HubSpot Automation: Streamlining Conversation Assignment for Your Team

Tired of manually assigning conversations in HubSpot? You're not alone! Many HubSpot users are looking for ways to automate this process, especially when teams rotate responsibilities. Let's dive into a recent HubSpot Community discussion on this very topic and explore how you can streamline conversation assignment.

The Challenge: Rotating Team Responsibilities

The original poster in the HubSpot Community forum raised a common issue: they wanted to automatically assign conversations to different team members on a rotating basis. Their team manages a chatflow, and each member handles chats for a day before handing off to the next person. Manually assigning conversations was time-consuming and prone to errors.

The Solution: HubSpot Workflows to the Rescue

Fortunately, HubSpot offers powerful workflow capabilities that can automate conversation assignment. A community member pointed out two key product updates that make this possible:

1. Rotate Record to Owner Action

This workflow action allows you to automatically move a conversation to another inbox and assign it to the right person or team, respecting inbox permissions. It's like the 'Rotate Owner' feature for CRM objects, but specifically for conversations.

Here's how it works (general steps, adapt to your specific workflow):

1. Create a conversation-based workflow: Start by creating a new workflow and choose "Conversation" as the object.
2. Set enrollment triggers: Define the conditions that trigger the workflow, such as a new conversation being created or a specific property being set.
3. Add the "Rotate record to owner" action: Find this action within the workflow editor.
4. Configure the rotation: Select the team or users to include in the rotation. HubSpot will automatically assign conversations to the next available person in the sequence.

This feature brings a structured, automated handoff experience to conversations, ensuring that no conversation falls through the cracks.

2. Assign Conversation Owner Update – “No Owner” Option

This update provides a new option within the "Assign conversation owner" workflow action: "No owner". This allows you to automatically clear ownership of a conversation as part of a workflow.

How to use it:

1. Incorporate into existing workflows: Add or modify an existing conversation workflow.
2. Use the "Assign conversation owner" action: Select this action in the workflow editor.
3. Choose "No owner": Instead of assigning to a specific user, select the "No owner" option.

This is useful for returning work to a shared view or resetting ownership based on custom logic. For example, you could clear ownership after a certain period of inactivity or when a customer responds to a follow-up message.

Putting It All Together: A Sample Workflow

Here's a possible workflow scenario combining both features:

1. A new conversation is created through a chatflow.
2. The workflow assigns the conversation to the next available agent using the "Rotate record to owner" action.
3. If the agent doesn't respond within a set timeframe (e.g., 2 hours), the workflow automatically clears ownership using the "Assign conversation owner" action with the "No owner" option, returning the conversation to the unassigned queue.

ESHOPMAN Team Comment

The HubSpot Community thread highlights a common pain point: manually managing conversation assignments. The solutions offered, leveraging HubSpot's workflow automation, are spot-on. We especially appreciate the 'Rotate record to owner' feature, which is perfect for teams with rotating responsibilities. For e-commerce businesses using ESHOPMAN, integrating these automated conversation assignments with your customer data can dramatically improve response times and personalize customer interactions, leading to increased sales and satisfaction.

By leveraging these features, you can create a seamless and efficient conversation management process, freeing up your team to focus on providing excellent customer service.