Automating Post-Purchase Upselling with Cadences in Zoho CRM
Requirement Overview
The requirement is to establish a post-purchase follow-up mechanism for existing customers using Cadences in Zoho CRM. Once a customer purchases a product, they should be systematically followed up to explore potential upsell opportunities, including related products, accessories, or subscription upgrades, ensuring consistent engagement and better utilization of the existing customer base.
Use Case
A mobile showroom wants to maximize revenue from existing customers by re-engaging them shortly after their initial purchase. Typically, customers visit the store to buy a primary product, such as a smartphone and leave without exploring other products like accessories or add-ons. Once the purchase is completed, these customers remain inactive in the CRM system, resulting in missed opportunities for additional sales.
To address this, the business wants a structured follow-up process where every customer who completes a purchase is proactively contacted after a short interval. The purpose of this interaction is not just to sell, but to check the customer satisfaction and understand if they have any upcoming needs related to their purchase.
For example, a customer who purchases a new smartphone like Iphone 17 Pro, after a few days of usage, realises the need for a protective case, screen guard, or wireless earbuds. Through timely follow-up, the sales team can identify this need and offer relevant products, increasing the chances of conversion.
During the follow-up, if the customer expresses interest in additional products, the sales representative engages further and converts the opportunity into a new sale. If the customer is not interested, the interaction is concluded without further outreach, ensuring a non-intrusive experience.
This approach ensures that every completed sale is treated as a potential starting point for additional business, improving customer engagement while increasing overall sales value.
Permissions & Availability
→ If the profiles have 'Manage Automation' permission, then the respective users will be able to View and Manage Cadences.
→ Users with 'Manage Template' permission will have access to create email templates.
→ Profiles in which the 'Enroll' and 'Un-enroll' option is enabled under Cadences permission will have the ability to do the respective actions in the record (manually enrolling and unenrolling)
→ Users with the Manage Sandbox permission can manage the sandbox.
Solution
To address the need for structured post-purchase engagement, we will be using the Cadences feature in Zoho CRM to automate and standardize follow-ups with customers. Instead of leaving customers idle after a purchase, each customer is systematically engaged through a timed series of touch-points aimed at identifying additional needs.
Once a customer completes a purchase, they are enrolled in a cadence that begins after a short delay. The engagement starts with an initial email, followed by task assignments for sales agents and subsequent call-based follow-ups to ensure consistent communication.
A key aspect of using cadences is the ability to define exit conditions. If a customer expresses interest, the cadence stops, and the process transitions into an active sales opportunity. Similarly, if the customer is not interested, they are removed from further follow-ups to avoid unnecessary communication. This ensures that engagement remains relevant and non-intrusive.
Configuration : Step-by-Step Implementation Guide
To test your Cadences safely, you could create them in the sandbox and then deploy them to the production environment.
Step 1: Create a custom view to segregate the purchased customers
Based on the above-mentioned use case, we will be using the Contact module and configure a criteria in the custom view.
You could add any criteria when creating the custom view based on your requirements.
Step 2: Create Cadences in Zoho CRM
Navigate to Settings (⚙️) in Zoho CRM → Automation → Cadences → Create Cadence
You could configure the enroll property as Custom view and select the custom view that you have created in the previous step.
Follow-up 1 (Email notification): Triggered immediately after enrolling
Add an email follow-up and configure the email template to be sent after the purchase. This email can be set to trigger immediately upon enrollment in the cadence.
Note: If the email template has already been configured as part of another process, such as a Workflow or Blueprint, you could skip Follow-up 1 and proceed directly to Follow-up 2.
Follow-up 2 (Email notification): Triggered after 2 days from the previous follow-up
Configure an email follow-up using a “Customer Experience” template that needs to be sent to the customers. As this email is intended for all customers, select the previous email status as Sent, Opened, Replied, and Clicked.
In this email template, along with requesting customer experience, provide a link to the available products in the organisation. So that customers can easily explore other products that are offered.
Follow-up 3 (Call): Clicked
When the customer clicks the link from the email template, a call follow-up is scheduled after one day. The sales agent is then expected to reach out to the customer within four hours of the call follow-up being triggered.
Follow-up 3 (Task) : Opened
If the customer has opened the previous email but has not replied, a task follow-up is triggered after three business days. This task notifies the sales agent to reach out to the customer and check their interest in other products offered by the organization. The sales agent is expected to complete this follow-up within the task’s due date, which is set to three business days from the trigger date.
Follow-up 3 (Email notification): Sent
When the customer has not opened the previous email and its status remains 'Sent' even after seven days, then a follow-up email will be sent. This email template will include the information about other available products and check the customer's interest.
Follow-up 4 (Email notification): Call Completed
This Email will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Clicked') → Follow-up 4 (Email notification)
When the previous call is marked as completed, this email follow-up will be sent to the customer. This email appreciates the customer's time in discussing other products.
Follow-up 4 (Task): Cancelled
This Task will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Clicked') → Follow-up 4 (Task)
This task will be triggered when a call is marked as cancelled. The sales agent is required to update the reason for the cancellation in the record and then mark the task as completed.
Follow-up 4 (Call): Not started
This Call will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Opened') → Follow-up 4 (Call)
If the previous follow-up task remains in the 'Not Started' status for 5 business days, a call is scheduled within the next two hours. This ensures that the sales agent directly reaches out to the customer to explain the available products and understand their interest.
Follow-up 5 (Task): Sent, Opened, Clicked
This Task will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Clicked') → Follow-up 4 (Previous Call is 'Completed') → Follow-up 5 (Task)
After sending the previous email, a task is triggered immediately with a due date as 'Trigger Date + 1 business day'. The sales agent is expected to update the necessary fields in the record to ensure it no longer meets the custom view criteria. Once the record exits the custom view, it is automatically unenrolled from the cadence. The un-enroll properties are explained in a later section of this document.
Follow-up 5 (Email notification): Completed
This Email will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Clicked') → Follow-up 4 (Previous Call is 'Cancelled') → Follow-up 5 (Email notification)
When the previous follow-up task is completed, an email is sent to the customer. This email includes details of the products offered by the organization, allowing the customer to review the information and reach out for further assistance if needed.
Follow-up 5 (Email Notification): Completed
This Email will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Opened') → Follow-up 4 (Previous Task is 'Not Started') → Follow-up 5 (Email notification)
When the previous call is marked as completed, an email is sent to the customer. This email appreciates the customer’s time in discussing other products.
Follow-up 5 (Task): Cancelled
This Task will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Opened') → Follow-up 4 (Previous Task is 'Not Started') → Follow-up 5 (Task)
This task is triggered when the previous call is marked as Cancelled. The sales agent is required to analyze the reason for the cancellation and update it in the record within one business day from the task creation.
Follow-up 6 (Email notification): Completed
This Email will be triggered in the following order -
Follow-up 1 → Follow-up 2 → Follow-up 3 (Previous Email is 'Opened') → Follow-up 4 (Previous Task is 'Not Started') → Follow-up 5 (Previous Call is 'Completed') → Follow-up 6 (Email notification)
When the previous task is marked as completed, Cadence sends an email to the customer. This email includes the information about other products offered by the organisation. So the customer can review the details and reach the sales team when needed.
Step 3: Un-enroll properties
Un-enroll properties play a critical role in ensuring that customers are not over-contacted and the cadence stops at the right time. Instead of blindly completing all steps, the cadence dynamically exits a contact when certain conditions are met.
The first condition - 'Record doesn’t match custom view criteria' is applied to ensure that only customers who are still eligible for follow-up remain in the cadence. The cadence is initially designed to include customers who have made a purchase. During the course of the cadence, when a sales agent interacts with the customer and updates the contact status as 'Interested' or 'Not Interested', the record no longer satisfies the original criteria defined in the custom view. As a result, the customer is automatically removed from the cadence, ensuring that further scheduled follow-ups are no longer applied to that record.
The second condition, 'Follow-up criteria', is used to identify customers who have actively responded through email during the cadence. When a customer replies to any of the follow-up emails, it indicates active engagement. Based on this condition, the system automatically unenrolls the customer from the cadence.
You can configure any un-enroll properties based on your requirement.
Note: Once you have created this cadence, you could test the behaviour using a sample record. All the follow-ups will be triggered as specified in Production. To test your Cadence safely, create them in the sandbox and then deploy them to the Production environment when needed.
Custom Solution Created by Harish K | Zoho Partner Support
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