Claude Plugins — Automate Your Business Processes

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5.3 Hands-On: Build a CRM Automation Plugin

Build a CRM Automation Plugin

Hands-on: automate your customer relationship workflow

In this lesson you will build a plugin that automates repetitive CRM tasks. From lead capture to follow-up scheduling, you will create a plugin that saves hours of manual work every week.

What the Plugin Does

Lead Processing

Automatically categorize and enrich new leads from multiple sources into a unified pipeline.

Follow-Up Automation

Schedule and trigger follow-up actions based on lead status, last contact date, and engagement score.

Report Generation

Generate weekly CRM summaries with conversion rates, pipeline health, and action items.

Building Step by Step

Define the Trigger

Identify which CRM events should activate the plugin: new lead, status change, or scheduled interval.

Map the Data Flow

Specify which fields to read, transform, and write. Keep the mapping explicit in your SKILL.md.

Write the Skill Logic

Implement the core automation using Claude tools: read records, apply rules, update fields.

Add Error Handling

Handle missing fields, API timeouts, and duplicate records gracefully with clear log messages.

Example Skill Structure

Plugin Layout

skills/
  crm-automation/
    SKILL.md          # Trigger, inputs, outputs
    references/
      crm-fields.md   # Field mapping reference
    hooks/
      on-new-lead.py  # Lead processing logic

Start Small

Begin with a single automation — like auto-tagging leads by source. Once it works reliably, add more rules incrementally.

Key Takeaway

A CRM automation plugin eliminates the most time-consuming part of sales: data entry and follow-up tracking. Build it once, let it run every day.