September 7, 2017
By Oren Smilansky,

Freshworks Adds Intelligent Workflows to Freshsales CRM

Freshworks, a maker of cloud-based business software, today upgraded its Freshsales CRM product with the addition of Intelligent Workflows, a feature that allows sales professionals to set up and run automated business processes from within a user-friendly interface.

"A lot of our customers were asking for more automation," says Srivatsan Venkatesan, head of product at Freshsales. Freshsales, launched in 2016, has been adopted by more than 7,000 clients since it was made available, thanks primarily to the ease with which it can be used and its ability to scale along with growing sales teams. The system includes artificial intelligence–based lead scoring, embedded phone and email options, a visual sales pipeline, and activity logging and reporting tools, with the goal of helping sellers work more efficiently and quickly, within a single system.

The more these sales teams used Freshsales, Venkatesan says, the more they wanted the ability to automate things like sending "welcome" emails when a prospect has visited their company's website for the first time, for instance.The addition of Intelligent Workflows aims to reduce the time sales reps spend completing repetitive and manual tasks, including following up on their leads with emails, or requesting invoices from existing customers.

Venkatesan said in a statement that the goal is to allow reps to "be more productive":

"With the launch of this feature, sales teams can now create seamless workflow automations for even the most complex processes in a matter of minutes. Repetitive tasks can be automated which in turn helps sales teams focus on tasks that need their attention, thereby helping them be more productive."

Intelligent Workflows operate according to user-created if-then rules. For example, if the end user creates a workflow, the system scans for specific events that he designated, including the creation of a new lead, or a change in a deal's status. If the system detects the event as a trigger, it will push a corresponding action such as sending an email, updating a record, or sending an instant notification through an outside app via webhooks. The system can also track user behavior within apps or on websites to inform customer correspondences.

Venkatesan holds that these enhancements will help companies focus on the deals that are most worthy of their attention and shorten their sales cycles. "We believe that the workflows will eventually help companies increase CRM adoption," he adds. "People typically don't like to enter data because they can be using that time to connect to their customers and build relationships."

Patrick Barnes, cofounder and CEO of Advocately, one of the product's early testers, backed up that assessment in a statement:

"By automating emails and tasks, Intelligent Workflows in Freshsales ensure all leads and deals are managed efficiently. The flow-on effect of this means absolutely no leads or deals are mismanaged, thus making the team more productive and of course, an increase in sales."

In the coming months, Freshworks will be tightening integrations between its Freshdesk and Freshsales offerings, thus allowing for more elaborate workflow use cases, Venkatesan says. In addition, Freshworks will expand the portfolio of actions users are able to automate.