Workflows

Drip campaigns have always been a powerhouse for sales teams, providing a structured approach to managing leads and contacts. However, as businesses evolve, so do their needs for automation and efficiency. Workflows in Close take your automation capabilities to the next level.

Workflows can help reduce the manual effort required to manage your leads. Whether you're a tech-savvy user using an automation tool such as Zapier or you rely on bulk enrollment processes, Workflows are here to streamline your workflow and ensure contacts are subscribed precisely when they should be. 

Understanding Workflows 

Workflows contain a series of steps that can assign a Lead to a user or group of users to handle outbound communication, update a Lead Status, send or organize outreach attempts to a Contact (via email, SMS, or calls), and create follow-up tasks to complete before moving onto the next Workflow step.

The Workflow will run until either all of the steps are complete, a Meeting is booked, the lead status has been updated, or the contact responds to a communication step (email, call, SMS) in one of the following ways:

• The contact sends or replies to any email from a Connected Account in Close (this includes, but isn't limited to, replying to an email in the Workflow).

  • This can be an incoming email in the same thread, regardless of the sender.

  • Incoming email from an enrolled contact, including new email threads, can also pause a Workflow.

• Incoming SMS: The contact sends an SMS response to the SMS step.

• Incoming call: The contact answers a phone call, and the user marks the Workflow as complete.

• Meeting booked: A meeting is booked with the enrolled contact (requires your calendar to be synced with Close).

• Lead Status change: The Lead Status on the Lead changes to the selected Lead Status(es).

Workflows can be customized further with Workflow Goals, which can change whether incoming communication from a lead via email, SMS, and calls should pause an active subscription, along with a meeting booked on a synced calendar and a lead status change. This means Workflows can be edited so that, for example, responses from an SMS step will not automatically pause the subscription. Workflows can be resumed for individual contacts from the lead page.

You can use Workflows to automate communication steps to your leads, automatically assign leads to users to manage during the sales cycle, and create follow-up tasks - such as reminding users to send a contract, or send them a message on LinkedIn. An example Workflow can look like the below: 

Creating a Workflow

You can create a Workflow or manage an existing Workflow by clicking Workflows on the left-hand sidebar of Close.

Every Workflow needs a name, at least one step, and a communication schedule. Workflow steps can be any, or all, of the following steps:

• Email

• Phone call

• SMS

• Task assignment

• Lead assignment

• Lead Status assignment

Steps can be delayed between 1 minute and 365 days apart.  Contacts that are subscribed to a Workflow will go through each step until they are paused or removed.

Setting a Workflow Conversion Goal

By default, Workflows will send each step until a response is received on a communication step (email, call, SMS, or meeting booked). In order for a Workflow to pause from a booked meeting, your calendar must be synced with Close.

These responses will mark the Workflow as Goal Met for that Contact, and that Workflow will be considered complete.

This can be adjusted so that certain incoming communications do not automatically mark the Workflow as complete. For example, if the Workflow should proceed even if an email response is received, toggle off the Incoming email option.

In addition to incoming communication steps (email, call, SMS, or meeting booked), Workflows can be paused when there is a Lead Status change. When enabled, the Workflow will be paused and the goal will be met when the enrolled Lead changes to the Lead Status(es) selected.

Workflow Conversion Goals can be adjusted for each Workflow so that certain incoming communications do not automatically mark the Workflow as complete.

You can also mark the Workflow with Goal Met status and complete it by logging a call manually and clicking on the Mark as Responded:

You can pause the workflow subscription at any time; however, the Workflow will be marked with Paused status and will not count towards the Goal Met percentage on the Workflows page.

Workflow Triggers

Workflows can be automatically triggered to start if filter criteria are met. For example, you can create a Workflow that targets leads with a specific Lead Status and Custom Field value, and leads matching that criteria will be enrolled.   

This means your qualifying leads can be assigned to Lead Owners within your organization and automatically receive communication steps, reducing your team's manual work and allowing them to nurture leads to close more deals.

Leads that already match the specified criteria will be not be enrolled into the Workflow. Triggers will begin evaluating once the Workflow is saved and active, and does not impact leads that already match the triggers. Only leads that move from "not matching" to "matching" the specified criteria will trigger the Workflow.

When a lead is triggered in a Workflow, the primary contact on the lead will be enrolled.

For automatically triggered Workflows, the “enrolling user” of the Workflow is the user that created the Workflow. For teams that want triggered Workflows to send from various team members, consider using Workflow sender customizations - read about this below.

Disable Manual Enrollment

Once you have set up an automated trigger you can toggle off the ability to enroll Contacts in a Workflow manually.

Automate Workflow Senders

You can automate the sender of each step in a Workflow. By customizing the sender, you can create dynamic and automated Workflows without manual enrollment or complex external setups, leaving more room for following up with your Leads and driving engagement.  

By default, all communication steps within a Workflow will be set to send from the User who creates the Workflow subscription. However, we understand that different scenarios may call for different senders - that's why we've introduced the flexibility to adjust the sender on a step-by-step basis.

To start, toggle on the Automated Workflows option under Settings > Send As. This gives other users the option to send Workflow steps as you: 

To see which Users have enabled this option, head to Settings > Team Management and look under the Send As column to the right: 

Then head to your Workflows and edit an existing Workflow or create a new one. Admins and Super Users have access to Advanced Settings, which gives the option to select which User from which each Workflow step is sent. 

Each user must enable automated Workflows before a Workflow can send as them.

If a user does not have automated Workflow sending enabled, the Workflow will fail with an “Automation Run-As enabled” error. Once enabled, the Workflow will work as expected.

Using the Advanced Settings, you can choose to send communication steps from a specific user mentioned in a User-type Custom Field. For example, if you utilize a Lead Owner Custom Field, then each communication step will send from the user listed as the Lead Owner for each particular Lead - regardless of who enrolled the Leads into the Workflow in the first place.

You also have the ability to set a static User as the sender for specific Workflow steps. This is particularly useful when you want to maintain consistency in communication or when you need specific team members, such as team leads or managers, to be the designated senders for certain steps.

This means that any super complex multi-step and multi-path Zaps can be condensed into just a single trigger and action within Close. Utilizing automated Workflow senders will significantly simplify your workflows and reduce the reliance on external tools. Stay tuned as we continue to enhance this feature and eliminate the need for third-party automation tools altogether.

Setting a Delay

Adding a delay to your Workflow can help time your outreach down to the minute.

Sending after a delay will delay the Workflow for the period of time that you select. You can delay a Workflow for 1 minute, to 365 days. Click into each step to set a delay: 

Choosing to start your Workflow without a delay means any outreach steps (SMS, emails, calls) will be sent within your sending window. The time you enroll your Contacts matters: if you enroll your Contacts outside of the communication window selected, then your Workflow will begin at the next sending window. See the next section on selecting a Communication Schedule to learn more.

Changing a step delay for enrolled contacts

If you enroll a contact with a specific delay, and then change the delay within Workflow settings - any steps that are still pending (emails that weren't sent yet or calls that haven't been made) will use the new delay.

For example, if you enroll a contact that has a pending email step with a 2 days step delay and then update it to a 1 hour step delay, the contact will receive their email within the next hour after you save those changes.

Select a Communication Schedule

Each Workflow has a customizable communication schedule and a fallback timezone option. The communication window only applies to calling, emailing, or SMS steps in your workflow.

Workflows will be sent to the Contact during the time you select, within their timezone. A schedule set to 9am - 4pm will send emails to Contacts between those times based on their timezone. Each Contact's timezone is based on their phone number or their parent Lead's address.

If a Contact's timezone cannot be determined, the communication schedule will default to the fallback timezone.

Timezones in Calling Schedules

When possible, Close will use the Contact’s timezone. The system will only use the fallback timezone if the Contact timezone cannot be determined.

The Contact’s timezone is defined by:

1. If the Contact has a single phone number, we calculate their timezone based on the country code & area code of that number.

2. If the Contact has multiple phone numbers, the system will consider all phone numbers available to determine a “middle timezone”, between all timezones available.

3. If neither exists (phone numbers or Lead addresses), the system will use the Sequence fallback timezone settings to initiate the step.

A Note on toll-free phone numbers

If the Contact only has US or Canadian toll-free phone numbers, Close will not be able to correctly define the timezone since toll-free numbers are not location-specific (i.e. they could be in any US/Canadian timezone).

Communication Window

Communication steps use “communication windows” to mimic human sending behavior. The length of your delay will determine the window, or "block", for when your next step will be performed. For example, if the first step in a Workflow is performed at 9:32 AM and there is a 1-hour delay set on the next step:

• The time for the next step will be computed as 10:32 AM (9:32 AM + 1 hour).

• This places the step into the 10:00 to 11:00 AM "block" or communication window.

• Therefore, the step will performed between 10:32 AM and 11:00 AM.

For longer delays between steps (24+ hours), the window covers the entire day according to the communication schedule. For example, if the communication schedule for a Workflow is Monday to Friday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and the first step is performed at 9:32 AM on a Monday with a 1-day delay set for the next step, the next step will be performed as follows:

• The time for the next step will be computed as Tuesday at 9:32 AM  (Monday at 9:32 AM + 24 hours).

• Since Tuesday at 9:32 AM is within the communication schedule, the "block" will be adapted.

• The next step will performed between 9:32 AM - 4:00 PM on Tuesday.

Enrolling contact outside of its sending window

If a contact is manually added or triggered to start a Workflow outside of its sending window, an email step will be sent at a random time on the first day or hour of the sending window (depending on whether the step delay is less than 24 hours or not).

For example, if you select the 9am - 4pm, Weekdays communication schedule with a 1-day delay, and add a contact to the Workflow on Saturday, the contact will receive the first email in the flow at a random time on Monday.

Calling steps

Calling steps will start at the beginning of the Sequence schedule. Selecting 9am - 4pm means Contacts will populate your To Do calling list starting at 9am of that Contact's timezone.

Weekends

Workflows always count every day (working days and weekends) when you set up a delay, but they won't send any on weekends if you have Weekdays selected as your schedule. For example, if you have Step 1 scheduled to go out on Thursday, and you have Step 2 with a 2-day delay, that 2nd step will start on Monday.