10 Ways to Automate Salesforce with Zapier to Improve Your Business Operations, Fast

Salesforce is easily one of the most popular CRMs available today. It is used by thousands of companies that are looking for a better way to streamline their operations, including their customer relationship management. Of course, for all that it does on its own, Salesforce is even more powerful when you add it to the automation machine that is Zapier. 

Haven’t heard of Zapier yet? This is the tool every business needs. Its entire purpose is to automate other apps and software tools to make your job easier. 

What’s better than that? We’ll tell you. For starters, how about the fact that Zapier can work with more than 3,000 different apps and tools, and that list is growing by the day? Yeah, we’re pretty impressed, too. We’ve worked hard to get our team integrated with Zapier, both for our own operations and for all of the clients we provide virtual receptionist solutions for. 

Zapier can do so much, and it starts by making it so easy because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of pre-built actions and triggers that you just have to put into place and let do the busywork so that you can get back to the business at hand. 

With the power of Zapier and Salesforce, you can do so much for your business. Salesforce offers highlights like:

• Collaborative Forecasting Tools
• Automated Workflows 
• Contact Management
• Opportunity Management
• Mobile Access
• Pipelines and Activity Management
• Customer Cloud and Marketing Cloud 
• Customer Engagement Tools

If you’ve been looking for a better way to manage your sales pipeline and customer database, this could be the tool for you. 

Salesforce also comes in several iterations and versions, including everything from small business platforms to enterprise-level custom solutions. You can find Salesforce versions and tools specifically for:

• Small Business
• Financial Services
• Healthcare/Life Sciences
• Communications
• Consumer Goods
• Nonprofit/Charitable Organizations
• Manufacturing
• Utilities
• Automotive
• Education
• And more!

With Salesforce, any business can create the perfect CRM solution. Plus, the company has reps available to help people choose the right Salesforce platform and iteration for their needs, making it easy for you to trust that you’re getting the best solution. Smith.ai offers integration with Salesforce so that when you partner with us, we can keep everything organized and make sure that information is input accordingly, no matter which version you’re using. 

What should I automate?

Of course, the next question that a lot of people have is what they should be automating. Some tasks are better suited for automation than others, after all, and you can’t just throw everything into autopilot and walk away. 

There are a lot of areas where you can make improvements with automation. The areas of focus may vary depending on the industry that you’re in or your day-to-day needs, but you’ll quickly start to see all the things that you can automate if you’re paying attention. Think about what you do between Salesforce and the other apps that you use. How many times are you transferring leads or contacts? How many people do you have working between systems to make sure Salesforce stays synced with your other tools?

If you automate, you can implement dozens of workflows that will make Salesforce work for you, no matter what type of needs you have. You’ll be able to sit back and watch operations improve through automation or get back to focusing on other areas of your business that need your attention while Zapier is taking care of the rest. 

Here are a few areas that could stand to be automated:

• Lead generation and intake
• Contact transfers
• Database information sharing
• File transfers
• Administrative tasks
• Notifications 
• Invoicing, billing, and accounting
• HR, onboarding, training, and employee self-service

Of course, you’ll find plenty of ways to get things done faster and easier when you choose to use Salesforce and Zapier for your CRM platform management, launching you into looking for other ways that you can automate to improve your business operations. 

(While you’re at it, ask how our virtual receptionists can help improve your business operations with a host of mission-critical solutions for live chat, call answering, lead intake and sales development, and more.)

1. Add leads from Facebook Lead Ads to Salesforce    

If you’re using Facebook Lead Ads, you are going to love this automation. Staying on top of your marketing campaigns can sometimes take a little extra work, but not anymore. With this workflow, you can easily set it up so that anytime you get a lead on Facebook, it’s sent to your Salesforce database. You can have it added to a specific list or section, and more. You can even set it up so that they get a dedicated Facebook leads section, keeping your lead gen organized without having to do the work yourself. 

2. Generate Slack notifications for new Salesforce leads and opportunities    

Slack is a great collaborative messaging tool. It helps remote teams stay in touch, and it’s also used by several in-house teams for communication. You can keep everyone on the team in the loop by using this workflow to notify them when leads come in. Simply set it up so that when a new lead or opportunity is populated in Salesforce, it generates a Slack notification for a specific user, a channel, or even a group of users. Then, you can delegate the tasks and set people to work, and no one has to sit around waiting for leads to come in. 

3. Add Typeform submissions as leads in Salesforce    

If you’re trying to streamline lead generation, this Zap will do the trick. In Salesforce, you can easily generate sets of leads, lists, and contact entries for the leads that you collect along the way. Of course, this integration will do the work for you, collecting your Typeform entries and then turning them into leads so that your team knows where to follow them next. You can even add another automation to notify anyone when a Typeform lead is entered in Salesforce, making it even easier to keep up. 

4. Create leads in Salesforce from ActiveCampaign contacts    

ActiveCampaign makes managing your marketing campaigns simple. Whenever you update your ActiveCampaign contacts, you no longer have to go through the work of updating all of your systems. Salesforce and Zapier make it easy to streamline everything with this workflow for contact management. Just set up the automation and then watch as each time a contact is created or modified in ActiveCampaign, Zapier turns it into a lead in Salesforce. You can even go on to customize the automation further or just use it as is. 

5. Save Salesforce events to your Google Calendar    

If you’re using Google Calendar to manage your business, you’ll love all the ways that Zapier can help. Keeping track of events, client calls, and other appointments can be tricky and while Salesforce has its own events calendar and schedule tools, some people just like having everything in Google. Use this integration so that anytime an event is created in Salesforce, it is turned into a Google Calendar event. You can even set it up to share with specific people or the entire group and add other customizations if you desire. 

6. Create Salesforce leads from emails in Gmail    

Gmail is one of the most commonly used email tools today. There are even several businesses that rely on Gmail and the entire Google Workspace suite of tools. Integrations with Zapier, of course, are plentiful. In this particular workflow, you’ll be able to select all of the Gmail emails or campaigns that you want to target and then create a Zap to turn every email into a lead in your Salesforce platform. It’s less data transfer for your team and it ensures that the information is transferred without errors, saving you time and reducing hassles. 

7. Create custom objects in Salesforce from Google Sheets rows     

Google Sheets is a great way to track your business data and keep things organized. It is one of the most commonly used tools today and its convenient sharing and editing access features make it a popular choice for those who want something easy for their remote team collaboration and more. This workflow allows you to set up a trigger so that anytime you populate a Google Sheet row, that row will be turned into the custom object of your choosing in Salesforce: a contact, a task, etc. 

8. Add new contacts to Salesforce from Shopify customers   

If you’re an eCommerce business, these automations are right up your alley. Not only can you use Zapier to streamline your use of Salesforce, but you can add in your Shopify platform and automate it, too. This automation makes it easy for you to simply add your new customers from Shopify to your Salesforce database. Just implement the workflow and anytime a new customer leaves their information in Shopify, they’ll be added to Salesforce as a contact. 

9. Add Salesforce tasks to your Asana to-do list     

Asana is a great project management tool that is going to change the way that you do business. You will find all kinds of integrations and workflows between Salesforce and Asana with Zapier, as well as thousands of options with other apps and tools. With this particular workflow, you’ll be able to put all of your lead generation and other Salesforce tasks into Asana, without even having to make the lists yourself. Simply set up this integration and when you add tasks to Salesforce, they’ll populate in Asana. 

10. Create Trello cards from new Salesforce tasks    

With this automation, you can keep everyone in the loop about what needs to be done. Remote teams use Trello for all kinds of project management and collaboration and it’s a great way to organize your Salesforce to-do list, including lead generation and other tasks that require your attention. Instead of having to do the work yourself, simply integrate this automation and let Zapier automatically turn your tasks into Trello cards so your team can keep moving. 

Find more automation perks when you partner with Smith.ai 

We love automation. We also love being part of the reason that your business is running better and working smarter, not harder. When you hire our virtual receptionists, we can act as the face of your company for everything you need, from fielding after-hours calls to live website chat and so much more. We’ll even work with you to come up with the best strategy for fielding those needs, regardless of what you have in mind. 

We love Zapier because it allows everyone and anyone to create smart workflows in minutes to connect their business software programs. It’s also due to Zapier that we’re capable of integrating with more than 3,000 apps and tools to ensure every chat, call, and text is logged in your business software, from your CRM to marketing tools, and more. 

Check out our apps to explore how we connect to Zapier! Learn more about Smith.ai’s Answering Service app on Zapier, and explore Smith.ai’s Website Chat app on Zapier.

Schedule a consultation to discuss how our virtual receptionists can help you stay connected to your customers with 24/7 live chat, scheduling and intake, after-hours answering, and more. You can also reach us at hello@smith.ai or (650) 727-6484.