How to leverage Zapier for Salesforce
Chances are you have searched for Salesforce integrations before and found that Zapier was in the top half of the search result page. As confusing as it may be, especially with Salesforce having a whole marketplace for 3rd party applications that do integrate directly, it is worth taking a closer look.
Why Automation
One of the million dollar questions of the past decade or so for any business, although we believe that the correct question should be 'Why not automation?'. If you are still at the beginning of your business journey, you are a microbusiness with very limited resources, or even a long standing one with processes set in stone even though they are as manual as they can get, hear us out.
Automation isn't a behemoth tamed by big corporations, used to replace human employees with machines. That's borderline Sci-Fi and, although we are big fans of the literature, this is not what automation is aiming at.
Firstly, think smaller. For example, your browser helping you out filling forms with the autofill function is an example of automation. Or programming your air conditioning unit (or floor heating) to turn itself on if the temperature gets higher/lower than a treshold of your choosing.
Now, moving back to the business world, automation focuses on getting rid of repetitive tasks that:
slow you down unnecessarily
create gaps in your processes and room for errors
scatter your already busy workforce, bogging them down with random tasks
create potential bumps in your customer support
The list could be a lot longer, but you get the gist. Bottom line: automation is good, and it's especially good when you are small and every minute of your time matters. Remember that however you decide to automate your processes and practices, you only have to set it up once (and test it!) and occasionally review to make sure it's still aligned to your business needs.
Why Zapier
Our general recommendation is to stick to an automation tool if you already have at least some experience with building workflows. In Zapier, these workflows are called zaps and they simply consist in a combination of triggers and actions. You can read more on how it all works on their page.
Zapier connects directly to the platform you wish to integrate with, handling all the data accurately from one side to the other. Thanks to its intuitive interface, it allows you to make those connections without having to build custom API or code.
If you are willing to put in the time and effort to get over the initial learning curve (which isn't steep at all) it’s easy enough to build custom workflows. This makes it ideal in situations where budgets are prohibitive. A good example is creating a custom zap between Salesforce and Calendly, whereas integrating them directly without leveraging Zapier can mean higher subscription fees on both sides.
Additionally, having Zapier as your main automation tool means fundamentally focusing your costs one platform (apart from Salesforce of course) whilst keeping other 3rd party apps either free or at the minimum subscription tier - everything helps. See Zapier's pricing tiers.
Zapier and Salesforce Examples
Send a message in Slack whenever an Opportunity is won in Salesforce
Create a new custom object in Salesforce from new rows in Google Sheets whenever the sheet is saved
Create a new lead in Salesforce whenever you receive an email into your Business Gmail Account
Create a new invoice in Xero each time there is a new custom object in Salesforce (this is a real money saver - and bottom line saver!)
In conclusion, our recommendation is to map out all the processes and functionalities that you want to be taken care of automatically instead of doing it yourself or someone else in your team. Identify what apps you are already using and what is potentially missing - beware of app fatigue. If the automation you have in mind entails a significant cost increase (remember that even if it frees up a few hours of your week, it's still worth paying a few extra dollars!), Zapier can be your solution - be mindful of your business roadmap and how future-proof you want it to be too.
