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

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, right? How about keeping a tab on their birthdays from your business tool, Zoho CRM? And how about automating greetings just in case you are too pressed for time to leave a personal note? Besides, this reduces the possibility of your missing out wishing some of your clients. Cool, right? Let me just show you a simple hack that lets you automate birthday greetings to your customers!

Here are the steps:



1. Create a birthday wish template:
Go to Settings->Setup->Customization->Templates->Create a template for Leads/Contacts. You have three options to create birthday templates.


(a) Pre-defined templates:  Find a few pre-defined birthday templates from Create a template -      >C elebration.
(b) Customized templates: Find a few basic models from Create a new template -> Basic   


(c)Customized templates using HTML: Go to 'Insert HTML' option on the top right corner  in the template gallery. Add or edit your code.    

 

2. Create a workflow to automate sending the birthday greetings.

 

a) Go to Settings->Setup->Workflow rules->Create a rule for Contacts.

b) Define the time and date on which the workflow must be triggered, and pick  the Date of Birth field.

c)Choose the date of execution as  Date of Birth field

d)Set the Execution cycle as Every year.

e) Set the "Which records" to “All records” (Or define specific groups and choose to send birthday wishes to that specific clientele (https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/automation/workflow-rules.html - Locate Set rule criteria)

 

3. Define an action to trigger emails to customers on their birthdays.


Go to Instant action->Send alerts->Choose the  birthday template just created->Email recipient is “Contact/Lead: email and save the workflow. This automation rule sends greetings to your contacts every year on their birthday. 



 

 

4. Personalize emails to important clients by creating a custom view showing upcoming birthdays. This is done using formula fields. Let me walk you through the steps:

 

 

1. Go to Setup->Modules->Contacts. Drag and drop a Formula field and paste this in the expression and name it as “Month of Birth” and save the formula.

Month(${Contacts.Date of Birth})

This formula  extracts the month of the date of birth and updates it in this formula field.


Then, drag and drop another formula and paste the below expression and name it as “Day of birth” and save the formula and the layout.

Dayofmonth(${Contacts.Date of Birth})

This formula  extracts the day of the date and updates it in this formula field.





Similarly, consider the above image as reference and create another formula using Dayofmonth(${Contacts.Date of Birth})

 

2. Go to Contacts module—>List view drop down at the top left—>Create view.


3.  Give the criteria as “If “Month of Birth” is 1 and name this view as January and add Day of Month and Month of birth columns in the view. 


4.Sort the day of month in the ascending order.




Now, all the birthdays that fall in January is listed in this view. Create 11 other views for each month. If you feel the custom views are flooding the drop down, just edit this custom view on the 1st of every month and change the month of birth criteria alone. If you have any queries on this, do leave a comment below. Will be happy to help you with it!

 

    • 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,

    • Recent Topics

    • Cross-Data Center Collaboration and / Or allowing users to choose DC

      Dear Zoho Cliq Support Team, We are writing to request a significant enhancement to Zoho Cliq that would greatly benefit our geographically dispersed development team. Current Challenge: Currently, Zoho Cliq automatically routes users to specific data

    • Zoho Flow - Update record in Trackvia

      Hello, I have a Flow that executes correctly but I only want it to execute once when a particular field on a record is updated in TrackVia. I have the trigger filters setup correctly and I want to add an "update record" action at the end of the flow to

    • New Mandatory One-Click Unsubscribe Link Overshadowing Custom Unsubscribe Link

      I was recently informed by Zoho CRM Support that they are now mandated by the large email service providers like Google and Yahoo to provide a one-click unsubscribe option in the header (not the body) of all mass emails. I have a custom unsubscribe link

    • Send / Send & Close keyboard shortcuts

      Hello! My team is so close to using Zoho Desk with just the keyboard. Keyboard shortcuts really help us to be more efficient -- saving a second or two over thousands of tickets adds up quickly. It seems like the keyboard shortcuts in Desk are only for

    • Is it possible to register webhooks in Zoho CRM using API?

      Hello, I am trying to register a webhook in Zoho CRM programmatically (using the API). Specifically, I want to register a webhook that is fired when new Contacts are created in the CRM. I was able to setup a webhook using the UI, by creating a rule that

    • Calls where the local audio is shared, have echo

      When another user is sharing their screen with audio, I get echo from my own voice. We tested this with multiple users, with different audio setups, and there's no obvious way to fix it. Is this a bug you could look into, or are we missing something?

    • Systematic SPF alignment issues with Zoho subdomains

      Analysis Period: August 19 - September 1, 2025 PROBLEM SUMMARY Multiple Zoho services are causing systematic SPF authentication failures in DMARC reports from major email providers (Google, Microsoft, Zoho). While emails are successfully delivered due

    • Update application by uploading an updated DS file

      Is it possible? I have been working with AI on my desktop improving my application, and I have to keep copy pasting stuff... Would it be possible to import the DS file on top of an existing application to update the app accordingly?

    • Markdown support, code cells...

      Hi Zoho I'd like to vote for a feature that markdown is supported with: Headings Code highlighting Quoteblocks ... Furthermore a inline card(like inline sketch card) for special text like Code would be great. And just to add my vote as well for "Tags"!

    • Minimise chat when user navigates to new page

      When the user is in an active chat (chatbot) and is provide with an internal link, when they click the link to go to the internal page the chat opens again. This is not a good user experience. They have been sent the link to read what is on the page.

    • How do I fix this? Unable to send message; Reason:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.

      How do I fix this? Unable to send message; Reason:554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.

    • Reports: Custom Search Function Fields

      Hi Zoho, Hope you'll add this into your roadmap. Issue: For the past 2yrs our global team been complaining and was brought to our attention recently that it's a time consuming process looking/scrolling down. Use-case: This form is a service report with

    • Zoho Projects app update: Voice notes for Tasks and Bugs module

      Hello everyone! In the latest version(v3.9.37) of the Zoho Projects Android app update, we have introduced voice notes for the Tasks and Bugs module. The voice notes can be added as an attachment or can be transcribed into text. Recording and attaching

    • zurl URL shortener Not working in Zoho social

      zurl URL shortener Not working in while creating a post in Zoho social

    • In the Zoho CRM Module I have TRN Field I should contain 15 digit Number , If it Contain less than 15 digit Then show Alert message on save of the button , If it not contain any number not want to sh

      Hi In the Zoho CRM Module I have TRN Field I should contain 15 digit Number , If it Contain less than 15 digit Then show Alert message on save of the button , If it not contain any number not want to show alert. How We can achive in Zoho CRm Using custom

    • Power of Automation::Streamline log hours to work hours upon task completion.

      Hello Everyone, A Custom Function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as to when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. Requirement:-

    • Zoho Bookings know-how: A hands-on workshop series

      Hello! We’re conducting a hands-on workshop series to help simplify appointment scheduling for your business with Zoho Bookings. We’ll be covering various functionalities and showing how you can leverage them for your business across five different sessions.

    • Custom report

      Hello Everyone I hope everything is fine. I've tried to To change the layout of the reports, especially the summary page report, and I want to divide summary of each section in the survey but I can't For example: I have a survey containing five different

    • Zoho Journey - ZOHO MARKETING AUTOMATION

      I’ve encountered an issue while working with a journey in Zoho Marketing Automation. After creating the journey, I wanted to edit the "Match Criteria" settings. Unfortunately: The criteria section appears to be locked and not editable. I’m also unable

    • Custom Fields in PDF outputs

      I created a couple of custom fields. e.g Country of Origin and HS Tariff Code. I need these to appear on a clone of a sales order PDF template but on on the standard PDF template. When I select "appear on PDFs' it appears on both but when I don't select

    • How to create a Service Agreement with Quarterly Estimate

      Hello, I'm not sure if this has been asked before so please don't get mad at me for asking. We're an NDIS provider in Australia so we need to draft a Service Agreement for our client. With the recent changes in the NDIS we're now required to also include

    • Change Currency symbol

      I would like to change the way our currency displays when printed on quotes, invoices and purchase orders. Currently, we have Australian Dollars AUD as our Home Currency. The only two symbol choices available for this currency are "AU $" or "AUD". I would

    • Python - code studio

      Hi, I see the code studio is "coming soon". We have some files that will require some more complex transformation, is this feature far off? It appears to have been released in Zoho Analytics already

    • Zoho Social - Post Footer Templates

      As a content creator I often want to include some information at the end of most posts. It would be great if there was an option to add pre-written footers, similar to the Hashtag Groups at the end of posts. For example, if there is an offer I'm running

    • Allow to pick color for project groups in Zoho Projects

      Hi Zoho Team, It would be really helpful if users could assign colors to project groups. This would make it easier to visually distinguish groups, improve navigation, and give a clearer overview when managing multiple projects. Thanks for considering

    • Zoho Books - Quotes to Sales Order Automation

      Hi Books team, In the Quote settings there is an option to convert a Quote to an Invoice upon acceptance, but there is not feature to convert a Quote to a Sales Order (see screenshot below) For users selling products through Zoho Inventory, the workflow

    • Can't find imported leads

      Hi There I have imported leads into the CRM via a .xls document, and the import is showing up as having been successful, however - when I try and locate the leads in the CRM system, I cannot find them.  1. There are no filters applied  2. They are not

    • Custom Button Disappearing in mobile view | Zoho CRM Canvas

      I'm working in Zoho CRM Canvas to create a custom view for our sales team. One of the features I'm adding is a custom button that opens the leads address in another tab. I've had no issue with this in the desktop view, but in the mobile view the button

    • The connected workflow is a great idea just needs Projects Integrations

      I just discovered the connected workflows in CRM and its a Great Idea i wish it was integrated with Zoho Projects I will explain our use case I am already trying to do something like connected workflow with zoho flow Our requirement was to Create a Task

    • Zoho Projects MCP Feedback

      I've started using the MCP connector with Zoho Projects, and the features that exist really do work quite well - I feel this is going to be a major update to the Zoho Ecosystem. In projects a major missing feature is the ability to manage, (especially

    • Function #10: Update item prices automatically based on the last transaction created

      In businesses, item prices are not always fixed and can fluctuate due to various factors. If you find yourself manually adjusting the item rates every time they change, we have the ideal time-saving solution for you. In today's post, we bring you custom

    • email template

      How do I create and save an email template

    • Enhancements in Portal User Group creation flow

      Hello everyone, Before introducing new Portal features, here are some changes to the UI of Portals page to improve the user experience. Some tabs and options have been repositioned so that users can better access the functionalities of the feature. From

    • Archiving Contacts

      How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

    • How do I filter contacts by account parameters?

      Need to filter a contact view according to account parameter, eg account type. Without this filter users are overwhelmed with irrelevant contacts. Workaround is to create a custom 'Contact Type' field but this unbearable duplicity as the information already

    • Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

      Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter

    • email moderation issue when email is sent in the name of a mail group

      Symptom: an email that is sent by a mail group moderator in the name of a moderated mail group is held back for approval. Reproduction: Create a moderated mail group with members and moderators. Allow that mails can be sent in the name of the group (extended settings). Send an email to the group as a group moderator, but in the name of the group. This mail is held back for moderation which is unexpected. Expected: A mail sent by group moderator to a moderated group are not held back for moderation

    • blank page after login

      blank page after logging into my email account Thanks you

    • Introducing the revamped What's New page

      Hello everyone! We're happy to announce that Zoho Campaigns' What's New page has undergone a complete revamp. We've bid the old page adieu after a long time and have introduced a new, sleeker-looking page. Without further ado, let's dive into the main

    • Always display images from this sender – Is this feature available?

      In Zoho mail, I had my "Load external images" setting set to "Ask me", and that's fine. That's the setting I prefer. What's not fine though is I always need to tick "Display now" for each email I get, regardless if I've done that multiple times from several

    • Next Page