Say goodbye to monotony in sales. Say hello to automation.

Say goodbye to monotony in sales. Say hello to automation.

In many organizations, a large portion of a salesperson's time is spent on routine administrative activities rather than on sales or customer interactions. This work often consists of sending follow-up emails, creating task lists, and filling out paperwork.

While each of these routine activities plays a crucial role in your sales process as a whole when carried out manually, they can become a bottleneck to achieving your sales targets. This, in turn, results in process delays and demotivation.

If you are on the lookout for a way to end this obstacle in your sales life, then say "hello" to sales force automation (SFA). This article is meant for those of you who are new to CRM systems, so we'll be discussing each section of the sales cycle and how SFA can help optimize it. This should help you learn more about how you can save time and effort on routine tasks and make sales more efficiently.

Sales force automation refers to a method in which software solutions are used to streamline the execution of a sales cycle. So, let's digress a bit here and explain what exactly the sales cycle is.

What is the sales cycle?

Every business takes its customers through a sales journey from acquisition to conversion. You need to reach out to a list of prospects via marketing efforts, engage with them, make multiple follow-ups, and convert them to paying customers. It doesn't stop there—you should also make efforts to retain your customers and get referrals so that you can generate new business. This entire customer journey starting from acquisition to retention, from the point of view of a business, is known as the sales cycle.


Here is where CRM enters the picture. A CRM has built-in features that help you implement your sales cycle, from lead acquisition to customer retention and beyond. We are going to look at three major areas of the sales cycle where a CRM can help boost your productivity with sales force automation.
  • Lead management
  • Contact management
  • Pipeline management

Lead management

Lead acquisition marks the beginning of the sales cycle. A lead is basically a raw, unqualified prospect which you may have obtained from different sources such as your website, outreach on social media, email campaigns, advertising, events, or even referrals. A lead is anyone who may be interested in your business, but you don't know for sure yet. You need to follow up to find out.

During follow-up, you aren't just asking your leads if they want your product or not—an efficient follow-up process is one in which these leads are educated well about your company's products/services, and any assistance from you in their evaluation phase is readily made available. Whether it's just another phone call, a document, or a personal demo—whatever a lead needs from you to make a decision should be made available. This process of educating your leads and assisting them with information on your business is called lead nurturing.

Overall, lead management is a key area that consists of sourcing leads from different channels, organizing them, and conducting a systematic process of follow-up and nurturing. It forms the starting point of your sales administration, and therefore it's very important that you don't lose out on useful leads or follow-ups.

How does SFA simplify lead management?

Any CRM offers the features you need to generate, track, and nurture leads. Here is a set of recommended steps for lead management automation in Zoho CRM: Create a web form in CRM and publish it on your website. Every entry on the form is now pushed to CRM, so that you don't miss out on a single lead.
  • Capture leads from webforms, spreadsheet imports, migration, the lead scanner app, and APIs (from third-party systems).
  • Set up prompt reminders for followup activities in CRM and nurture your leads.
  • Update contact information and lead status periodically, so that your database is up to date.
  • Automate routine emails like lead status updates for management and newsletters sent out to leads.


Contact management

As you nurture your leads, you will find that you are gradually narrowing down from a long list of leads to a shorter one that contains people who are much more likely to buy from you than the rest. This shortlisted set of leads will be moved to another column called Contacts.

This phase is about resuming your follow-up activities with these contacts and making sure they buy from you. Different businesses have different processes for contact follow-up. This may contain many routine activities such as sending emails, making phone calls, personal appointments, field visits, and more. Contact management is about lead conversion and making sure you have a complete, clean list of your current contacts and ensuring prompt follow-up.

How does SFA simplify contact management?

Zoho CRM comes with built-in features for lead conversion and contact management. When you identify leads who show a keen interest in purchasing from you, simply convert the lead to a contact. A contact is an existing customer or someone with whom you are pursuing a business deal. Use CRM to directly convert and bulk convert leads into contacts. All your lead information is mapped correctly to contacts by the system. You can further follow up on these contacts, associate business deals, company details update status, attach email/phone conversations contextually, and maintain an exhaustive set of details regarding the contacts in CRM.


Pipeline management

As you shortlist your customers, you may receive business opportunities from them. Each opportunity or "business deal" is said to go through a series of stages until it is successfully won or dropped—and this process of organizing deals and taking them through these stages is called pipeline management.

For example, from about 100 leads, you may have shortlisted 40 contacts who are interested in your business, and 30 of them might give you business opportunities to work on. Your sales team has to follow through and move those 30 deals one by one through the different stages in your pipeline, such as qualification, value proposition, negotiation, contract drafting, and so on, until the deal is closed.


Your sales cycle starts when you secure leads via campaigns, goes on as you nurture them and convert them to contacts, and ends with you securing business deals with them. Sales force automation involves using efficient systems to streamline this sales cycle and automate routine actions in it.

How does SFA simplify pipeline management?

Zoho CRM comes with built-in features for pipeline management.
  • Track the status of your deals using the customizable sales pipeline in CRM.
  • Set up a sales process using Blueprints. Let the system guide your teams and streamline the deal closure process
  • Set up workflow rules to automate routine sales actions. Use the automation feature in CRM to automatically trigger routine actions, saving you time and effort.
With just a one-time setup, you can be relieved of mundane manual tasks. All you have to do is use the existing built-in sales force automation features in your CRM. The system will take care of it for you while you and your sales teams can do what you are meant to do—sell.

What are your thoughts on this subject? Post them in the comments section below. Feel free to share other subjects that you'd like to discuss in the CRM Admin Chat Room in the future. 


    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

                                                                                                          • Please make it easier to Pause syncing

                                                                                                            right now it takes 3 clicks to get there. sounds silly, but can you make it just 2 clicks to get it done instead? thats how dropbox does it, 2 clicks to pause instead of 3.

                                                                                                          • Organization Emails in Email History

                                                                                                            How can I make received Org Emails to show up here?

                                                                                                          • Converting Sales Order to Invoice via API; Problem with decimal places tax

                                                                                                            We are having problems converting a Sales Order to an Invoice via API Call. The cause of the issue is, that the Tax value in a Sales Order is sometimes calculated with up to 16 decimal places (e.g. 0.8730000000000001). The max decimal places allowed in

                                                                                                          • how to differentiate if whatsapp comes from certain landing page?

                                                                                                            I create a Zobot in SalesIQ to create a Whatsapp bot to capture the lead. I have 2 landing pages, one is SEO optimized and the other want is optimized for leads comes from Google Ads. I want to know from which landing page this lead came through WhatsApp

                                                                                                          • Upload API

                                                                                                            I'm trying to use the Upload API to upload some images and attach them to comments (https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#Uploads#Uploads_Uploadfile) - however I can only ever get a 401 or bad request back. I'm using an OAuth token with the Desk.tickets.ALL

                                                                                                          • How to sync from Zoho Projects into an existing Sprint in Zoho Sprints?

                                                                                                            Hi I have managed to integrate Zoho Projects with Zoho Sprints and I can see that the integration works as a project was created in Zoho Sprints. But, what I would like to do is to sync into an existing Zoho Sprints project. Is there a way to make that

                                                                                                          • How to record company set up fees?

                                                                                                            Hi all, We are starting out our company in Australia and would appreciate any help with setting up Books accounts. We paid an accountant to do company registration, TFN, company constitution, etc. I heard these all can be recorded as Incorporation Costs, which is an intangible asset account, and amortised over 5 years. Is this the correct way to do it under the current Australian tax regulations? How and when exactly should I record the initial entry and each year's amortasation in Books? Generally

                                                                                                          • How to create a drop down menu in Zoho Sheets

                                                                                                            I am trying to find out, how do I create a drop down option in Zoho sheet. I tried Data--> Data Validation --> Criteria --> Text  --> Contains. But that is not working, is there any other way to do it.  Thanks in Advance.

                                                                                                          • Show Payment terms in Estimates

                                                                                                            Hi,  we are trying to set up that estimates automatically relates payment terms for the payment terms we introduced on Edit contact (Field Payment terms).  How can it be done? Our aim is to avoid problems on payment terms introduced and do not need to introduce it manually on each client (for the moment we are introducing this information on Terms and Conditions.  Kind Regards, 

                                                                                                          • Rich-text fields in Zoho CRM

                                                                                                            Hello everyone, We're thrilled to announce an important enhancement that will significantly enhance the readability and formatting capabilities of your information: rich text options for multi-line fields. With this update, you can now enjoy a more versatile

                                                                                                          • How can I calculate the physical stock available for sale?

                                                                                                            Hey Zoho Team,  I've tried to calculate the physical stock on hand in various ways - but always receive a mismatch between what's displayed in Zoho Inventory & analytics.  Can you please let me know how the physical stock available for sale is calculated?

                                                                                                          • When dispatched to crew, assigning lead missing

                                                                                                            Hello, For the past two or three weeks, whenever an officer assigns Service Appointment to a team, the lead person is missing from the assigned service list. Therefore, we have to reschedule the SA and then the lead person becomes visible in the assigned

                                                                                                          • Create Lead Button in Zoho CRM Dashboard

                                                                                                            Right now to create Leads in the CRM our team is going into the Lead module, selecting the "Create Lead" button, then building out the lead. Is there anyway to add the "Create Lead" button or some sort of short cut to the Zoho CRM Dashboard to cut out

                                                                                                          • open word file in zoho writer desktop version

                                                                                                            "How can I open a Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) file in Zoho Writer if I only have the file saved on my computer and Zoho Writer doesn't appear as an option when I try 'Open with'? Is there a way to directly open the .doc file in Zoho Writer?"

                                                                                                          • Generate leads from instagram

                                                                                                            hello i have question. If connect instagram using zoho social, it is possible to get lead from instagram? example if someone send me direct message or comment on my post and then they generate to lead

                                                                                                          • I want to transfer the project created in this account to another account

                                                                                                            Dear Sir I want to transfer the project created in one account to another account

                                                                                                          • Inactive User Auto Response

                                                                                                            We use Zoho One, and we have a couple employees that are no longer with us, but people are still attempting to email them. I'd like an autoresponder to let them no the person is no longer here, and how they can reach us going forward. I saw a similar

                                                                                                          • Weekly Tips : Customize your Compose for a smoother workflow

                                                                                                            You are someone who sends a lot of emails, but half the sections in the composer just get in your way — like fields you never use or sections that clutter the space. You find yourself always hunting for the same few formatting tools, and the layout just

                                                                                                          • Problem Management Module

                                                                                                            I am looking for a Problem Management module within Zoho Desk. I saw in some training videos that this is available, and some even provided an annual price for it. I want an official confirmation on whether this is indeed available. This is not a particularly

                                                                                                          • Zoho Slowness - Workarounds

                                                                                                            Hi all, We've been having intermittent slowness and Zoho just asks for same stuff each time but never fix it. It usually just goes away on it's own after a couple weeks. Given that speed is a very important thing for companies to be able to keep up with

                                                                                                          • Custom Bulk Select Button

                                                                                                            Zoho CRM offers the ability to select multiple records and invoke a Custom Button This functionality is missing from Recruit Currently we can only add buttons in the detail page and list But we cannot select Multiple Records and invoke a function with

                                                                                                          • How to create a Zoho CRM report with 2 child modules

                                                                                                            Hi all, Is it possible to create a Zoho CRM report or chart with 2 child modules? After I add the first child module, the + button only adds another parent module. It won't let me add multiple child modules at once. We don't have Zoho Analytics and would

                                                                                                          • Zoho CRM still doesn't let you manage timezones (yearly reminder)

                                                                                                            This is something I have asked repeatedly. I'll ask once again. Suppose that you work in France. Next month you have a trip to Guatemala. You call a contact there, close a meeting, record that meeting in CRM. On the phone, your contact said: "meet me

                                                                                                          • Power of Automation :: Smart Ticket Management Between Zoho Desk and Projects

                                                                                                            Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate

                                                                                                          • First day of trying FSM in the field.

                                                                                                            What we found. 1. with out a network connection we were unable to start a service call? 2. if you go to an appointment and then want to add an asset it does not seem possible. 3. disappointed not to be able to actually take a payment from within the app

                                                                                                          • BUG - Google Business Buttons - Add a button to GBP Post

                                                                                                            I am experiencing an issue with the "Add a button" feature when creating posts for my Google Business Profile (GBP) through Zoho Social. When I schedule or publish a GBP post and include a call-to-action button with a specific URL, the post itself publishes

                                                                                                          • Rich text Merge field - Not using font specified in HTML

                                                                                                            I have a rich text merge field in a writer template which is creating a table. I have chosen to use this method instead of a repeat region because I need to specify specific cell background colours which change every time the document is created. The

                                                                                                          • Support for Custom Fonts in Zoho Recruit Career Site and Candidate Portal

                                                                                                            Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to use custom fonts in the Zoho Recruit Career Site and Candidate Portal. Currently only the default fonts (Roboto, Lato, and Montserrat) are available. While these

                                                                                                          • CC and/or BCC users in email templates

                                                                                                            I would like the ability to automatically assign a CC and BCC "User (company employee)" into email templates. Specifically, I would like to be able to add the "User who owns the client" as a CC automatically on any interview scheduled or candidate submitted

                                                                                                          • Trying to export a report to Excel via a deluge script

                                                                                                            I have this code from other posts but it gives me an error of improper statement, due to missing ; at end of line or incomplete expression. Tried lots of variations to no avail. openUrl(https://creatorapp.zoho.com/<username>/<app name>/XLSX/#Report:<reportname>,"same

                                                                                                          • Zoho Reports Duplicating Entries

                                                                                                            I have a custom costing tab with a table where we entre invoices. These are under a Heading (PO Subject) and notes added in the form with different line items. In the reports, I have organised the report to group per PO Subject, with the total of the

                                                                                                          • Need help to create a attach file api

                                                                                                            https://www.zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v8/upload-attachment.html Please help me to create it... It's not working for while. Do you have some example?

                                                                                                          • Export view via deluge.

                                                                                                            Hi, Is it possible to export a view (as a spreadsheet) via deluge? I would like to be able to export a view as a spreadsheet when a user clicks a button. Thanks     

                                                                                                          • how to add subform over sigma in the CRM

                                                                                                            my new module don't have any subform available any way to add this from sigma or from the crm

                                                                                                          • Outdated state in mexico

                                                                                                            Hello Zoho team, the drop down to add the state for customers, when they introduce their state in mexico has a city named “Distrito Federal” that name changed many years ago to “ciudad de mexico”. could you please update this so my clients can find the

                                                                                                          • Support new line in CRM Multiline text field display in Zoho Deluge

                                                                                                            Hi brainstrust, We have a Zoho CRM field which is a Muti Line (Small) field. It has data in it that has a carriage return after each line: When I pull that data in via Deluge, it displays as: I'm hoping a way I can change it from: Freehand : ENABLED Chenille

                                                                                                          • Possible to generate/download Quote PDF using REST API?

                                                                                                            See title. Is there any way after a quote has been created to export to a PDF using a specified template and then download it? Seems like something that should be doable. Is this not supported in the API v2.0?

                                                                                                          • Creating an invoice to be paid in two installments?

                                                                                                            Hi there, I own a small Photographic Services business and have not been able to find a way to fit my billing system into Zoho, or any other Accounting software. The way my payments work is: 1. Customer pays 50% of total price of service to secure their

                                                                                                          • Bug in allowing the user to buy out of stock items

                                                                                                            Hi i want to allow the user to buy out of stock items, according to the commerce documentation if i disable Restrict "Out of stock" purchases it will, but it doesnt work, so i want to know if it had any relation with zoho inventory, and if theres any

                                                                                                          • Zoho CRM Calendar | Custom Buttons

                                                                                                            I'm working with my sales team to make our scheduling process easier for our team. We primary rely on Zoho CRM calendar to organize our events for our sales team. I was wondering if there is a way to add custom button in the Calendar view on events/meeting

                                                                                                          • Next Page