For Account Engagement users, the most exciting feature coming with the Salesforce Winter ‘24 release is the ability to get more precise with wait steps in Engagement Studio Programs. Gone are the days waiting a full day to trigger an action, we can now set wait steps anywhere from 2-8 hours. This provides more flexibility with our programs and what we are able to do.
How do we get started with shorter wait steps in Engagement Studio?
In Engagement Studio, we’ve always had the ability to add wait steps. We were able to do this in day long increments after an event took place. We’ve used these for things like, sending follow up emails after a form fill, or sending an additional email days after an initial send.
Sometimes, a day seemed like too long of a wait, but that was all we had to work with.
Now, we can use these new hour increments. When adding an action to an Engagement Studio Program, click “wait”, then toggle to “hours” and set the desired amount of hours. That’s it!
When you should use hour wait steps…
Wondering how you can make the most of this feature? We’ve compiled a list of scenarios that we think would be best suited for a short, hours-long wait period.
- Welcome Programs
- Prospects signed up for your mailing list or were imported? Add an hour wait step to send that first welcome email instead of waiting days.
- Post Form Follow Up Emails from Sales Team Members
- If your follow up emails are sent immediately, prospects know it’s automated, and waiting days to follow up can lead you to miss out on an opportunity. With a wait step of just a couple hours, it gives your prospects time to finish looking at your website, gives your internal assignment processes time to complete, and feels more personal than an automated reply.
- System Processing Time For List Evaluation
- When using automations that evaluate which lists a prospect is on, a two hour wait step will ensure your dynamic lists have time to run and prospects newly added to the list are included.
- Custom Redirect/ Page Action Follow Ups
- Set up custom redirects or page actions on high priority pages and have them funnel leads into an Engagement Studio Program. From there, suggest the next step a prospect should take or the next piece of content the prospect might be interested in a few hours after they have left your website.
Time to get started with shorter wait times in Engagement Studio
This feature is one that hundreds of trailblazers have been asking for because it can be so useful in customizing programs. Once it becomes available, we recommend revisiting your existing engagement studio programs and seeing if this would be a better fit for some of the current day long wait steps you are currently using.
Being able to take action in hours, rather than days can really help personalize the experience you give to prospects.
Want to learn more about how to create the most effective Engagement Studio Programs? Consider taking our Workshop: Engagement Studio for Marketers.
