow loop using the below layout. However, when "WithinLimit" condition is met, the program fails to execute the action "Get & Add Request Co..." again. Is this by design? Is Zoho Flows unable to repeat actions

                                                                                                          • Unveiling Cadences: Redefining CRM interactions with automated sequential follow-ups

                                                                                                            Last modified on 01/04/2024: Cadences is now available for all Zoho CRM users in all data centres (DCs). Note that it was previously an early access feature, available only upon request, and was also known as Cadences Studio. As of April 1, 2024, it's

                                                                                                          • customer data security

                                                                                                            We are exploring ways to enhance our within Zoho CRM. Our Goal: We want to fully integrate RingCentral with Zoho CRM to enable click-to-call functionality for our sales team. However, to comply with data privacy regulations and protect customer contact

                                                                                                          • Zoho Cliq not working on airplanes

                                                                                                            Hi, My team and I have been having this constant issue of cliq not working when connected to an airplane's wifi. Is there a reason for this? We have tried on different Airlines and it doesn't work on any of them. We need assistance here since we are constantly

                                                                                                          • Sync CRM inventory data with Zoho Books

                                                                                                            I just switched everything over to ZoHo books, but I am trying to find out why the CRM Estimates, Invoices, and Sales Orders created in ZoHo CRM are not then duplicated in ZoHo Books? I had Quickbooks before, and had to do everything twice, I thought

                                                                                                          • mask Customer phone number and agents cant see customer phone number

                                                                                                            Is there any way we can integrate Zoom Phone with Zoho CRM while ensuring that customer phone numbers remain masked? We need a solution where agents can make outbound calls but cannot see customer phone numbers. Please let us know if there is any solution

                                                                                                          • Email Reminders on Shared Calendars

                                                                                                            How do we turn off the setting that emails reminders to everyone who has accepted or declined a calendar invite? If 8 of us have been invited to the same meeting, we receive 8 notifications for every step of the process, from invitation to decision.

                                                                                                          • WebDAV / FTP / SFTP protocols for syncing

                                                                                                            I believe the Zoho for Desktop app is built using a proprietary protocol. For the growing number of people using services such as odrive to sync multiple accounts from various providers (Google, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc.) it would be really helpful if you implemented standard protocols such as WebDAV / FTP / SFTP so that alternative inc clients can be used.

                                                                                                          • What's New in Zoho Inventory | Q2 2025

                                                                                                            Hello Customers, The second quarter have been exciting months for Zoho Inventory! We’ve introduced impactful new features and enhancements to help you manage inventory operations with even greater precision and control. While we have many more exciting

                                                                                                          • How to refresh a ticket view ?

                                                                                                            I am doing a widget where I send a rest api call to make a new draft to the ticket I am viewing. The issue is sometimes it refresh a ticket view and I can see inserted draft right away, but sometimes I do not see it even if it is inserted correctly and

                                                                                                          • Ugh! - Text Box (Single Line) Not Enough - Text Box (Multi-line) Unavailable in PDF!

                                                                                                            I provide services, I do not sell items. In each estimate I send I provide a customized job description. A two or three sentence summary of the job to be performed. I need to be able to include this job description on each estimate I send as it's a critical

                                                                                                          • Merge Items

                                                                                                            Is there a work around for merging items? We currently have three names for one item, all have had a transaction associated so there is no deleting (just deactivating, which doesn't really help. It still appears so people are continuing to use it). I also can't assign inventory tracking to items used in past transactions, which I don't understand, this is an important feature moving forward.. It would be nice to merge into one item and be able to track inventory. Let me know if this is possible.

                                                                                                          • Supervisor Rules - Zoho Desk

                                                                                                            Hi, I have set up a Supervisor Rule in Zoho Desk to send an email alert when a ticket has been on hold for 48 hours. Is there a way to change it so that the alert only sends once and not on an hourly basis? Thank you Laura

                                                                                                          • ResponseCode 421, 4.7.0 [TSS04] Messages from 136.143.188.51 temporarily deferred due to user complaints

                                                                                                            Had email bounce. Let me know if you can fix this. Thanks. Michael

                                                                                                          • Automation #15: Automatically Adding Static Secondary Contacts

                                                                                                            Rockel is a top-tier client of Zylker traders. Marcus handles communications with Rockel and would like to add Terence, the CTO of Zylker traders to the email conversations. In this case, the emails coming from user address rockel.com should have Terence

                                                                                                          • New Zoho triggers Google Dangerous flag due toabnormal charcters

                                                                                                            Just signed up and doing my first email test. I sent it to my google email account but it got flagged as Dangerous" due abnormal characters. My DNS setup looks ok. Page snips attached Help Please Thanks, Rick DC PowerWorld

                                                                                                          • Is there a API to fetch tasks in a Board/Section

                                                                                                            I am writing a scheduled function that retrieves all the tasks and send an reminder on cliq. I cannot seem to find a API to fetch tasks (by user / board / section) What are the way to fetch tasks?

                                                                                                          • Having trouble fetching contents of Zoho Connect Feeds using the API, requesting alternative API documentation.

                                                                                                            I'm trying to retrieve feed/post data from Zoho Connect using the API but facing challenges with the current documentation. What I've tried: OAuth authentication is working correctly (getting 200 OK responses) Tested multiple endpoints: /pulse/nativeapi/v2/feeds,

                                                                                                          • Adding an Account Name to Tasks/Reminders

                                                                                                            Does anyone know how to add the related account name to a task?  When we look at the list of activities and when the reminders pop up, there is no way of quickly seeing who the account is. 

                                                                                                          • Triggering Zoho Flow on Workdrive File Label

                                                                                                            Right now Im trying to have a zoho flow trigger on the labeling/classification of a file in a folder. Looking at the trigger options they arent great for something like this. File event occurred is probably the most applicable, but the events it has arent

                                                                                                          • SendMail to multiple recipients

                                                                                                            Hi, I'm trying to send an email to a list of recipients.  Right now the "to" field is directed to a string variable. (List variables won't work here). In the string variable, how can I make it work? trying "user@app.com;user2@app.com" or "user@app.com; user2@app.com" just failed to send the emails. Ravid

                                                                                                          • Populate drop down field from another form's subform

                                                                                                            Hello, I found how to do that, but not in case of a subform. I have a Product form that has a subform for unit and prices. A product might have more than one unit. For example, the product "Brocoli" can be sold in unit at 3$ or in box of 10 at 25 $. Both

                                                                                                          • Usar o Inventory ou módulo customizado no CRM para Gestão de Estoque ?

                                                                                                            Minha maior dor hoje em usar o zoho é a gestão do meu estoque. Sou uma empresa de varejo e essa gestão é fundamental pra mim. Obviamente preciso que esse estoque seja visível no CRM, Inicialmente fiz através de módulos personalizados no próprio Zoho CRM,

                                                                                                          • Signup forms behaviour : Same email & multiple submissions

                                                                                                            My use case is that I have a signup form (FormA) that I use in several places on my website, with a hidden field so I can see where the contact has been made from. I also have a couple of other signup forms (FormB and FormC) that slight differences. All

                                                                                                          • getting error in project users api

                                                                                                            Hello, I'm getting a "Given URL is wrong" error when trying to use the Zoho Projects V3 API endpoint for adding users to a project. The URL I'm using is https://projectsapi.zoho.com/api/v3/portal/{portalid}/projects/{projectid}/projectusers/ and it's

                                                                                                          • Change total display format in weekly time logs

                                                                                                            Hi! Would it be possible to display the total of the value entered in the weekly time log in the same format that the user input? This could be an option in the general settings -> display daily timesheet total in XX.XX format or XX:XX.

                                                                                                          • Different Company Name for billing & shipping address

                                                                                                            We are using Zoho Books & Inventory for our Logistics and started to realize soon, that Zoho is not offering a dedicated field for a shipping address company name .. when we are creating carrier shipping labels, the Billing Address company name gets always

                                                                                                          • How to display historical ticket information of the total time spent in each status

                                                                                                            Hi All, Hoping someone can help me, as I am new to Zoho Analytics, and I am a little stuck. I am looking to create a bar chart that looks back over tickets raised in the previous month and displays how much time was spent in each status (With Customer,

                                                                                                          • Zoho Community Weekend Maintenance: 13–15 Sep 2025

                                                                                                            Hi everyone, We wanted to give you a heads-up that Zoho Community will undergo scheduled maintenance this weekend. During this period, some community features will be temporarily unavailable, while others will be in read-only mode. Maintenance Window:

                                                                                                          • Agent Performance Report

                                                                                                            From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports An agent performance report in a ticketing system provides a comprehensive view of how support agents manage customer tickets. It measures efficiency and quality by tracking key performance

                                                                                                          • Show both Vendor and Customers in contact statement

                                                                                                            Dear Sir, some companies like us working with companies as Vendor and Customers too !!! it mean we send invoice and also receive bill from them , so we need our all amount in one place , but in contact statement , is separate it as Vendor and Customer, 

                                                                                                          • Pourquoi dans zohobooks version gratuite on ne peut ajouter notre stock d'ouverture??

                                                                                                            Pourquoi dans zohobooks version gratuite on ne peut ajouter notre stock d'ouverture ??

                                                                                                          • How can I adjust column width in Zoho Books?

                                                                                                            One issue I keep running into is as I show or hide columns in reports, the column widths get weird. Some columns have text cut off while others can take a fourth of the page for just a few characters. I checked report layout guides and my settings, but

                                                                                                          • Invalid value passed for file_name

                                                                                                            System generated file name does not send file anymore - what is the problem?

                                                                                                          • Custom Function for Estimates

                                                                                                            Hey everyone, I was wondering if there was a way to automate the Subject of an estimate whenever one is created or edited: * the green box using following infos: * Customer Name and Estimate Date. My Goal is to change the Subject to have this format "<MyFirm>-Estimate

                                                                                                          • This domain is not allowed to add. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

                                                                                                            I am trying to setup the free version of Zoho Mail. When I tried to add my domain, theselfreunion.com I got the error message that is the subject of this Topic. I've read your other community forum topics, and this is NOT a free domain. So what is the

                                                                                                          • Search in module lists has detiorated

                                                                                                            Every module has a problem with the search function :-/

                                                                                                          • YouTube Live #1: AI-powered agreement management with Zia and Zoho Sign

                                                                                                            Hi there! We're excited to announce Zoho Sign’s first YouTube live series, where you can catch the latest updates and interact with our Zoho Sign experts, pose questions, and discover lesser-known features. We're starting off by riding the AI wave in

                                                                                                          • Next Page