{"id":1268,"date":"2018-11-16T17:19:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T22:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog2wrkdev.wpenginepowered.com\/workbot-business-development\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T06:46:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T10:46:32","slug":"workbot-business-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/workbot-business-development\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Slackbot Can Make Your Lead Tracking Process More Transparent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the best things about Workato is our strong partner ecosystem. We&#8217;re privileged to partner with some incredible consultancies and SaaS companies who share our vision of enabling people to work smarter, not harder.<\/p>\n<p>As the Director of Business Development, I know firsthand how much hard work it takes to maintain and grow this thriving ecosystem. In my experience, one of the trickiest aspects is tracking the leads that partners refer. For the business development and sales teams, keeping tabs on these leads is crucial to many of our goals and responsibilities, like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Fulfilling our contractual obligation.\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;\">It\u2019s important to recognize the lead\u2019s source for the purpose of referral bonus, reseller engagement, and partner performance metrics.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Reducing customer acquisition cost. <\/b>There are multiple customer entry points into the marketing and sales funnels. Deal registration helps unify the multi-threaded engagements and reduce sales effort and data duplicates.<\/li>\n<li><b>Maintaining data integrity in our CRM. <\/b>Logging leads helps ensure that the partner\u2019s transfer of data is accurate and appropriately tagged in our CRM for reporting purposes.<\/li>\n<li><b>Operationalizing across the appropriate team. <\/b>Assigning leads effectively to the appropriate sales and support resources.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Initially, we relied on our AEs to collect partner lead information and add them to Salesforce. But that\u2019s a lot of extra manual work\u2014something sales reps say <a href=\"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/sales-activity-intelligent-automation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">they\u2019ve already got enough of<\/a>. Ultimately, it slowed down the sales cycle. Some leads weren\u2019t logged at all because AEs were too busy with other tasks. And if it doesn\u2019t exist in Salesforce, it basically doesn\u2019t exist!<\/p>\n<p>Improving this lead tracking process was the first project I took on at Workato. I thought: since so many of our customers use our intelligent automation platform to streamline processes, why can\u2019t we use it to better track leads? With a few automation recipes\u2014and a little help from a bot\u2014we were able to make the process faster, simpler, and more efficient. Here\u2019s how it works.<\/p>\n<h2>Monitoring Partner Submissions<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8266 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/the-connector\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/deal-1-e1542217846747.png\" alt=\"Workbot saves our BD and sales team 30 minutes of work per lead.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"636\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Currently, our partners submit leads to us via a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/integrations\/google-sheets?utm_source=blog\">Google Form<\/a>. Once the form has been filled out, the Workato platform takes the information and pushes it into Salesforce as a new lead. At the same time, Workato creates a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/integrations\/freshdesk?utm_source=blog\">FreshDesk<\/a> ticket to let the partner know their lead has been received.<\/p>\n<p>(Like any Workato workflow, however, this process can be configured to suit your unique needs. If you use a partner relationship management (PRM) platform, for example, the recipe may be configured to trigger when a new lead is submitted in the PRM or received in the CRM, rather than a Google Form!)<\/p>\n<h2>Automatically Notifying AEs via Workbot for Slack<\/h2>\n<p>Then it\u2019s time to let our sales and business development teams know about the new lead. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.workbot.com\/?utm_source=blog\">Workbot<\/a>\u2014a Slackbot we created to help you get work done in other apps directly from Slack\u2014sends a notification to a dedicated Slack channel.<\/p>\n<p>This notification has all of the most important information about the lead, like which partner submitted it, what type of Workato plan the lead is interested in, and any background information that the partner has collected on the lead. The notification also has links to the lead in Salesforce and the corresponding FreshDesk ticket sent to the partner.<\/p>\n<h2>Approving, Rejecting, and Assigning the Lead Without Leaving Slack<\/h2>\n<p>Qualifying a partner lead is just as important as it is for any other type of lead; it helps our reps spend their time wisely. With this information at their fingertips, our business development (BD) team can easily see whether a lead is qualified.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8268 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/the-connector\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/deal-copy-e1542217983834.png\" alt=\"Workbot saves our BD and sales team 30 minutes of work per lead.\" width=\"1200\" height=\"669\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once they\u2019ve determined whether a lead is qualified, however, they still have to change it from a \u201clead\u201d to a \u201ccontact\u201d in Salesforce. To make this step simpler, the Slack notification includes two buttons: \u201cApprove\u201d and \u201cReject.\u201d If the BD team approves the lead, Workato will automatically convert it to a Salesforce contact. If the lead is rejected, Workato will notify the partner via FreshDesk.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8275\" src=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/the-connector\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Lead-registration-request-2-e1542309354606.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"639\" \/><\/p>\n<p>At the same time as they approve the lead, the BD team can also assign it to a specific account executive (AE) on the sales team. Many of our AEs specialize in particular markets, regions, or industry domains, so this allows us to easily assign partner leads to the AE that aligns best with lead.<\/p>\n<p>Once the lead is assigned and approved, it will appear as a Salesforce opportunity in that AE\u2019s pipeline. And Workbot will send another notification to the Slack channel with confirmation of the lead\u2019s approval\/assignment and a link to the new Salesforce opportunity.<\/p>\n<p><em>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog2workato.wpengine.com\/lead-routing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">How to automate lead routing<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Saving Time, Closing Deals, and Strengthening Partner Relationships<\/h2>\n<p>This workflow has been life-changing for our sales and business development teams.<\/p>\n<p>They can log, qualify, and assign partner leads in less than two minutes from the time the partner\u2019s submission comes in. In fact, our AEs save an average of 30 minutes per lead. That\u2019s 30 minutes they can spend on meaningful activities\u2014like conversations with prospects\u2014rather than administrative work! And the entire Slackbot experience is mobile-friendly, so the team can approve and assign leads on-the-go.<\/p>\n<p>Because the workflow requires approval before a lead is converted into a Salesforce, opportunity, de-duping is also a breeze. This means our team has cleaner data to work with.<\/p>\n<p>This workflow also positively impacts our relationships with our partners. The lead referral process is smoother and more straightforward\u2014overall, a more pleasant experience for the partner. Because it\u2019s more enjoyable, they\u2019re more likely to engage with us often and refer more leads, which is the foundation of a healthy, lasting partner relationship.<\/p>\n<p>Most importantly, this workflow helps us accelerate the sales cycle. Because it ties us together with our partners via FreshDesk, we can ensure that they get the resources they need in a timely manner and vice-versa. This directly increases the conversion rate of partner deals\u2014and how quickly they can do it!<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Ready to automate your partner program?<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-button aligncenter\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-vivid-green-cyan-background-color has-background\" href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/users\/request_demo\/?utm_source=blog\">See a Demo<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Want to work with Workato?&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.workato.com\/partners\">Join our partner ecosystem &gt;<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the best things about Workato is our strong partner ecosystem. We&#8217;re privileged to partner with some incredible consultancies and SaaS companies who share our vision of enabling people to work smarter, not harder. As the Director of Business Development, I know firsthand how much hard work it takes to maintain and grow this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":11931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-automation-integration"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How a Slackbot Can Make Your Lead Tracking Process More Transparent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"With a few automation recipes \u2014 and a Slackbot \u2014 we were able to make the partner lead tracking process faster, simpler, and more efficient.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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