Get up to speed on HubSpot’s latest addition to its expanding CRM platform.
As Diamond HubSpot Partners, we get pretty excited when Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah launch a new product. And HubSpot releases don’t come much bigger than their latest move into operations.
It’s been billed as ‘operations software that scales with you’ and a toolkit to ‘spearhead the revenue operations (RevOps) revolution’. But what are the key features of this new solution and how is it a game-changer in customer experience?
We have condensed all the HubSpot Partner resources and launch materials to bring you five key take-outs:
1. It’s the fifth hub to be added to the HubSpot CRM.
Operations Hub joins the existing Marketing, Sales, Service and CMS hubs to expand the capabilities of HubSpot’s CRM platform.
According to Andy Pitre, HubSpot VP of Product, the original plan was to ‘introduce operations capabilities to the existing hubs’. But after extensive research into the pressures facing operations teams, including siloed working, the decision was made to launch a dedicated hub. Pitre explains: ‘The more we started talking to operations teams, we realised we couldn’t just do it through the individual departments because that was embracing the silo model. That’s what brought us down the path of Operations Hub.’
2. The software aims to align operations teams and realise the ‘RevOps’ philosophy.
HubSpot have made a big play of how operations teams are the unsung heroes of customer experience. In her recent blog, VP of Operations Alison Elworthy champions ops as ‘the people who set every customer-facing team up for success’, even describing them as ‘the new orchestrators of CX’.
But to realise their true impact, she argues, operations professionals must be connected and unified, not dispersed across rapidly growing organisations. This is essentially the RevOps philosophy – the idea that operations teams working across Marketing, Sales and Service need to be more efficient and collaborative with joined-up data, common tools and a single source of truth.
HubSpot is positioning its new hub as the enabler of centralised RevOps, transforming operations teams from ‘reactive fire-fighters into proactive friction fighters’.
So, what are the main capabilities of the software? We’ve picked out three features that are making the Martech headlines:
3. Data Sync Engine – creating a single source of truth.
Managing complex tech stacks is a common challenge for operations teams. With over 8,000 Martech solutions to choose from, it’s no wonder that scaling businesses quickly become saturated with tools. And as tech stacks get more bloated, achieving a level of data consistency between all the apps is even harder.
Enter Operations Hub and its Data Sync Engine. By synchronising data across multiple SaaS apps, the Data Sync Engine provides the all-important single view of the customer. And it’s the sophistication of the sync which, according to HubSpot, sets the engine apart from other solutions and puts it on a par with custom built integration tools – without the need for coding.
By connecting an organisation’s apps with a real-time, two-way (‘bi-directional’) sync, the engine ensures all the organisation’s databases are mirrored. And by aligning both historic and newly created data, it keeps the databases in a continuous sync.
If RevOps is all about centralising operations tools, data synchronisation is the essential first step.
4. Data Quality Automation – data that cleans itself.
Another defining feature of Operations Hub is Data Quality Automation. This out-of-the-box capability eliminates time-consuming database cleansing tasks such as formatting names and fixing date properties. As a result, ops teams can spend less time fixing customer contact data and more time enhancing customer experience.
By automating data accuracy, this feature tackles a common operations pain point. Research conducted by HubSpot found that operations teams spend almost half their time (45%) on reactive work, with ‘cleaning and formatting data’ being one of the biggest bugbears.
5. Programmable Automation – ‘automation as flexible as your imagination’.
Operations Hub’s automation capabilities go beyond cleaning data. The software allows the flexible automation of a wide range of business processes. From allocating leads to sales reps to time management notifications, ops teams can build and automate any number of custom workflow actions.
Unlike the no-code Data Sync, however, Programmable Automation requires development time. Here, finding the right HubSpot Partner agency with JavaScript developers is crucial to achieve this level of customisation. But it’s certainly worth the effort and investment – workflow automation is a win-win for both internal efficiency and reducing friction in the customer journey.
Closing thoughts
HubSpot’s new offering is a bold and exciting move into operations, which delivers on their long-held belief that customer experience goes beyond marketing and sales.
Operations Hub alone will no doubt raise the profile of ops teams and strengthen the case for the widespread adoption of RevOps.
For many in the operations community, the significance of the new hub goes beyond its software. It marks the beginning of a step-change. Back to Alison Elworthy for the final word:
‘If you work in operations like me, you have a right to feel excited. Where you were once reactive, you can now be proactive. Where you were once siloed, you can now be in sync with your operations teammates. And where you were once an afterthought of the customer-facing teams you support, you can now be the orchestrator of your company's customer experience strategy.’
(Alison Elworthy, VP of Operations, HubSpot)
Operations Hub is available in Free, Starter and Professional plans.
To find out more about how Operations Hub can solve your specific challenges, get in touch to arrange a free consultation with our HubSpot experts.