I have been working with a customer success team that illustrates the workflow-first approach perfectly. They have HubSpot as their system of record. Half the team barely uses it. People are managing their daily work across post-it notes, Excel spreadsheets, Jira tickets, Airtable, and Intercom — five or six different systems with no consistent workflow.
The instinct — and I have this instinct too, because my operational brain kicks in — is to say: let us build a dashboard, get everyone using tasks, enforce a work unit, standardize on one tool. That is the role-based approach. You are trying to solve everything at once by imposing a system from the top down.
Instead, we started with one workflow: a daily priority list. Every morning at 9 AM, an agent pulls data from HubSpot, checks for untouched accounts, looks at open support tickets, and sends each person a prioritized list of what they should focus on today. That is it. One workflow, one cadence, one output. The agent meets them where they already work, which in this case is Slack.
From there, the next workflow is conversational updates. The rep talks to the agent: "I called this account and left a message." The agent updates HubSpot. No toggling between systems. Then the agent reviews call transcripts and flags stalled agreements. Then it incorporates revenue data to tier the priority list. Then escalation rules — high-value accounts with urgent tickets open for ten days surface to a manager.
Each is a small, scoped workflow. Each is independently valuable. Composed together, they start to look like something that could have been pitched as "an AI account manager" — except it actually works, because it was built from inspectable rules, specific data sources, and logic the team can modify. That is the move. Pick one annoying daily task. Ship the agent that handles it. Then do the next.
Sources
Related Essays
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The Algorithm Should Be Inspectable
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Key takeaways
- Resist the role-based instinct to standardize everything top-down.
- Start with one workflow — a daily priority list, sourced from systems people already use.
- Each scoped workflow is independently valuable; composed, they look like an AI account manager that actually works.
FAQ
What is the first workflow you build?
Something concrete and daily. For a customer success team, a 9 AM prioritized list pulled from HubSpot, the ticketing system, and call transcripts, delivered into Slack. One cadence, one output, no behavior change required.
How do you avoid building yet another tool people will not use?
Meet people where they already work. Pull data from the systems of record they already have. Surface output in Slack or wherever the team already lives. Do not require a new dashboard or new login as a prerequisite.