Six rules of efficient communication automation for client-facing teams

Unlike marketing email automation, when emails are usually sent from a generic email address on behalf of the company, automated emails for client-facing teams are sent on behalf of the team members. It comes in handy when the book of business is significant, and emailing each client will take more time than really working with them.

Automated communication helps contact clients at scale, save time on manual tasks, minimize the risk of human errors, and create a unified communication strategy with consistent messaging and correct timing. At the same time, there are some potential risks, for example, overlapping of manual and automated outreaches, limited personalization options, and less control over the team workload. While it’s possible to automate some general campaigns like an introduction to the clients, invitations to quarterly review calls or sending promo campaigns, and some manual work is still required (sending follow-up emails after the call, answering clients’ questions, or working with open opportunities).

Despite all risks, the automated communication processes can drastically improve the results of the client-facing teams and become a game-changer in team performance. Let’s look at the six rules that can help you build efficient processes.

Rule #1: Scalability

Once an initial process setup is complete, it should be easy to scale it for new target groups, campaigns, and team members. For example, when a new team member joins a team, it should take minimum time to add them to email communication flows so that they start building relationships with clients from day 1. Adding a new campaign or email template shouldn’t require a complete process rebuilding and can be performed in a reasonable time frame.

The only thing that may require additional attention and effort are campaigns that are localized to other languages but still, they should fit into the general process scheme and follow pre-defined communication rules.

Rule #2: Flexibility and personalization

“One size fits all” often doesn’t work for client-facing teams, as different campaigns require different approaches.

The most common areas where adjustments are needed include:
- Target groups according to the business needs, client’s lifecycle stage, ongoing communication with sales or customer success managers, etc.
- The frequency of email blasts which depends on the team’s workload and availability
- The timing of the campaign based on the client behavior
- Messaging and offers based on the campaign goals and client clusters

Most email communication tools allow achieving messaging personalization by using tokens, merge fields, and dynamic content. Target group adjustments can be made by setting up the set of filters in the CRM system. Correct timing may be achieved by launching triggered email flows that get launched when a client reaches a lifetime threshold or performs a particular action.

Rule #3: Transparency

Regardless of the process’s complexity, the system should be easy to understand for team members and stakeholders. Processes and communication rules need to be documented, clearly defined in a simple short way, and easily accessible to the team and stakeholders.

The email automation documentation can include the following:

• Glossary — a collection of main terms used in the process as different automation tools may use different terms for the same features (e.g., email flows, email sequences, email tracks, email campaigns, etc.)
• Playbook — a set of rules and best practices on how to use tools and follow processes
• Communication plan — a schedule of all emails campaigns and other communication outreaches for a certain period so the team can understand the following steps and plan their actions accordingly
• Communication scheme — a diagram of triggered flows (onboarding, quarterly reviews, feedback, surveys, etc.)

Rule #4: Buy-in from the team

After processes are appropriately documented, it’s essential to ensure that all team members understand the basics of how automation tools work and know the game’s rules. It may require additional workshops, recorded tutorials, or personal training.

Since emails are sent on their behalf, team members should be aware of risks and errors and be convinced that the value of automated processes exceeds the risks.

Also, since errors may occur even in the most thought-out processes and the best campaigns, the team needs clear guidelines for most typical automation fails (like overlapping of automated and manual reach out, wrong contact person, etc.)

Another important area for collaboration with the team is collecting feedback. Working with clients, they often can provide tips and ideas on new campaigns and quickly report if something goes wrong. It’s vital to create a feedback channel for the team, process the information promptly, and keep the group updated with the results.

Rule #5: Tracking system

One of the benefits of using email automation platforms is that most have built-in tracking for main metrics like open, click, and reply rates. It helps to analyze email performance and optimize future campaigns. Though these metrics are great for measuring the effectiveness of marketing emails, often, the end goal of an email campaign for a client-facing team is to get the client on the call rather than make sure that the client reads the email.

It may be helpful to create different sets of metrics for different campaigns: while open and click rates will be used for educational campaigns, reply and meetings booked rates are essential for account manager’s intros, quarterly reviews, and promo campaigns.

Rule #6: Regular maintenance and optimization

As the business grows, team goals may change, and the processes should be updated. Such modifications may vary from minor messaging updates to significant target group changes.

To keep systems functional, it’s vital to run regular clean-ups: old campaigns should be removed, relevant documentation processes updated, and campaign results collected and presented to the team.

Once in a while, it’s important to run a complete check-up of all processes to see if they still align with collected feedback from the team, the industry’s best practices, and company goals.

Following these six rules lays a foundation for an effective automation system, which is easy to maintain and scale and that can bring significant improvement to the client-facing team’s productivity with minimal costs.