HubSpot Operations Hub: The Complete Ops Hub Playbook

These days, starting a business is easy, but growing a business is quite tricky. The biggest challenge that companies run into is scaling efficiently. The HubSpot Operations Hub is a feature of HubSpot’s diverse toolset for its CRM software. The tools can set you up for scaling success by helping you unify data, eliminate silos, and automate other processes.

With over 100,000 customers and more than $1 billion in recurring annual revenue as of 2020, HubSpot should be no stranger when it comes to scalability.

Keep reading to learn more about how HubSpot Operations Hub could facilitate your scaling! We’ll also cover real-world use cases, key features, pricing tiers, and insights from our developers, who have worked with the HubSpot Operations Hub in various scenarios, assisting a range of companies with their unique needs.

What Is HubSpot Operations Hub?

HubSpot Operations Hub is the original name of what is now referred to as the HubSpot Data Hub, a suite of tools within HubSpot’s CRM platform that operations teams can use to connect apps, sync, and clean customer data, and automate processes. 

The Operations Hub is designed for RevOps teams, a relatively new sector of business operations that aims to integrate marketing, sales, and customer service units.

Before the inception of the Operations Hub, HubSpot’s customer-relationship management (CRM) platform itself centered three distinct services: the Marketing Hub, the Sales Hub, and the Services Hub.

Outside of HubSpot, even business teams are typically aligned with their respective service roles. Therefore, marketing, sales, and service teams operate separately from one another and have different software and systems to analyze data.

RevOps, or Revenue Operations, maximizes a business’s revenue potential by organizing processes at each stage of the funnel, taking into account all the functions that occur in a company. This reduces customer friction and vitalizes your insights.

With HubSpot Operations Hub, you will have a streamlined way of meeting those same objectives. As your business grows and scales, a more centralized approach to handling operations of all kinds will result in greater efficiency.

In short, HubSpot Operations Hub is the business version of ‘two heads are better than one.’ Except, in this case, it’s three heads.

The Hub brings together all the tools you need to keep your business data clean, consistent, and actionable, so that everything from sales and marketing to your actual services is working from a single source of truth.

Why Does HubsPot Operations Hub Matter For RevOps?

Modern businesses collect data from a wide range of sources. If you have multiple systems, such as a CRM, marketing platform, and customer support system, that generate a lot of data, you need a way to consolidate it all, so each team isn’t working with its own set of information.

If your teams are siloed, you’ll likely face challenges with record issues, inconsistent reporting, and inefficiencies.

RevOps tries to solve this problem by aligning all departments that generate revenue, as the name suggests. HubSpot Operations Hub is explicitly built with RevOps in mind.

You can unify all your data, ensure that you maintain high-quality data even as you scale, automate tasks that would otherwise require human effort, and give your teams the best possible chance at success.

What Can You Do With HubSpot Operations Hub?

The HubSpot Operations Hub is littered with many valuable features that can optimize your business processes.

Though these features do not at first seem relevant to customer-relationship management, the administrative and logistical capacity of these attributes makes all the difference.

Some of the more popular features of the HubSpot Operations Hub include the following:

Data Sync

Data sync in HubSpot Operations Hub empowers bidirectional integrations, allowing you to connect your business to your HubSpot CRM innovatively and natively.

Fortunately, the hub comes equipped with several HubSpot-built business-related apps powered by their data sync engine. Some of these apps include Google Contacts, MailChimp, and Bullhorn.

HubSpot seeks to deepen and diversify its current offerings for integrations. And you’re still able to use the HubSpot Marketplace for traditional integrations.

The concept of integrations is not new to HubSpot. In fact, HubSpot integrations are one of the most appealing facets of the platform.

However, data sync through HubSpot Operations Hub operates a bit differently than a traditional integration.

There are four main characteristics where traditional integrations and data sync differ:

• data flow
• chronological organization 
• synchronization frequency
• customizability 

In reference to data flow, HubSpot’s data sync engine allows integrations to sync data in two ways, passing data to and from any system.

Data sync also passes both past and future data between systems. That way, even if you set up an integration later down the line, you can still implement historical data into your system.

What’s more, traditional integrations tend to be trigger-based, whereas data sync happens in real-time, meaning constant synchronization between two databases.

Lastly, data sync integrations are customizable. You can limit what data is passed between apps and update your options whenever you desire.

In general, connecting apps is a pain-free, no-code endeavor. HubSpot does all the work.

With data sync integrations, you can centralize customer data, keeping your team efficient and easing any undue strain.

Data Quality Automation

Data quality automation performs data cleanup automatically, allowing you to fix date properties, format names, update phone numbers, and more without lifting a hand.

The HubSpot Operations Hub takes this task very seriously, going so far as to capitalize letters to ensure the quality of your data remains intact.

This feature is often underrated. But data quality becomes increasingly important as you start to build more personalized campaign content.

The performance of this content depends on how well it is personalized. And for highly customized content, data needs to be correct.

Automating workflows such as these keeps the operations team from having to clean up data day after day, a necessary but immensely tedious process.

Custom Properties

Custom properties give you the freedom to customize your data however you see fit.

Your contacts are at the core of your business and marketing strategy. But imagine you need more than just a name and contact information to use customer data to your advantage.

Consider adding a birthdate or an anniversary to reflect how long a customer has been using your product. Either way, custom properties extend that flexibility.

You can also create custom properties for companies and deals. And if so desired, use the data you collect to build reports and share insights.

Tailor your CRM to your specifications. Meet your needs while scaling in the process. 

Workflow Extensions

Workflow extensions permit you to trigger several specific actions in third-party systems. Send a Slack message, a Zoom invite, or even manage an Asana task all through the convenience of HubSpot workflows.

You can abstract away the complexity of building a custom workflow that might otherwise require URLs, HTTP methods, and auth headers to accomplish a simple function. 

Instead, HubSpot Operations Hub has a standard list of workflow actions. Users can also add additional configurations to the custom action before adding it to their workflow.

Team Management and Permissions

Business growth will require new methodologies for organizing the internal structure of your company.

Small teams typically manage a relatively small and manageable set of assets, with management permissions and accessibility being less of a concern.

But as companies grow, so does the complexity of asset management. Global access is neither secure nor rational for a large business. 

In utilizing user permissions, you can organize team permissions by region, company size, and content, among other categories. You can also assign multiple ownership rights to different contacts, companies, and deals.

Focusing responsibilities will lead your team to be more efficient, so your business can spend more time closing sales than mismanaging data.

Programmable Automation

Automation will never cease to be a consistent and much-appreciated luxury, courtesy of the never-ending digital transformation that modern technology provides.

Using the HubSpot Operations Hub, you can code custom automated actions for nearly any business process. Lead rotation, territory management, and renewals are just a few examples of methods that can be automated through programmable automation.

Programmable automation processes take place in three distinct categories:

• “Custom code” actions in workflows
• “Create a webhook” actions in workflows
• Custom-coded bot actions in chatflows

In other HubSpot hubs of the CRM platform, automation did not go beyond a menu of predefined actions.

The benefit of this particular feature is the opportunity for your company to scale past any cookie-cutter molds.

Enterprise-Only Features

Many of the features we’ve already discussed are available across the Free, Starter, and Professional plans. The Enterprise options can be costly, but they unlock even more, making it an easy justification for many companies that are taking their growth seriously.

Some of these features include:

• Advanced governance and permissioning for data
• Datasets that take advanced reporting into account
• Advanced, custom reporting tools
• Multi-team support and team management features

Many smaller companies definitely don’t need these features, though. We would definitely recommend starting with the Free tier and upgrading as required.

How Much Does HubSpot Operations Hub Cost?

Like most HubSpot services, HubSpot Operations Hub is free, or at least it can be. But of course, paying more will get you more of what you want and need.

You can purchase one of three plans: free, starter, and professional, each with different prices and feature sets.

The Free plan for HubSpot Operations Hub will give you the following:

• Two-way data sync
• Default field mappings
• Historical sync
• All third-party integrations

If you purchase the Starter plan, starting at just $15 a month per seat, you can have all the features of a free membership plus custom field mappings. 

In contrast, a Professional plan starting at $800 a month will give everything in the Starter plan, in addition to some more popular features:

• Programmable automation and bots
• Webhooks
• Data quality automation
• Additional reports, lists, and workflows

Enterprise plans include everything in the Professional plan, as well as features like datasets for advanced reporting, advanced permissions, field-level governance, multi-team support, and additional features. It is the most expensive option, starting at around $2000 a month!

HubSpot Data Hub Vs Alternatives

The HubSpot Data Hub is not the only option. Zapeir, Segment, and native Salesforce integrations might all be good options for you. Let’s examine the most significant advantages and challenges of each competitor and how HubSpot addresses some of these challenges.

Zapier is known for its quick automations, but its processes are usually trigger-based and one-directional. What does this mean in layman’s terms? It’s challenging to maintain accurate data.

Operations Hub, on the other hand, works off a continuous two-way synchronization, which is the best way to make sure that all of your data is aligned.

Segment focuses on customer data infrastructure and capturing data from websites or mobile apps. While this is technically a good approach, you’ll likely need developers for most tasks. HubSpot has a similar outcome, but it’s far more accessible to the average person.

Salesforce is another common tool we frequently use. There’s a very large Salesforce ecosystem, but connecting it with other apps requires a lot of custom development and middleware, whereas HubSpot offers more built-in integrations.

Overall, we recommend HubSpot Operations Hub as the top choice if you are already using other HubSpot ecosystem tools. Otherwise, consider exploring competitors to ensure you are selecting the best option.

How To Start Using HubSpot Operations Hub

You can start using HubSpot Operations Hub by making sure your internal records are properly synced to the CRM.

Syncing external systems with HubSpot requires multiple APIs and often a great deal of complexity that the average HubSpot customer isn’t prepared to handle.

Even those who are new to HubSpot, who may have previously relied on ZoomInfo or Clearbit, might want to use the Operations Hub to enrich their records.

Here’s a step-by-step plan you can use to get started:

1. Audit your current data to determine the root cause of the problem.
2. Choose the right plan to get started (you can always upgrade later).
3. Connect any external tools to start pulling data.
4. Set up workflows and automate any tasks you can.
5. Test and monitor so you can adjust as needed.

While HubSpot has a generally user-friendly setup, custom integrations and large-scale syncs are often quite complicated. You may even find that you need expert HubSpot developers on your team to ensure your migration is a success.

This is where Trio steps in. Trio can provide qualified developers who can build custom integrations to connect your system to HubSpot seamlessly.

Operational efficiency, almost by definition, will drive the growth of your business. It’s up to you to determine the best approach for cultivating your operations.

Many of our developers here at Trio are HubSpot certified and eager to be part of your business’s success. We focus on building the right solutions, tailored to your unique tech stack, even if it is beyond HubSpot’s out-of-the-box connectors. And, since we specialize in offshore and nearshore developers, any development is done as cost-effectively as possible.

Conclusion

HubSpot Operations Hub is a component of HubSpot’s CRM platform, merging the best of the marketing, sales, and services hubs into one comprehensive tool. 

This hub comes with several hallmark qualities that not only stand out from the rest of HubSpot’s software but also challenge other CRM platforms.

Automation, data organization, advanced integrations, and the rest of what HubSpot Operations Hub has to offer will establish a baseline for revenue operations to take your business far.

That said, navigating HubSpot software can be tricky, and you will need certified HubSpot professionals to do it right.

 Learn more about how to hire HubSpot developers today, or reach out to get in touch!