What is Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and how can it help my business?
CRM stands for “customer relationship management”. It’s data-driven software that improves how you engage and do business with your customers and prospects. CRM systems help you to:
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Manage and maintain customer relationships;
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Track sales leads; and
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Feed and nurture your pipeline with intelligent, data-based marketing.
Why implement a CRM solution?
You can get in touch with us here to get your project started but, first, let’s look at what a good CRM system might mean for your business. Essentially, it will help increase your profitability by streamlining administrative processes in your sales, marketing, and service divisions. This allows you to focus on building and maintaining the customer relationships that matter most.
Without a centralised and automated CRM system, your people can lose track of customer interactions, miss business opportunities and fail to meet targets. This could mean you:
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Miss growth opportunities;
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Lose revenue because you’re not optimising your processes; and
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Fail to make the most of your customer relationships or sales leads.
On the other hand, a strong CRM solution is a platform where everything crucial to developing, improving, and retaining your customer relationships is stored. A good CRM gives you the power to:
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Keep track of customer information;
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Close deals before a competitor; and
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Have a sales team that work in unison, not in competition.
How to get the most out of your CRM
CRMs aren’t just about choosing solutions for sales and service automation, they help you connect better and engage with customers, anticipate the buyer’s journey and find ways to meet customer needs better than your competition. Researching which CRM to implement can be overwhelming. Here are four tips to help you find the best software for you, your customers, and your business.
#1: Know how the parts of CRM software work together
An effective customer engagement tool assists with automating tasks, offering insights and improving customer service. It should cover the basic tasks with which your company requires support, while ensuring each component integrates and collaborates with the others.
#2: Align sales and marketing
Sales and marketing components can work together to help you better understand a customer’s needs and address those needs through the right marketing channels. Some of the ways these two functions can work together to help you are by connecting with buyers at the right time and through their preferred channels. They can also help you determine what types of messages to send to customers and when to deliver them. Finally, by prioritising and nurturing the right leads, they can ensure a smooth hand-off from marketing to sales.
#3: Increase sales productivity
The right CRM software allows your sales team to find and prioritise the right leads and deliver insights when and where your sales teams engage with customers. These systems can work together to predict future sales and budgets so you can plan accordingly. They can help your agents streamline the sales processes – from initial contact to closing the deal. A CRM also centralises data so that agents have access to real-time information and deliver solutions quicker. With cloud-based CRMs, you can also offer your sales staff mobility because system works across browsers and devices on or off-location.
#4: Build better customer relationships
Bringing customer service and sales together helps you determine and predict your customer’s preferences and make it easier for your buyers to interact and trust doing business with you. When these two solutions combine, they can help you get insights into your customers’ journeys so you can meet their expectations. You might also provide mobile applications for your clients and staff no matter what device they’re using or offer customers an easy-to-use, self-service portal so they can be in control of their data and quickly find answers to their questions.
Why do we recommend Dynamics 365?
At Boxharry, we love Dynamics 365 from Microsoft. With Dynamics 365, you get a flexible solution that's customisable to suit your business needs.
Marketing: improve your customer journey
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Generate multichannel marketing campaigns;
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Nurture sales-ready leads;
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Align your sales and marketing teams with planning and tracking tools that integrate with your existing apps and services;
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Foster leads;
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Run multichannel campaigns, including email marketing, content and events;
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Target matched audiences based on LinkedIn interactions; and
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Create personalised workflows for each stage of your buying experience.
You will make better decisions because…
Real-time data will give you valuable insights into your brand reputation and performance. You will be able to prioritise leads using multiple lead scoring models. Custom dashboards will enable you to analyse the data that matters.
You will adapt quickly because…
You can automate processes for customer experiences, drive innovation and business decisions with artificial intelligence and use the Microsoft cloud platform to reduce operating costs, while simplifying deployment across your infrastructure.
Sales: Empower sellers to drive personal engagement with customers
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Understand customer needs better, engage more effectively, and win more deals;
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Sell smarter with embedded insights that foster relationships, boost productivity and accelerate sales performance; and
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Use AI to track customer engagement and automate sales execution with contextual prompts that drive sales.
You will grow your business because…
You can improve your win rate with a dynamic, event-driven sales process. At the same time, you’ll build a pipeline with high-quality leads and prospects, while measuring the past actions and planning for the future.
You will stay focused because…
Dynamics 365 helps you find the right prospects and customers. It helps you to know the next best action to move relationships forward and, therefore, to build a high-performing sales team.
You will win faster because…
The CRM helps you engage and collaborate around strategic deals, align with the buyer’s journey to deliver personalised engagement and, of course, work anytime, anywhere.
Field service: empower your agents to create a better customer experience
Streamline scheduling, inventory management, and on-site efficiency. Offer quick and transparent communications and tracking functionalities to keep customers connected to your field agents.
You will improve operational efficiency because…
Dynamics 365 helps you detect and solve problems faster with the Internet of Things. It helps reduce costs using predictive maintenance and enables you to automate work orders, scheduling, and dispatching.
You will empower field agents because…
The CRM helps boost on-site efficiency by providing technicians with mobile access to data. You can deliver a more personalised service by understanding customer preferences and history to enable technicians to work hands-free by using innovative technology, like mixed reality headsets.
You will build trust because…
Dynamics 365 helps you provide customers with real-time technician location tracking and appointment reminders. The CRM enables you to share quotes, contracts, and scheduling information quickly and easily. Finally, it lets customers self-schedule appointments and monitor service with a customer portal.
Next steps
We hope you found our explanation of the benefits of Dynamics 365 useful – we tried to keep it simple but we actually think the case for using a CRM really is straightforward! By partnering with Cloud9 Insight, a specialist Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner, we’ve also tried to make implementation as straightforward as possible.
Your journey starts with their friendly and knowledgeable Sales team before their expert Delivery team implements a solution. Finally, post-project support from their Customer Success Team kicks in. So what are you waiting for? Contact the Boxharry team and let your CRM journey begin.