Automatically send sales emails on behalf of sales reps in Dynamics 365 Marketing
On average, a person’s short-term memory can hold up to seven items at once, and information is only retained for a few seconds. Let’s face it, it’s nearly impossible to keep track of every little task we must do throughout the day, even with the help of planners, journals, and calendars. Working in sales is no exception—and salespeople can certainly attest to this. Constant, consistent, and up to date communication with every lead, opportunity, and customer almost sounds unattainable, and many times it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks. Forgetting to follow up is something sales reps dread, and if every interaction falls on one or just a few people, the likelihood of forgetting becomes much more likely.
Luckily, automation features can help. Not only do they save time, but many actions and workflows can run on their own, in the background, with little direct action needed. With Dynamics 365 Marketing, you can easily automate email communications to customers, but did you know that you can also delegate send as permissions so others can send emails on your behalf—automatically? Sending quick reminders to check in and follow up have never been easier.
Setting up send as privileges
To get started with the “send on behalf” feature, certain privileges must be set up by a system admin to ensure both the sender and the send as user have the proper roles and permissions. The sender (i.e.—whoever is sending the message on behalf of someone else) will need to enable the “send email as another user” privilege, while the send as user (i.e.—the person who the email will appear to be sent from) will need to enable the “allow other Microsoft Dynamics CRM users to send email on your behalf” privilege. Check out this guide on how to enable and verify these permissions. Note that if emails are to be sent through a queue, the sender will need read access to the email queue.
Bonus: users can also send outbound emails as another user with Exchange mailbox delegation for those with Exchange on-premise servers or Exchange online email server profiles. Learn more about Exchange mailbox permissions.
Automating emails in Dynamics 365 Marketing
Delegating emails to someone else may sound like the best-case scenario for many, but it gets even better when users realize that “send on behalf” emails can also be automated. For the Power Automate-savvy, workflows can be built to automate just about any task across Microsoft applications and web services. Senders can create a workflow to automate these emails but note that as the workflow owner they must have permissions to send as other users. Learn more about automating repetitive tasks with workflows.
Create an automated sales email in Dynamics 365 Marketing.
For Dynamics 365 Marketing users, perhaps the simplest way to automate emails is by utilizing the marketing email builder. Using the drag-and-drop interface, users can create and customize emails to identical to their standard Outlook (or other email client) email layout, including custom signatures. After creating the email and customizing it as necessary, users can update the send settings to set the from address and from name to those who they wish to send the email on behalf of.
Another way to facilitate automated email campaigns is by setting up a customer journey. Although journeys are associated with multiple steps and contingencies with the trigger events, they really don’t have to be that elaborate. A journey can be set up to send out just one single email, or add steps as needed—for example, users can create a path that sends reminders to reps after a certain amount of time has passed, encouraging a manual follow-up after an automated email has been sent out. One scenario where this could be utilized is if a user creates an email on behalf of multiple sales reps, and automatically sends it out to all the contacts that they own. Once the email is sent out, an event trigger can be set up that notifies each rep when the email to their respective contacts has been opened. That way, their efforts can be directed toward communications with a contact once interest has already been established by way of an automated email that required minimal effort.
Get started
Time is a valuable resource—make the most of it by utilizing smart automation functions for day-to-day tasks. If you’re ready to see how a CRM system can be an all-in-one solution, fill out the form below. We will get in touch and find a customized plan that meets your needs without breaking the bank.