Set up company flows

Note:

Working with Gong Engage requires an Engage seat.

Who's this for? Admins

Where to go? Sidebar > Engage > Flows > Company flows folder

Flows help your teams automate sales tasks by engaging with prospects and customers using a pre-determined series of actions. As an admin, you can set up company flows that your teams can duplicate and save as their own. Only people with the ability to edit company flows, a setting defined in each user's permissions profile, can move a flow from personal flows into company flows.

Why use flows?

Flows offer a time-saving combination of automation and personalization when it comes to sales engagement. 

Flows ensure that you’re engaging with all of the contacts you need to be, so none of your tasks fall through the cracks. They allow you to automatically space out your interactions so as not to bombard people, and keep your steps in the right order. For example, a flow might remind you to connect with someone via LinkedIn before you give them a call. 

Flow steps can also include predefined templates, so you don’t have to rewrite the same messages or come up with call scripts each time you create a flow. You can focus your attention instead on personalized aspects of your messaging that best impact your conversion rates. 

Flows also help ensure brand consistency, make it easier to personalize your messaging, and speed up employee onboarding by offering new employees an easy way to follow company best practices.

Types of flows

• Your flows: These are the flows that reps can create for themselves. If reps duplicate any company flows and save them with changes, they’ll appear in this section. You can define which users can create and manage personal templates through the available permission settings in their permission profile.

• Company flows: These flows are available to everyone in your org. They can only be edited by people who are authorized to do so through their permission profile, but anyone can duplicate them and save them as their own flows. Company flows are available to everyone in your org, so any changes you make can affect everyone.

There is no limit to the number of company and personal flows you can have within Gong Engage.

Create a new flow

To create a new flow:

1. Go to Engage from the sidebar and open Flows

2. At the top right, click +NEW FLOW

3. Starting from the top, click the pencil to give the flow a name

    

4. Start adding steps.

   These are the types of steps you can add to a flow:

   1. Manual email: To save time when writing emails, click Use a template to add a template to your flow step. You can also add variables to your email to make it more personalized. Learn more about using email templates and variables. Email signatures appear in flow emails just as they would for any other emails sent through Engage.

      You can also save time by generating your email draft with AI. Click Generate an email and select the type of email you want to use for that step. Gong will give you an AI-generated email draft that's personalized based on previous emails each time someone reaches that step in the flow.

      These are the types of AI-generated emails you can add to a flow. Stay tuned for more:

      • Nudge: This email gently reminds someone to get back to you. Each time someone reaches this step in the flow, Gong generates a personalized message using AI

      • Follow-up: Each time someone reaches this step in the flow, Gong generates a personalized message based on your previous emails

      With manual emails, Engage will remind you that it’s time to send an email, and then you’ll edit it as needed and send it when you’re ready.

      For email steps that are not the first email in the flow, you can choose whether to send the email as a new thread or as a reply to the previous email step.

      When creating an email step, you can set up the "To", "CC", and "BCC" fields in advance. This way, when a rep gets a to-do prompting them to finalize and send the email, those fields are pre-filled for them. To do this, select the dropdown next to Recipients. You can select the variable "My manager" to have the rep's manager automatically added.

      Delay from flow start/delay from previous step: Manual email steps are only due on business days. For a manual email that's the first step in a flow, selecting "4 business days" as the delay from flow start means the step is due 4 business days after the person is added to the flow. For a manual email that's not the first step in a flow, selecting "4 business days" as the delay from previous step means the step is due 4 business days after the previous step.

   2. Auto email: With auto email steps, Engage sends the email automatically. Auto emails won’t appear on your list of to-dos unless there are values missing for variables, the contact has no email address, the email thread was lost, or your email account was disconnected, in which case the step will become a regular email step that appears on your list of to-dos for you to send manually. Email signatures appear in flow emails just as they would for any other emails sent through Engage.

      Delay from flow start/ delay from previous step

      For an auto email that's the first step in a flow, you can choose "Send as soon as possible" or select a delay in business days. If it's not the first step in a flow, you can select a delay in business days

      • Send as soon as possible: Available for first auto email steps only. By default, the auto email will be sent out as soon as possible from the moment someone is added to the flow on business days only. If someone is added to the flow on a weekend, the email will be sent at 9:00 AM recipient's local time on the next business day. If someone is added to the flow on a business day before 9:00 AM, the email will be sent that day at 9:00 AM. If someone is added to the flow on a business day at any time after 9:00 AM and before midnight, the email will be sent immediately. If added after midnight, it will be sent the next business day at 9:00 AM. 

        If you want the email to be sent as soon as possible on any day including weekends, check off "Send on any day including weekends". When checked, we will try to send the email right away, no matter what day or time it is.

        The email can still be delayed due to the sending process itself which can take a few minutes, throttling to ensure your emails don't get marked as spam, and sending limits defined by your company admin.

      • Set the delay in business days: Available for auto emails at any step in the flow. The auto email will be sent out at the exact specified time and according to the delay in business days you select. If the recipient's local time is not available, we'll send the email based on the sender's local time.

        For example, for first steps, selecting "3 business days" as the delay from flow start means the step is due 3 business days after the person is added to the flow. If it's not the first step, "3 business days" means the step is due 3 business days after the previous step.

      Gong automatically spaces out your flow emails where necessary, so some emails are sent out a few minutes later.

      For manual or automatic email steps that are not the first email in the flow, you can choose whether to send the email as a new thread or as a reply to the previous email step.

      The sender of an auto email is whoever added the contact or lead to the flow. If a flow has a rule set up that adds people to the flow automatically, the sender/to-do assignee will be defined by the rule.

      If a contact or lead has multiple email addresses, Gong sends the flow step to the email listed first.

      Like with regular email steps, you can set up the "To", "CC", and "BCC" fields in advance for auto emails. To do this, select the dropdown next to Recipients. You can select the variable "My manager" to have the rep's manager automatically added.

   3. Call: The Gong dialer enables reps to call people directly from Gong. These calls can be recorded, giving you the same analytics and insights as all recorded calls in Gong. To use the dialer, you must first enable it for your team, and set business numbers that are available either to you individual reps (assigned numbers) or to your entire team.

      You can use templates for call scripts to make things easy when it comes time to dial someone. 

   4. LinkedIn connect and LinkedIn message: To use LinkedIn flow steps, you must integrate LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Gong, and you must have a LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced or Advanced Plus license. 

   5. Task: Tasks can be used as helpful reminders for completing any actions that aren’t necessarily email, call, or LinkedIn-related. You might create a task for sending someone a gift, preparing for an upcoming meeting, researching about a company, or any other action you want reps to complete outside of Gong.

   As you add steps, you can set the delay between steps in business days.

5. Grab and drag the steps on the left to rearrange them.

    

6. Once you've added steps and ordered them the way you want, click Save.

7. Reps can now find and use this flow under Company flows.

Add attachments to a flow step

You can add attachments to flow steps by clicking on the paperclip icon. If you decide to use a template that has attachments, those attachments will automatically be added to your email draft, and can be removed.

The email body size can be up to 3 MB. Body size does not include attachments, but it does include in-line images and GIFs. The total size of an email including attachments can be up to 20 MB.

When adding an attachment to a step in a flow that hasn't been saved yet, you'll be prompted to save the flow first in order to add the attachment.

If you add an attachment to the flow step and then add a template that has attachments, any attachments you previously added will be removed or replaced with the template's attachments.

Edit a flow

You can edit a flow any time, even when there are contacts and leads in an active flow.

Open the flow you want to work on by going to Engage from the main menu on the left-hand side, then Flows, then select the flow you want to work on. You can drag and drop flow steps on the left side to rearrange them or add and remove steps.

If you make major edits such as rearranging or removing steps, those changes will only affect future contacts and leads added to the flow. Contacts currently in active flows will remain in the old flow and won't be affected by the changes.

If you make minor edits, such as editing the content of an email step or adding a step, you will be asked whether the change should affect the current and future contacts and leads, or future contacts and leads only.

Changes to steps won't apply to contacts and leads in active where the related to-do has already been generated. For example, let's say you have a contact called Sara who is currently in step 3 of a flow, meaning you currently have an open to-do for step 3. If you edit the flow and change the due date for step 3, Sara's flow will not be affected. However, if Sara was in step 2 when you edited the flow and changed the due date for step 3, the changes will apply to Sara's flow.

Set up rules to automatically add and remove people from the flow

Now that you've set up a flow, you can set up rules so that people will be automatically added and removed from the flow. These editable automation rules can be set up for company flows only, not personal flows.

When reps duplicate a company flow and save it as their own personal flow, the rules that were set up for automatically adding people to that company flow don't carry over to the duplicated version.

See the list of contacts and leads previously in a flow

While working on a flow, go to the People tab to see the list of people currently or previously in the flow. You can search for specific contacts or leads in the list. By default, the list is sorted by the contacts and leads that were most recently added to the flow. 

Define flow visibility

While working on a flow, you can toggle flow visibility on and off at the top right corner. Visible means reps see the flow as an option for adding contacts or leads. Hidden means reps do not see the flow as an option for adding contacts or leads.

What happens when an email bounces?

If the contact or lead has an email address that's marked as invalid before the email gets sent, we convert that auto email to a manual email that appears on the rep's To-dos page. The rep can then replace the email address and resend the email. 

If an email bounces due to a bad address (not due to temporary failure), we:

• Automatically mark the email address as invalid

• Automatically pause the person's flow

• Generate a to-do for the rep to replace the email address and send again

• Automatically save that new email address for the contact or lead to prevent the next email from bouncing

If your auto emails are still being sent to email addresses that are marked as invalid in Gong, contact support.