From Outlook to Agency Zoom: How Zapier Eliminated Manual Lead Processing
Here's what happens when a seemingly simple automation reveals unexpected complexity. An insurance agency needed to process leads from their mortgage company partner, but their manual process was causing delays.
The Problem
"We literally go and download and move it into there manually. I have a girl who does that every day for us," explained the agency owner.
Every week, someone had to download a spreadsheet of leads and manually upload them into their system, AgencyZoom.
The Interesting Challenges:
- They used Microsoft Outlook but wouldn't authenticate it for security reasons
- Emails contained multiple attachments - they needed to grab just the lead spreadsheet, not signature images
The Solution
Using Zapier, we built an automation that monitors for weekly lead emails, grabs just the spreadsheet, and creates leads automatically in their system. "I built it. It was functional in 1 hour," noted the automation specialist, though some refinements were needed for handling attachments and email rules.
The Result
"Once it arrives, it's in the system and automations kick off right away," said the agency owner. No more 15-20 minute delays, no more dependency on staff availability. As the automation specialist explained, "They get like emails for each lead, and they didn't want to parse those. They just wanted to parse the summary which had the CSV. Because in their world, once a week was fine."
The Lesson
Sometimes the trickiest part of automation isn't the technical solution - it's working within the constraints of how a business wants to operate. While real-time processing was possible, the agency preferred weekly batches. Success meant building around their preferences rather than forcing technical efficiency.
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