Turn What Prospects Say on a Call into a HubSpot Workflow

Setting Up Your Automation

Right, let's get this party started. The setup is surprisingly straightforward, no developer required, no blood sacrifice to the CRM gods necessary. You build it once and it applies to every rep on the team, which matters more than it sounds: the follow-up stops depending on who took the call and how good their notes are.

Step 1: Turn On the Magic (Enable Call Transcription)

First things first, you need to make sure HubSpot is actually transcribing your calls. This is the foundation everything else is built on.

One thing to sort out before you flick that switch. Transcribing a call means keeping a record of what a person said, and firing workflows off tracked terms means using it. Under the Privacy Act 1988, APP 3 covers only collecting personal information you actually need, and APP 5 says you have to tell people you're collecting it and what for. The OAIC sets both out. In practice that's a line in your call-recording notice saying the call is transcribed and used to create follow-up tasks in your CRM, and a look at how long those transcripts hang around.

Here's how:

• Click the settings gear icon
• Navigate to Calling under the Sales section in the left sidebar
• Click on the Transcription and Analysis tab
• Make sure the "Transcription and analysis" toggle is switched to On
• Optional but recommended: Enable "Help improve your transcriptions" so HubSpot's AI gets smarter over time

That's it. Your calls are now being transcribed.

Step 2: Tell HubSpot What to Listen For (Configure Tracked Terms)

This is where you get to play puppet master. You're going to tell HubSpot exactly which words and phrases should trigger your automations.

The setup:

• Still in that Transcription and Analysis section? Good. Scroll down to "Tracked Terms"
• Click "Edit tracked terms" (opens a sidebar on the right)
• You'll see some default categories like "Buying signals" feel free to use these or create your own
• Click "Add category" to create a new grouping (e.g., "Proposal Requests," "Competitor Mentions," "Pricing Discussions")
• Add your keywords to each category. Examples:
  • Under "Buying signals": "purchase order," "PO," "proposal," "quote," "send pricing"
  • Under "Marketing interest": "newsletter," "case study," "webinar," "content"
  • Under "Red flags": "competitor name," "too expensive," "thinking about it"
• Save your tracked terms and close the sidebar

Pro tip: Start with 5-10 high-value terms. You can always add more later. Don't go overboard and track every word under the sun, that's how you end up with automation fatigue.

Step 3: Build Your Workflow (The Automation Bit)

Now for the fun part, creating the workflow that actually does something when those keywords are detected.

Creating the workflow:

• Navigate to Automation > Workflows in the top menu
• Click "Create workflow"
• Choose your workflow type:
  • Contact-based if you want actions to apply to the person you spoke with
  • Company-based if you're working at the account level
  • Deal-based if you want to update opportunities

Setting up the trigger:

• Select "Associated activity" as your trigger type (not a property-based trigger)
• Choose activity type: "Call"
• Add your filter: "Tracked terms contains [your keyword]"
• You can use OR logic (any of these terms) or AND logic (all of these terms must be present)
• Important: Enable "Allow records to re-enroll" if you want the workflow to fire every time the term is mentioned. Disable it if it should only happen once per contact. For task creation, you probably want re-enrolment enabled.

Step 4: Define What Happens Next (The Automation Actions)

This is where you decide what your HubSpot does when it hears those magic words. The possibilities are genuinely endless, but let's start with the most common (and most useful) action: creating a task.

Example: Auto-create a proposal task

• Add action: "Create task"
• Task title: "Send proposal to [Company Name]" (use personalisation tokens)
• Assign to: The rep who made the call (or a specific team member)
• Due date: "Immediately" or within 24 hours
• Priority: Set based on urgency
• Notes: You can even include a link to the call recording or transcript snippet

Boom. The moment "proposal" is mentioned on a call, a task appears in someone's queue. No manual entry. No forgetting. Just pure, automated follow-up. If you want the same call data filling in the deal record as well, that's how the same call data can auto-fill the deal itself.

Beyond Tasks: The Full Arsenal of Automation Actions

Creating tasks is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you've got the basics down, you can get really creative with what happens when tracked terms are detected. Here's your automation playground:

• Email automation: Send follow-up emails, deliver requested materials, or trigger nurture sequences automatically. Triggering the follow-up sequence from the same call outcome is the natural pair to this one.
• List management: Add contacts to marketing lists, segment based on interests, or remove from irrelevant campaigns.
• Deal updates: Create deals, update stages, modify amounts, or change close dates based on what was said on the call.
• Record updates: Update contact properties, lifecycle stages, or add notes to timelines automatically.
• Team notifications: Alert different departments, escalate to management, or notify specialists when their expertise is needed.
• Smart routing: Assign to different reps, create support tickets, or hand off to the partnerships team based on conversation content.

Real-World Scenarios

Here's what that looks like on four things a sales team says every week.

Scenario 1: The Proposal Pipeline

Tracked term: "proposal," "quote," "send pricing"

Automation:

• Create task for sales rep: "Send proposal to [Contact Name]"
• Update deal stage to "Proposal Sent"
• Notify presales team if custom pricing needed
• Set follow-up reminder for 3 days later

Result: Zero proposals fall through the cracks, and every rep works to the same rule. Your close rate improves because the team is actually following through on commitments. Worth pairing with checking the proposal that follows against what was actually said.

Scenario 2: Competitor Intelligence

Tracked terms: Competitor names, "currently using," "comparing"

Automation:

• Add contact to "Competitive Deals" list
• Create task for sales manager to review call
• Send battle card email to rep automatically
• Update contact property: "Competitor: [Name]"

Result: You build a database of competitive intelligence without anyone having to manually log it. Plus, reps get immediate support when facing competition.

Scenario 3: Content Request Fulfilment

Tracked terms: "case study," "white paper," "webinar," "demo"

Automation:

• Send relevant content automatically via email
• Add to appropriate nurture sequence
• Create task for marketing: "Follow up on content engagement"
• Update lead score based on content interest

Result: Prospects get what they asked for immediately, not three days later when someone remembers. Marketing gets visibility into what content is actually being requested.

Scenario 4: Escalation Protocol

Tracked terms: "urgent," "issue," "problem," "not working," "cancel"

Automation:

• Create high-priority support ticket
• Notify customer success manager immediately
• Add to "At Risk" list
• Trigger executive review if "cancel" is mentioned

Result: Problems get addressed before they become cancellations. Your retention rate improves because you're catching issues early.

The Bottom Line

Look, we could all use more hours in the day. But beyond just saving time, tracked terms fundamentally change how your CRM works for you instead of you working for it.

It's the difference between hoping you remember to follow up and knowing it's handled. Between manually logging every commitment and having your system do it automatically. Between looking disorganised and looking like you've got your act together.

And it applies the same rule to twelve reps that it applies to one, which is where this stops being a personal productivity trick. In a team of any size, the gap between your best rep's follow-up and your newest rep's follow-up is a real revenue number. Tracked terms close it without anyone having to be reminded.

If this hack made you realise there's probably a dozen other HubSpot features you're not using to their full potential, you're not alone.

We help businesses squeeze every drop of value out of their HubSpot investment, from workflow optimisation to full HubSpot implementations. Get Help With Your HubSpot. Or see how we build this kind of automation into a HubSpot instance.

Found this useful? Share it with your team. They'll thank you when they're not drowning in manual follow-ups anymore.