If your team is still copying data between your CRM, email platform, and support tools, you are burning hours on work that Make.com can handle in the background. In this guide, ThinkBot Agency walks through practical Make.com workflow automation examples that connect HubSpot or Pipedrive with Mailchimp, Gmail, Slack, Zendesk, and more, so you can eliminate manual data entry, automate lead nurturing, and speed up customer support.
Make.com workflow automation lets you connect your CRM, email marketing, and support tools so that when something happens in one system, the right actions run everywhere else automatically. You define the triggers and rules once, then Make keeps your data in sync, sends timely messages, and alerts your team in real time without manual effort.
Why Make.com workflow automation is ideal for CRM, email, and support
Make is a visual, no-code platform that connects thousands of apps and APIs. You drag modules onto a canvas, define triggers and actions, and Make executes the workflow whenever conditions are met. The Make team highlights that there are 1,600+ native integrations and thousands of templates available to accelerate implementation, which makes it particularly strong for marketing and support use cases as described in The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation. For a broader view of how Make scenarios fit into your overall stack, you can also review ThinkBot's guide to Make.com workflow automations.
For business teams, this means you can:
- Sync leads and contacts between tools like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Mailchimp, and Google Sheets.
- Trigger personalized email sequences based on CRM or website events.
- Convert forms, calls, and chats into structured support tickets in Zendesk or similar platforms.
- Notify sales or support in Slack when high-priority events occur.
- Use AI to classify, summarize, and route leads or tickets automatically.
Core building blocks of a Make scenario
Most Make.com workflow automation for CRM, email, and support uses the same pattern, which aligns with how Make describes triggers, actions, and conditions in The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation:
- Trigger: An event that starts the scenario, for example a new HubSpot contact, a form submission, or a new Zendesk ticket.
- Actions: Steps that run after the trigger, such as creating or updating a CRM record, sending an email, or posting a Slack message.
- Filters and conditions: Logic that decides which branch to follow, for example only notify sales if the lead score is above a threshold.
- Data transformation: Mapping and formatting fields so data stays clean across systems.
- Sub-scenarios: Reusable mini-flows that handle common tasks like lead enrichment or ticket classification, a pattern Make calls out in its article on sub-scenarios referenced in The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation.
Use case 1: Lead capture to CRM with automated email nurture
This scenario is ideal if you generate leads from website forms, ads, or events and want them in your CRM and email platform immediately, without manual uploads.
What this workflow does
When a prospect submits a form (for example Typeform or a website form that posts to a webhook), Make will:
- Create or update a contact in HubSpot or Pipedrive.
- Score or qualify the lead, optionally using AI.
- Sync the contact to Mailchimp or another ESP with the right tags.
- Send a personalized welcome email from Gmail or your ESP.
- Alert a sales rep in Slack for high-intent leads.
How to build it in Make
- Trigger module: Use a Webhooks, Typeform, or Facebook Lead Ads module to catch new submissions, a pattern similar to the cross-channel lead capture outlined in How Make and HubSpot are key to automating business ops.
- CRM module: Add a HubSpot CRM or Pipedrive module to create or update a contact. Map form fields to CRM properties.
- AI enrichment (optional): Call an AI service via HTTP or a dedicated AI connector to score the lead or extract intent from free text, then store the score back in the CRM.
- Filter: Add a filter that checks the lead score or key fields. For example, if score 70, route to sales; otherwise, send to nurture.
- Email marketing module: Use Mailchimp or another ESP module to subscribe the contact to an appropriate list and apply tags that match your nurture journeys. Makes marketing article shows how behavior-driven triggers can power personalized campaigns, see The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation.
- Notification module: Add Slack or Gmail to notify the assigned sales rep for high-priority leads.
This single scenario eliminates manual CSV exports, reduces lead response time, and ensures your CRM and email lists stay aligned. If you want to see more end-to-end examples beyond this use case, ThinkBot shares 10 additional patterns in Make.com automation examples for CRM, email, finance, and AI.
Use case 2: HubSpot and Make for end-to-end sales operations
HubSpot is a powerful CRM, but real-world businesses often need to connect it with contract tools, finance systems, and internal chat. Make is well-suited as the orchestration layer between these tools, a pattern described in How Make and HubSpot are key to automating business ops.
Example: Automated contract generation and tracking
Imagine a deal in HubSpot moves to Contract Sent. Instead of a salesperson creating a document manually, Make can handle the workflow.
- Trigger: HubSpot module watching for a deal or contact property change, for example Deal stage changes to Contract Sent.
- Document creation: Google Docs module creates a contract from a template, inserting fields like company name, pricing, and terms, an approach similar to the contract workflow outlined in How Make and HubSpot are key to automating business ops.
- PDF conversion: Google Drive or a PDF tool converts the document to a PDF.
- Delivery: Gmail or your email provider sends the PDF to the client with a personalized message.
- CRM update: HubSpot is updated with the contract URL and status.
- Internal notifications: Slack notifies the account owner that the contract was sent.
From here, you can add another scenario that listens for e-signature events and automatically updates HubSpot, triggers onboarding emails, and alerts finance.
How to automate email marketing with Make and your CRM
Make is not an email platform itself; instead, it connects your CRM, website, and ESP so that your email marketing automation is always using the most current data. The marketing automation guide on Makes blog emphasizes using triggers and conditions to personalize journeys at scale, see The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation. For teams comparing tools before committing, ThinkBots Zapier vs Make.com comparison can help you decide where to centralize this logic.
Scenario: Behavior-based nurture journeys
Here is how a typical behavior-driven nurture flow might look:
- Trigger: Website event or email engagement, for example visited pricing page or opened three emails.
- Data consolidation: Make pulls behavior data from analytics or your ESP and combines it with CRM data.
- Segmentation logic: Filters decide which journey to place the contact into, for example high-intent, evaluator, or early-stage.
- Email sequence: Make calls your ESP to add the contact to a specific automation or to send a one-off personalized message.
- Sales alerts: For high-intent signals, Make pushes a notification to Slack or creates a task in HubSpot or Pipedrive.
By centralizing this logic in Make, you avoid fragmented rules across multiple tools and keep your customer journey easier to maintain.
Use case 3: Automating customer support ticketing with Make
Support teams often juggle email inboxes, chat, phone calls, and forms. Without automation, tickets are missed or duplicated. Make can capture all these channels and standardize them into your help desk.
The Make blog article Zendesk Automation: 5 Make Templates to Get You Started highlights how pre-built templates can help teams deploy Zendesk workflows in minutes, reducing manual ticket creation and improving data capture.
Scenario: Turn every inbound message into a Zendesk ticket
The Dragnet pattern described in Zendesk Automation: 5 Make Templates to Get You Started is a good example:
- Trigger: RingCentral, email, form, or chat module in Make catches new messages.
- Ticket creation: Zendesk module creates a ticket with subject, description, requester, and channel metadata.
- Data enrichment: Make looks up the customer in your CRM and adds account details to the ticket.
- AI classification: An AI step analyzes the message and sets priority, sentiment, and category.
- Routing: Filters assign the ticket to the right group based on category, language, or account tier.
- Reporting: Optionally, Make appends each ticket to a Google Sheet for reporting or QA, similar to the template that adds new Zendesk tickets to Google Sheets mentioned in Zendesk Automation: 5 Make Templates to Get You Started.
This approach ensures that every customer interaction becomes a structured ticket and that high-priority issues are escalated quickly.
Scenario: From Google Forms to Zendesk ticket
If you collect feedback or issue reports via Google Forms, you can use Make to convert each response into a ticket automatically, mirroring the pattern described in the Google Forms to Zendesk template in Zendesk Automation: 5 Make Templates to Get You Started.
- Trigger: Google Forms or Google Sheets module watching for new responses.
- Mapping: Map form fields like issue type, description, and contact details to Zendesk fields.
- Ticket creation: Create a Zendesk ticket with the mapped data.
- Follow-up email: Gmail sends an acknowledgment to the customer with a ticket reference.
This is a low-friction way to add structured intake without forcing customers into a portal.
Use case 4: Syncing support and marketing for better lifecycle communication
Support events are powerful signals for marketing and customer success. With Make, you can automatically sync Zendesk or other help desk data into your email and CRM tools.
Scenario: Add new Zendesk users to a Mailchimp list
The Make blog shows how new Zendesk users can be synced to Mailchimp so that email lists stay up to date for lifecycle campaigns, see Zendesk Automation: 5 Make Templates to Get You Started. A similar scenario for your stack might look like this:
- Trigger: New user or ticket created in Zendesk.
- Deduplication: Make checks your CRM to see if the contact already exists.
- CRM update: Create or update the contact record with latest support data.
- ESP sync: Add the contact to Mailchimp or your ESP with tags like Active Support User or Onboarding.
- Lifecycle automation: Your ESP or CRM triggers relevant sequences, for example onboarding tips or post-resolution surveys.
This closes the loop between support interactions and marketing, enabling more relevant communication. For organizations standardizing automation across multiple departments, it can be helpful to pair these ideas with broader low-code automation benefits to align stakeholders on value and scope.
Mini-framework: Designing robust Make.com workflows
To avoid brittle automations, ThinkBot uses a simple framework when designing Make scenarios for CRM, email marketing, and support.
1. Audit
List your current manual steps: where data is copied, which tools are involved, and where delays or errors occur. Identify high-impact points like lead capture, contract generation, and ticket triage.
2. Map
Draw the end-to-end journey. Define what should happen when a contact is created, when a deal changes stage, or when a support ticket is opened. This mirrors the journey mapping step recommended in The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation.
3. Integrate
Connect your core systems in Make: CRM, ESP, help desk, and internal chat. Use native modules where possible and fall back to HTTP for custom APIs, as suggested in How Make and HubSpot are key to automating business ops.
4. Test
Run scenarios in manual mode with sample data. Validate field mappings, error handling, and edge cases like missing email addresses or duplicate contacts.
5. Optimize
Once live, monitor scenario runs, error logs, and business KPIs such as response time or lead conversion. Gradually introduce sub-scenarios for reusable logic and use Makes ecosystem view, similar in spirit to Make Grid mentioned in The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation, to keep your automation landscape understandable.
Common mistakes with Make.com workflow automation
In our work across CRM, marketing, and support stacks, we see a few recurring issues.
- Over-automating too early: Teams automate every edge case from day one. Start with a small, high-impact flow and expand once it proves value.
- Ignoring data hygiene: Without consistent field naming and formats, integrations become fragile. Invest in a shared data model across CRM, ESP, and support tools.
- No error handling: Scenarios that fail silently cause data gaps. Add fallback branches, retries, and alerts for API errors and validation issues.
- Duplicated logic: Copy-paste logic across scenarios instead of using sub-scenarios. This makes maintenance harder and increases the risk of inconsistencies.
- Lack of documentation: When only one person understands the automations, changes become risky. Document triggers, mappings, and ownership for each scenario.
Where AI fits into your Make scenarios
AI is not a replacement for Make; it is an additional module in your workflows. Useful applications include:
- Lead scoring: Analyze form responses or website behavior to estimate purchase intent and store the score in your CRM.
- Ticket classification: Categorize support tickets by topic, urgency, and sentiment to improve routing.
- Summarization: Generate short summaries of long email threads or chats and store them in the CRM for quick context.
- Content personalization: Draft first-pass personalized outreach emails for sales to review, a pattern similar to the HubSpot plus AI example in Top Automation Tools For Workflows in 2025.
How ThinkBot Agency helps you implement Make.com workflow automation
Designing robust automation across CRM, email, and support is rarely a one-click exercise. You need clear processes, clean data, and careful scenario design.
ThinkBot Agency specializes in building and maintaining Make scenarios, as well as n8n and Zapier workflows, for growing teams. We map your processes, design modular automations, integrate APIs, and add AI where it provides measurable value. If you are also exploring adjacent tooling, our overview of workflow automation platforms can help frame how Make fits into a broader automation strategy.
If you want expert help architecting or scaling your Make.com workflow automation, you can book a strategy session with our team here: schedule a consultation with ThinkBot.
FAQ
How can Make.com workflow automation improve my CRM processes?
Make.com connects your CRM with forms, ad platforms, email tools, and support systems so contacts are created and updated automatically. You can score leads, assign owners, sync lifecycle stages, and trigger tasks or emails whenever key events happen, which reduces manual data entry and speeds up sales response times.
Which tools can I connect to my CRM using Make.com?
You can connect popular CRMs like HubSpot and Pipedrive to tools such as Mailchimp, Gmail, Slack, Typeform, Google Sheets, Zendesk, RingCentral, and many more. Make supports thousands of integrations and can also connect to custom REST APIs, so most modern SaaS platforms and internal systems can be included in your workflows.
Can Make.com automate both marketing emails and customer support?
Yes. You can use Make to trigger email marketing workflows based on CRM or website events and to create or enrich support tickets from forms, calls, or chats. This lets marketing, sales, and support share a single view of the customer and coordinate timely, consistent communication throughout the lifecycle.
Where does AI add the most value in Make.com workflows?
AI is especially useful for tasks like lead scoring, ticket classification, sentiment analysis, and summarizing long messages or conversations. In Make, you can call AI services inside scenarios to analyze text, then use the results to route leads, prioritize tickets, or personalize outreach without adding manual review for every record.
How does ThinkBot Agency work with companies on Make.com automation?
ThinkBot typically starts with a short discovery to map your processes and tech stack, then designs a phased automation roadmap. We build and test Make scenarios, implement error handling and monitoring, document the workflows, and optionally provide ongoing support so your CRM, email, and support automations stay aligned as your business evolves.
