July was a big month for updates: HubSpot introduced tons of new features and improvements. We’ve sifted through them to bring you the 13 that will have the biggest impact for managers and administrators. From improved data security to streamlined sales processes, these updates will make your life easier and your work more efficient. Here’s a closer look at what’s new and how it can benefit your team.
Securely Store Highly Sensitive Data
What’s New: HubSpot has rolled out a feature allowing super admins to create custom properties specifically designed for storing sensitive information like Social Security Numbers and bank account details. This update comes with enhanced encryption and restricted access to ensure that only authorized users can view this data.
Why It Matters: For many organizations, managing sensitive data securely is crucial for compliance and operational efficiency. This update not only provides a way to securely store critical information but also integrates this data into a unified customer profile. This helps in creating a more comprehensive view of each customer while maintaining strict data protection standards.
Key Benefits:
- Enhanced Security: Advanced encryption and restricted access prevent unauthorized data exposure.
- Improved Efficiency: Unified customer profiles streamline data management and compliance.
Upgrade Customer Engagement with Marketing SMS Replies
What’s New: HubSpot now enables teams to handle SMS replies directly through the Marketing SMS tool. This update allows users to view, organize, and respond to incoming SMS messages from their marketing contacts.
Why It Matters: This feature transforms SMS from a one-way communication tool into a powerful method for engaging in real-time conversations with customers. By enabling two-way SMS interactions, your marketing team can better manage customer responses, drive engagement, and foster stronger relationships. It's a game-changer for improving customer experience and boosting brand loyalty.
Key Benefits:
- Real-Time Interaction: Engage with customers in real-time, enhancing the relationship-building process.
- Streamlined Management: Organize and respond to SMS replies within HubSpot for greater efficiency.
Automate and Manage Subscription Billing
What’s New: HubSpot has introduced the ability to automate and manage subscription billing, including the functionality to pause and resume subscriptions directly from the CRM, regardless of your payment processor.
Why It Matters: This feature simplifies the management of recurring payments and customer renewals. By automating these processes, you can reduce administrative overhead, improve cash flow management, and enhance customer satisfaction with flexible subscription options. This update is particularly useful for businesses with complex billing needs or those not using HubSpot Payments.
Key Benefits:
- Reduced Admin Work: Automation minimizes manual invoicing and payment collection tasks.
- Enhanced Flexibility: Pause and resume subscriptions to accommodate customer needs.
Centralize Sales Tasks with the New Sales Workspace
What’s New: The Prospecting Workspace has been upgraded to the Sales Workspace, a unified space for managing both pipeline generation and deal closing activities.
Why It Matters: This update centralizes essential sales activities, allowing your team to handle pipeline building and deal management from a single location. This unification helps sales reps focus on high-impact tasks, improve efficiency, and meet sales targets more effectively.
Key Benefits:
- Streamlined Workflow: Manage pipeline and deals in one place, reducing navigation time.
- Increased Productivity: Focus on revenue-driving activities with a centralized workspace.
Create Custom Object Records on Mobile
What’s New: Users can now create custom object records from the mobile app’s global create menu, available on both iOS and Android.
Why It Matters: This update boosts productivity for teams that work remotely or travel frequently. Being able to create and update custom object records on the go ensures data accuracy and consistency, allowing users to capture important information in real-time.
Key Benefits:
- Enhanced Mobility: Capture and update data from anywhere, ensuring real-time accuracy.
- Increased Flexibility: Manage custom records without needing to be at a desktop.
Get Deeper Customer Insights with the Company Health Score Builder
What’s New: The Company Health Score Builder allows users to weight various properties and activities to generate an aggregated Company Health score for each company.
Why It Matters: This tool is valuable for customer success teams looking to monitor and improve customer relationships. By consolidating data into a single score, teams can easily identify trends, detect potential issues, and proactively address customer needs to enhance retention and satisfaction.
Key Benefits:
- Proactive Management: Identify at-risk customers and opportunities for improvement.
- Simplified Insights: Aggregate data into a clear health score for easier analysis.
Make Outbound Calls Directly from Navigation
What’s New: HubSpot now includes a feature that lets users make outbound calls directly from the navigation bar by simply entering the recipient’s phone number.
Why It Matters: This update simplifies the calling process, making it faster and more efficient. By eliminating the need to navigate to specific record pages, your team can quickly make calls, boosting productivity and allowing more focus on valuable interactions.
Key Benefits:
- Streamlined Calling: Make calls directly from the navigation bar without extra clicks.
- Increased Efficiency: Reduce time spent on administrative tasks and focus on calls.
Get Better Visibility in Engagement Tracking with the Allbound Timeline Card
What’s New: The Allbound Timeline Card provides a calendar view of activities on record pages, showing engagement levels and activities without switching tabs.
Why It Matters: This feature gives users a quick, visual overview of interactions with contacts. It helps separate outbound from inbound communications, making it easier to evaluate engagement and performance, and ultimately improve account management.
Key Benefits:
- Visual Clarity: Quickly see engagement levels with a calendar view.
- Enhanced Management: Evaluate performance and communication effectiveness at a glance.
Mobile Lead Management: Manage Leads Anytime, Anywhere
What’s New: HubSpot’s mobile app now supports lead management, allowing users to navigate lead stages, conduct outreach, and qualify leads while on the go.
Why It Matters: This update enables sales reps to maintain continuity between desktop and mobile platforms. It enhances productivity by allowing lead management tasks to be performed seamlessly from anywhere, improving lead qualification and follow-up.
Key Benefits:
- Continuity: Maintain lead management consistency across devices.
- Enhanced Productivity: Manage leads effectively while out in the field.
CRM Data Backup: Safeguard Your Valuable Information
What’s New: HubSpot now offers a feature for manually exporting all CRM data—contacts, companies, deals, tickets, and more—into a CSV zip file.
Why It Matters: Regular data backups are crucial for protecting your CRM information from accidental changes or deletions. This update ensures you can quickly restore data if needed, providing peace of mind and business continuity.
Key Benefits:
- Data Protection: Safeguard against accidental data loss or changes.
- Business Continuity: Quickly restore data to maintain smooth operations.
Keep Your CRM Clean with New Gibberish Spam Detection
What’s New: An AI-powered feature detects gibberish spam in form submissions, targeting irrelevant or nonsensical data in contact fields.
Why It Matters: This update helps maintain a clean and reliable CRM by automatically filtering out spam. It reduces the clutter caused by junk submissions, allowing your team to focus on genuine leads and improving the overall quality of your data.
Key Benefits:
- Cleaner CRM: Automatically filter out spam and irrelevant submissions.
- Focused Efforts: Spend less time managing junk data and more on valuable leads.
Quickly Visualize Workflow Performance with Built-in Conversion Reporting
What’s New: The workflow editor now includes aggregate conversion and performance data directly on each workflow’s diagram.
Why It Matters: This feature provides insights into how your workflows are performing by displaying metrics such as total enrollment counts and conversion rates. It helps you identify successful elements and areas for improvement, enabling more effective optimization of your automation strategies.
Key Benefits:
- Performance Insights: Visualize key metrics directly within the workflow editor.
- Improved Optimization: Easily identify and optimize successful workflow elements.
Optimize Lead Management with Stage Calculated Properties
What’s New: New stage calculated properties track the date leads enter and the time they spend in each pipeline stage.
Why It Matters: This update provides valuable insights into lead progression and sales cycle efficiency. By understanding how long leads spend in each stage, sales teams can prioritize efforts, evaluate performance, and automate actions based on lead movement.
Key Benefits:
- Enhanced Reporting: Track and analyze lead progression through the pipeline.
- Improved Efficiency: Use data to prioritize and automate lead management tasks.
Boost Productivity with HubSpot’s Quick Create Feature
What’s New: A new quick create button allows users to instantly create contacts, companies, deals, and tickets without losing focus or context.
Why It Matters: This feature reduces the time spent switching between tasks and maintains your workflow context. By enabling quick creation of records from anywhere within the platform, it helps streamline your processes and keep your team focused on their primary tasks.
Key Benefits:
- Reduced Task Switching: Create new records without disrupting your workflow.
- Increased Efficiency: Maintain focus and complete tasks faster with quick create.
Wrapping it Up
HubSpot is always pushing the envelope with innovation, and we’re here to make sure you don’t miss a beat. For a deeper dive into how these updates can benefit your business or to discuss how to leverage HubSpot’s features to the fullest, get in touch with Glare Marketing today. Let’s make the most of these advancements together!
