Leads are undoubtedly the most important Salesforce object at the top of the funnel. However, objects like opportunities take center stage as the sales cycle progresses. The opportunity object is like a container tied to a solution that can hold multiple contacts from a buying committee in an account.
Getting opportunity routing right is important because opportunities represent deals nearing the finish line with direct revenue potential. Delays or misrouting at this sales stage can significantly impact revenue and forecasting accuracy. Further, processing opportunities manually can lead to incorrect assignments, uneven distribution, and even more delays.
However, using Salesforce Flows for opportunity routing helps companies avoid these problems.
What Is Opportunity Routing?
Opportunity routing involves assigning open opportunities to the most appropriate sales rep based on your organization’s custom criteria – think territory, deal size, industry, or product interest.
The goal of opportunity routing is to ensure every opportunity is delivered to the right person as quickly as possible, aka speed to lead, triggering follow-up actions. Plus, this increases the chances of closing the deal.
Since opportunities often span various stages like proposal, negotiation, and closed-won, opportunity routing also allows teams to prioritize deals that are close to conversion, ensuring efficient pipeline management.
Manual Routing Challenges
When opportunities are routed manually, many problems can occur:
- Delays and human error
- Inconsistent or uneven assignments
- Lack of visibility into the process
- Difficulty in handling high volume – doesn’t scale
- Disjointed communication with prospects
- Difficulty in addressing complex assignment criteria or special cases
- Dependency on key personnel to manage routing
Benefits of Automation With Salesforce Flows
Setting up opportunity routing in Salesforce Flows eliminates many of the challenges of manual routing.
- Speed and Efficiency: Opportunities will be assigned instantly based on unbiased criteria, enabling faster follow-ups.
- Accuracy and Consistency: Automation reduces the risk of human error and consistently applies the same routing logic, every time.
- Flexibility: Adjusting routing criteria and logic is straightforward, allowing companies to adapt quickly without overhauling their process.
Setting Up Opportunity Routing in Salesforce Flows
Setting up opportunity routing in Salesforce involves a few basic steps. Here’s a simplified version of the process:
1. Define Your Routing Rules
First, decide on the criteria for routing opportunities. For example, you might want to route opportunities based on sales region, deal size, product type, or lead source.
Here are some common use cases for routing rules:
- If the opportunity’s region field is “West Coast,” route it to the West Coast sales team.
- Opportunities with Product Type “Enterprise” should be routed to the Enterprise Solutions team.
- If the opportunity’s account owner is “Rep A,” assign the opportunity to “Rep A” to ensure continuity.
- If opportunity value > $100,000, route to Strategic Accounts team.
- Opportunities in the “Negotiation” stage should be routed to the Deal Desk team.
2. Create Custom Fields
Add any necessary custom fields to your opportunity object that will help with routing.
For example, if you want to assign the opportunity to a round-robin pool, you can create a custom object called Round Robin Pool. The custom object will have related child records representing the sales reps in the pool. A flow can then trigger the distribution of the opportunities to members of the round-robin pool.
3. Set Up Salesforce Flows
- In Salesforce, go to Setup, and search for Flows in the Quick Find box.
- Create a new Flow and choose Record-Triggered Flow.
- Define the conditions for triggering the Flow. For instance, you can trigger the flow when the product on an opportunity is identified as an enterprise or commercial sale. The flow can then assign the opportunity to the right sales team.
4. Define Routing Logic in the Flow
Inside the Flow, add Decision Elements. These let you set rules that determine how an opportunity is routed based on your defined criteria. Use the Assignment Element to assign the opportunity to the right sales rep or team based on your rules.
5. Test Your Flow
Before launching it for everyone, test the Flow using different types of opportunities to make sure it routes correctly. You can do this by creating test opportunities and checking if they get assigned to the right reps or teams.
6. Activate the Flow
Once the Flow works correctly in your tests, click Activate to make it live. Now, your opportunity routing will automatically happen based on the rules you set up.
Managing Complex Salesforce Flows
Opportunity routing in Salesforce Flows can be powerful, but it also comes with some challenges for dynamic B2B go-to-market plays. Some of these challenges include:
- Change Management: For organizations with large sales teams, multi-product lines, partner channels, and hundreds of territories, change is constant. Flows can become difficult to manage at the speed that the business requires changes. For example, consider the following common workplace scenarios for setting up rules for round-robin assignments:
- What if one or more reps are out of the office, either short-term e.g. a medical appointment, or longer, like a vacation?
- What if the workday for one or more of your reps has already ended?
- What if your opportunity involves one particular product or service and needs particular expertise?
- What if the contacts on the opportunity have a particular language need?
- If an organization doesn’t have a dedicated Salesforce developer on the team, updates to Flows and custom Apex coding may take longer, delaying sales cycles.
- Reporting: Salesforce Flow does not provide advanced reporting and analytics out of the box. If you need insights into how opportunities are being routed, what the success rate is, or where bottlenecks occur, it may require custom development to capture and analyze this data effectively.
How LeanData Enhances Opportunity Routing
LeanData supports opportunity routing in Salesforce through advanced, no-code automation, integrations, and auditing features that go beyond standard Salesforce capabilities.
Here’s how LeanData stands out:
- Automated Routing: LeanData uses customizable rules to automatically route opportunities based on factors like account ownership, territory, and deal type, reducing manual work and ensuring accurate assignments.
- Handling Complex Sales Processes: LeanData is designed to manage complex B2B sales, such as those involving multiple stakeholders or buying groups, by routing opportunities based on campaign engagement signals, roles, and other criteria.
- Real-Time Routing Updates: LeanData continuously updates routing based on real-time changes in opportunity or account data, ensuring opportunities are always assigned to the correct sales reps as conditions evolve.
- Enhanced Visibility and Auditing: LeanData provides detailed insights into the routing process, offering visibility into routing patterns, performance metrics, and potential bottlenecks.
- Integration with Salesforce: LeanData is a 100% Salesforce-native application, allowing for advanced routing capabilities without the need for complex Apex code.
Summary
Whether you decide to use Salesforce Flows for opportunity routing or try LeanData’s no-code solution, the ultimate goal is to improve your time to revenue.
While Salesforce Flow offers a solid foundation for automation, organizations without dedicated admins or developers may struggle to make changes quickly. Leveraging tools like LeanData can help overcome these challenges, providing greater flexibility.
