Advanced HubSpot Automation Tips

Introduction

Picture this. You've just asked a customer to repeat the same information they gave sales because the notes weren’t updated or your team works in a different tool, even though you already have a source of truth for customer data used by customer facing teams: your CRM.

There are many uncomfortable or tedious onboarding situations like this that can be easily avoided using powerful features already built into your HubSpot CRM.

Each week, we share new 2-minute HubSpot tips to show you how.

TIP #1: How to Improve AE <> CSM Handoffs with Workflows in HubSpot CRM

What You’ll Learn

In this tip we show you how to use HubSpot workflows to remove the manual work of AE <> CSM handoffs and add validation to make sure all relevant customer information is documented.

By the end of this tip you’ll have a workflow that creates a new deal in an onboarding pipeline when a customer is “closed won”, a mutual action plan is attached and everyone involved has been notified of their next steps.

HubSpot Features Used

Workflows | Deal Pipelines | Tasks | Automated Emails

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TIP #2: How to Segment Sales Assisted Customers with HubSpot

What You’ll Learn

In this quick tip we show you how to use HubSpot company data to automatically personalize the sales experience for companies with more than a set number of employees.

By the end of this guide you’ll have a workflow that segments new customers based on your HubSpot data and strategically introduces a human to help customers get the value they signed up for.

HubSpot Features Used

Forms | Deal Pipelines | Workflows | Tasks

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TIP #3: How to Personalize Onboarding By Persona with HubSpot Workflows

What You’ll Learn

In this quick tip we show you how to use required fields in deal pipelines to capture customer outcomes from sales discovery and use them to personalize the customer experience. By the end of this guide you’ll have a system for ensuring CRM hygiene and a playbook for personalizing your onboarding plan to customers goals.

We’ll show how to:

1. Explicitly document the customers desired outcomes in a shared place.
2. Frame everything in the context of the desired outcomes the customer defined.
3. Revisit and update the roadmap for reaching those outcomes in every interaction.

HubSpot Features Used

Deal Pipelines | Workflows

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TIP #4: How to Use HubSpot Task Queues To Drive Your Customer Onboarding Process

What You’ll Learn

In this tip we’ll create a workflow to simplify your onboarding team’s follow up tasks and hold customer’s accountable using dynamic HubSpot data.

By the end of this tip you’ll have a workflow that creates tasks in a HubSpot task queue when deals in our onboarding pipeline meet engagement criteria.

The HubSpot community post for creating a workflow to set “Today’s Date”

HubSpot Features Used

Task Queues | Calculated Properties | Workflows

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TIP #5: How to Get Visibility Into Onboarding Activity with HubSpot Custom Reports

What You’ll Learn

In this tip we show you how to use HubSpot Custom Reports to get insight into your customers progress through onboarding and your onboarding team’s engagement to help them be successful.

By the end of this tip you’ll have a dashboard with 2 HubSpot Custom Reports to give you visibility into onboarding engagement and workflows to keep your data in sync.

The HubSpot community post for creating a workflow to set “Today’s Date”

HubSpot Features Used

Custom Reports | Calculated Properties | Workflows

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TIP #6: How to Create a Today's Date Property in HubSpot

What You’ll Learn

In this tip we’ll cover 2 quick tips to level up your reporting and workflows in HubSpot.

1. Create a HubSpot workflow that dynamically sets “Today’s Date” on a record to use in workflows and reporting.
2. A HubSpot calculated property for “Days since X” that can dynamically update the time between any date property and our newly created “Today’s Date” property.

The HubSpot community post for creating a workflow to set “Today’s Date”

HubSpot Features Used

Calculated Properties | Workflows

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TIP #7: How to Manage Internal Onboarding Tasks With HubSpot

What You’ll Learn

In this tip we’ll create a workflow based on your customer-facing onboarding plan that drives the automated creation of internal tasks for your team. We’ll cover how to create and assign tasks based on relative dates as well as customer activity and task status.

By the end of this tip you’ll have a workflow that creates tasks in a HubSpot task queue to streamline your internal teams workflow.

A workaround for running scheduled workflows if you are not using HubSpot Operations Pro.

HubSpot Features Used

Task Queues | Calculated Properties | Workflows

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TIP #8: How to Pull Product Usage Data into HubSpot

What You’ll Learn

In this tip I’ll show you how we pull customer usage data from our product into HubSpot CRM to power and report on our sales-assist and high-touch success motions with customers.

You’ll see: 1. How we use Hightouch to query our Postgres database 2. How usage data is synced across objects in HubSpot 3. Example use cases for using product data in your success motion

Your CRM has more advantages for running a customer-centric success motion than you might think.

HubSpot Features Used

Workflows

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TIP #9: How To Build Customer Momentum In Onboarding

What You’ll Learn

In this quick tip we show you one of our favorite ways to use HubSpot + Arrows to build momentum and drive the onboarding plan forward with customers. By the end of this guide you’ll have a great workflow for keeping customers in flow and moving foward.

You’ll also avoid 2 common behaviors we see that kill momentum during onboarding:

1. Laying out the plan for your customers by sending an email with a laundry list of tasks. → They quickly get overwhelmed and have to jump back and forth between completing tasks and their inbox.
2. Sending customers to a siloed experience to complete a task → This might be filling in a form, booking a meeting, or any number of other actions but there is no way to get in “flow” once they complete the task they’re stuck waiting for you to tell them what’s next.

We’ll show how to:

1. Use a snippet for introducing the next task in email
2. Use an Arrows action plan plan to keep customers in flow
3. Create a workflow for keeping your team in the loop on progress in Slack

HubSpot Features Used

Deal Pipelines | Workflows | Email Templates

TIP #10: Our top 5 HubSpot workflows for onboarding and customer success

What You’ll Learn

In this tip we have 5 HubSpot workflow automations you should steal today!

1. Automating progress through deal or ticket stages
2. Updating customer data between objects (and internal teams)
3. Automating internal notifications and customer communications
4. Kicking off internal playbooks using customer data
5. Streamlining sales - onboarding & CS handoffs

HubSpot Features Used

Workflows

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TIP #11: How to Organize HubSpot Deal Pipelines by Lifecycle Stage

What You’ll Learn

In this video we’ll show you how to separate the phases of the customer journey into distinct deal pipelines in HubSpot.

Having a separate pipeline for each stage means means:

1/ You have control over the stages and content in your pipeline.

2/ You have timestamped data about pipeline movements to report on performance.

3/ You don’t disrupt the sales team and their pipeline reporting with additional stages.

4/ There is clear ownership over who is responsible for the customers experience.

5/ You can display information specific to each lifecycle stage on the deal card.

HubSpot Features Used

Deal Pipelines | Deal Card | Properties

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TIP #12: How to run customer onboarding in HubSpot with Service Hub Starter

What You’ll Learn

In this video we outline a 3 step playbook for running effective customer onboarding in HubSpot with Service Hub Starter.

1. Create a clear path to “onboarded” with a ticket pipeline
2. Build a reporting dashboard to track performance
3. Attach a customer facing onboarding plan

HubSpot Features Used

Tickets | Reports