Time is a limited resource in business, and every sales team, regardless of size, can't get enough of it. Your sales team members are always on edge with client calls, meetings, emails, and other sales activities. Moreover, they spend more time on administrative tasks and only 23% of their time selling.
To put things into perspective, 32% of your team spends 6--10% on meetings to close deals. And when they're not in meetings, they're doing the paperwork, writing down proposals for potential customers, drafting reports, and creating sales strategies for the next campaign.
Thankfully, workflow automation is here to save the day. Workflow automation uses software to streamline tasks and procedures so they require less human intervention. It also streamlines operations and cuts down on redundant tasks, which saves time and money.
That brings us to the importance of Pipedrive workflow automation templates. In this article, we'll break down what they are and how your sales team can benefit from them.
What are Workflow Automation Templates?
A workflow template is a pre-built set of steps and actions that can be used to map out a specific activity or an entire sales pipeline. Templates are designed to streamline your key sales activities and save time when planning and executing your sales strategy.
If you use a sales CRM like Pipedrive for your business, workflow templates will make your life a whole lot easier. Their real power, however, comes from their ability to become dynamic - they can be created and edited by just about any team member and monitored in one space.
So, instead of having to recreate the same workflow for every new sales campaign, partnership, or deal, you can simply change the parameters on the pre-made template and begin using it almost immediately.
How Can Pipedrive Templates Help With Workflow Automation?
Workflow templates ensure you don't have to reinvent the wheel whenever a new deal gets in motion. For instance, you don't have to whip up a new email for each new lead; simply set up an email template to go off automatically.
Doing this saves more time and spares your team from fatigue - 90% of your sales employees probably feel overwhelmed by repetitive tasks that can be automated.
Other advantages of Pipedrive's workflow automation templates include the following:
Save Time
Time is scarce. Creating workflow automation templates can save plenty of it. Pipedrive templates enable you to set up automated tasks for your business. For example, you can set up a workflow template so that an email automatically goes out to the customer when they place an order or submit a form through your website.
Pipedrive also roughly estimates how much time you can save using one of its pre-made templates.
Streamlined Sales Activities
One big reason 29% of companies have shown an interest in turning to low-code automation solutions to meet their needs is to benefit from streamlined activities.
Workflow automation templates are important because they help you automate and streamline your workflow processes. Every move is calculated on a template. With pre-determined steps in the template, automatic triggers, events, and activities can be applied to each stage of the sales process - engaging a prospect in a call or assigning a new deal to a specific team member.
This makes it easier to manage your workflow process and keep it on track. Once you have created a workflow template, you can apply this to any new workflow, person, deal, or organization in your pipeline.
Create a Solid Foundation With Workflow Templates
Workflow templates make the crucial first step in creating a successful workflow management system. This is because they establish the foundation upon which the workflow is built. A workflow template is a pre-built set of activities that you can modify to streamline your team's most common tasks.
A workflow template can help accelerate implementation by enabling you to focus on the individual processes rather than spending time building them from scratch. Templates are lightweight and easy to track down, edit, and put into use.
Establish Clarity With Workflow Templates
Another overlooked function of workflow templates is to establish clarity. A workflow template helps make things clear for the people using your workflow management system or CRM tool. This helps create a smooth transition between the different sales process stages.
A workflow template also helps to clarify who should be responsible for what and when. You may include other relevant details in the workflow template, such as contact information, tips and suggestions, and other necessary information to make the sales process smoother.
Track Progress With Workflow Templates
A workflow template helps to track the progress of each workflow process. This is because the workflow template already outlines the sales process (or at least its most important stages).
When you need to track progress, you can use your workflow template to see where you are in the workflow process and how far you have come. This is particularly helpful when collaborating with others on the same deals and activities.
Eliminate Confusion Among Team Members
Pipedrive templates also help you eliminate confusion about who is doing what and when. This way, you don't run the risk of having a stage in your workflow process being missed or completely forgotten about, which can result in major problems down the road.
A workflow template specially designed for your business probably took into account some of the common pitfalls and difficulties your sales team encountered over time - and built-in solutions for these issues into their workflow templates.
What are the Most Popular Pipedrive Workflow Templates?
Getting started with workflow automation can feel like a big leap. It's not just about automating the same old processes; it's rethinking your entire sales strategy to ensure everything you do positively impacts the business.
When you first install Pipedrive, you'll have access to a handful of pre-built workflow templates. But what if you need something more specific? Or, what if the standard workflow templates don't quite meet your needs? The good news is that it's easy to make adjustments to those standard workflow templates.
Let's take a look at the most popular Pipedrive workflow templates and why they're so useful:
Sales Tracking Template
In a perfect world, your sales and marketing teams would have the time and resources to thoroughly explore each lead's needs, create custom-tailored solutions, send over-the-top proposals, and follow up at the right moment. Unfortunately, that world isn't ours.
Sales tracking is monitoring activities and statistics related to your sales funnel. The key goal of sales tracking is to understand how well your team, processes, and technology are meeting your revenue and customer acquisition goals.
Pipedrive's sales tracking template allows you to keep track of important key performance indicators, including:
- Customer follow-up calls and emails
- Open deals
- Scheduled follow-ups
- Win rate
- Closed deals
- Qualified leads
It doesn't matter if you only have a few leads or are working on really big deals - managing your sales pipeline is inevitable. A well-managed sales pipeline will ensure your salespeople spend their time and resources efficiently.
Sales Reporting Template
Sales reporting is not as thrilling as other sales processes, such as prospecting or closing deals. However, it's still a must-do activity for your sales team. Sales reporting helps to evaluate performance, identify potential issues and improve future performance.
The sales reporting template collects and organizes data such as:
- Contact names
- Deal size
- Current sales stage in your pipeline
- Estimated closing date
- What steps to follow after an activity
Pipedrive's Sales Reporting Template takes your sales team's progress and breaks it down into quarters to help you easily track their work. The template offers weekly and monthly reports that highlight won and lost deals. It also provides live updates from one dashboard so you can always stay on top of your team's performance.
Sales Pipeline Template
Pipedrive's sales pipeline template is a nice addition to your collection. It enables your sales team to keep track of:
- Contacts
- Their current stage in your pipeline
- The sales team member assigned to them
- The expected maturity and closure of the deal
All the information is on a dashboard to paint a detailed overview of your sales efforts. Sales pipelines are a visual, measurable representation of your sales process. They take what could be an extremely complicated and fragmented set of tasks and break them down into easily digestible chunks that sales reps can reference at any time.
Pipelines also help teams understand their strengths and weaknesses and uncover opportunities for improvement. A sales team with a fully functioning pipeline will have the ability to measure conversion rates from one stage in the pipeline to another, so they know where friction exists or where processes can be streamlined further.
Sales Forecasting Template
Sales forecasting is the process of predicting future sales volumes and revenue with high certainty. It enables your sales team to make better business decisions by providing insights about potential challenges that may arise from changes in market conditions.
Pipedrive's sales forecasting template is a spreadsheet with detailed information about:
- Weighted forecasts
- Next steps to close the deal
- Probability of closing the deal
Instead of working with a gut feeling or general sense of what your sales reps are accomplishing, accurate sales forecasting puts real numbers behind those estimates.
Excel Sales Dashboard Templates
18 minutes. That's the average time a professional employee takes manually locating a document.
A sales KPI dashboard visualises key performance indicators your company uses to track, measure, and analyze sales performance. These dashboards provide an at-a-glance view of the most important data points.
Pipedrive's sales dashboard template provides useful information such as:
- The total sales revenue
- The total number of deals
- Deals closing in the current period (month)
- A graphical overview of your bookings trajectory
A well-designed dashboard makes it easy to analyze data, spot trends, and act on your learning. It's a single source of information - preferably visual - that can be easily accessed and understood by anyone in your organization who needs it.
Sales Calculator
A sales calculator software allows you to input certain variables into an equation. The software does the math and gives the final result.
Pipedrive's calculator helps you figure out key sales metrics. All you have to do is provide the variables, including:
- Anticipated income
- Commission rate
- Deal value
- The total time it takes to close a deal (in weeks)
The final result gives you the number of actions you need to take in order to close the deal.
How to Create Pipedrive Templates
Pipedrive offers 18 workflow automation templates. It also offers users the ability to modify these workflow templates to fit specific activities, for instance:
- Send email follow-ups to new prospects
- Move deals to the next stage
- Add new products
- Create new deals
To create activity workflow automation templates in Pipedrive:
- Create your Pipedrive account (or log in if you have one)
- Click on the three dots "..." (more) located at the bottom of the left panel
- Select Workflow automation
- Click Templates
Workflow automation templates are easy to put to use. When adding a new person or lead to your sales pipeline, you may need to create a new email to introduce yourself or thank them for choosing to do business with them. Simply compose a new email. Under the subject line, you will see an option to select an already-made email template and the amount of time saved by using the template.
You can access and edit all your Pipedrive templates on the workflow automation page.
Automaly Experts Can Help You Set Up Your Pipedrive Workflow Templates
Automaly is a certified Pipedrive partner helping companies grow by automating their business processes. Automaly's business growth professionals work with your sales team to identify your most pressing pain points and implement the right software integrations to help your company streamline its operations.
If you need to scale your team, we provide full training and support because we're committed to helping you reach your goals.
Not sure how to edit Pipedrive workflow templates to suit your business needs? Book a consultation with us today! Our experts will recommend the right Pipedrive workflow templates most suitable for your business and adjust them to fully match your needs.
Conclusion
Workflow templates are a key aspect of workflow management. They define the standard flow of a process from start to finish. The workflow template can be easily adjusted if a process or project changes.
A workflow template can also guide your teams, helping new members understand how a process works, their roles, and their expectations.
For more information about Pipedrive workflow templates, don't hesitate to contact our CRM and automation consultants today!
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