Making use of a new CRM system is the perfect way for your business to build relationships with your customers, gain a better understanding of your market and prepare for significant growth. By engaging various touchpoints throughout your business, you will be able to encourage collaboration in your business and beyond. Choosing the right CRM solution will help to revolutionise the way you conduct business in a positive way.
In our latest blog article, we will guide you through the process of purchasing a new CRM system for your business.
Before we get started, let’s define what a CRM is?
A CRM (customer relationship management) is a category of data driven software solutions that help you to improve your engagements and relationships with your customer base. You will find that a strong CRM solution is a multifunctional platform that gives you the information required to create customised customer journeys and long-term relationships with your customers. Without having a suitable CRM solution in place, you put your business at risk of not being able to track customer engagements and missing out on opportunities.
What are the benefits associated with a CRM system?
Following the successful implementation of the CRM system, you will find that this results in extended customer lifetime value as well as improved profits. Better still, the CRM automates the personalisation of customer experiences and marketing communications to improve interactions as well as increasing satisfaction levels. By being both proactive and predictive will see costs dramatically reduced as well as positive feedback around your overall brand. By having this in place, you will be able to maximise your opportunities to generate high quality leads and gain more insights into your customers that will help to drive your business forwards.
So, where does Microsoft Dynamics 365 come into this process?
By using fully scalable and cloud-based CRM solutions from Microsoft gives you a centralised data model allowing you to gain deeper insights across your business. Furthermore, Dynamics 365 will equip you with all you need to adapt to ever-changing customer requirements and increase collaboration across your business.
You are able to choose a single application or make use of several CRM tools for a multifaceted solution that will meet your specific needs now and can grow with your business well into the future. Taking this one step further, you will find that Dynamics 365 can be extended via the Microsoft Power Platform which smoothly integrates with Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) and other well-known business tools. By connecting Microsoft Teams will enable anyone across your business to both view and collaborate on any Dynamics 365 record within one place.
So, what does my business need a CRM for?
The best thing for your business to do to decide which would be the best CRM for your business is to outline your current processes, requirements as well as future goals and objectives.
Ask yourself some of the following questions:
- Which areas of business have access and benefit today?
- What specific insights would help your business grow in a sustainable way?
- How can you improve your current processes to paint a better picture for your customer?
- Which applications do your employees use on a daily basis and how will you integrate CRM experiences in those tools?
- What security and compliance considerations do you need to take into account for customer data in your sector/industry?
Get the fundamentals right
After you have discussed the above, you now need to set your expectations for basic CRM needs. You will find that these are capabilities/functionality that all businesses require to maximise the value of customer data which can be the following:
- The most important of these is the fact that your CRM solution should be able to collate data sources and processes to equip every employee in your business with insights and tools to enable them to drive success.
- By selecting a SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution for your business provided by the Cloud will reduce your reliance on IT servers as well as making sure that you are equipped with the latest technologies and the capability to maintain high levels of security.
- With the rise in hybrid working, capable mobile apps are vital for any business.
- Smooth integration with your existing tools and processes fast tracks both implementation as well as adoption.
- The ability to both extend and scale up enables the solution to grow as your business does. Better still, a low-code solution allows you to create apps and automate processes quicker and more cost effectively.
- Accessible, engaging visualisations, reporting as well as analytics allow people to gain better value from customer data to help plot future growth.
So, which Dynamics 365 solution should I select for the teams in my business?
It goes without saying but different teams have different requirements from any system, yet they all have to come together to meet common goals/objectives. Selecting suitable CRM solutions tailored for specific departments such as sales, marketing, field service, customer service – but still work alongside each other in one central location – will give the best possible experience for your workforce.
Microsoft has the following available for each department in your business:
- Dynamics 365 Sales - empowers salespeople to forge strong relationships with their customers, take actions based on accurate data & win business quicker.
- Dynamics 365 Marketing - helps to bring your marketing content, data and processes together so you can provide your customers with engaging experiences across all touchpoints across your marketing channel.
- Dynamics 365 Customer Service - Control the way your customers experience your brand and make sure your services go 'beyond the product.' By bringing together case management, knowledge management, social customer services, assisted-service and self-service functionality, Dynamics 365 for Customer Service gives you the tools you need to make your brand unforgettable.
- Dynamics 365 Field Service - Go further than ever before with Dynamics 365 for Field Service. Experience the benefits that real-time communication and collaboration between your customer service team, dispatch, field agents and customers can bring to your operations. Increase firm time fix rates and make sure your business is delivering an exceptional performance every time an agent responds to a call.
Next Steps?
If you are a business that is looking to implement a Microsoft CRM system or wanting something more cost effective such as our Quick Start CRM package to get started with then please talk to our team of CRM experts today to discuss your specific requirements.
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