Microsoft Dynamics CRM 365 for Business Development

It does not matter whether your business is about the sales of goods, production, or services: the customer is always a key link, which determines the company’s profit. CRM systems are developed to improve contact with customers by optimizing and automating business processes. Such solutions dramatically increase workforce productivity and sometimes even eliminate human errors. In this material, we will tell you about the most popular CRM solutions in the market—Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM. We will consider its features and implementation benefits.

CRM is not software but a business approach

Why should we consider the CRM system not as an out-of-the-box product but as a comprehensive solution customized for specific business tasks? Let's take an example. Having identified a certain problem with the customer, for example, the absence of a dynamic sales pipeline, we set a relevant task—to configure the system functionality necessary to build this pipeline. In this case, the solution will automate the deal life cycle and automatically calculate the deal probability at each stage, highlighting the steps according to the company's internal regulations and obtaining this pipeline in the form of reports, charts, and other visuals. As a result, we get a solution to this problem, and the management receives relevant information about the state of the sales pipeline. In other words, to make a CRM system work, you need to implement it correctly and find the right approach. Of course, there are ready-made industry solutions, but anyway, they still have to be customized.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM is an enterprise-grade customer relationship management solution from Microsoft that provides the toolkit for sales, marketing, and customer service staff and at the same time, can be flexibly configured and customized.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM modules

The system has Sales, Customer Service, Field Service, and Marketing modules for customer relationship management. The Marketing module can be partially automated as part of the Sales module or fully automated as a standalone module. The same refers to Project Service Automation.

Each of these modules can be used independently, and additional modules can be connected if necessary. Thus, Dynamics CRM can develop along with the business: the growth potential is unlocked by the connection of additional modules and the implementation of settings by means of the system.

Let's consider some of the key modules.

Sales. Sales process: from lead to payment

The sales process in Dynamics 365 for Sales will help you close more deals and increase customer satisfaction. The system allows you to record the leads that come from different channels — leads from websites or social networks, leads automatically generated after calls, and leads manually entered into the system. A potential client qualifies as an opportunity at the moment when the manager identifies the specific deal requirements that make it possible to calculate the deal value. If it is not possible to work with the lead, it is disqualified — but it remains in the system and can be re-qualified. The deal has the following key parameters: products and services ordered, competitors, type of payment, the possibility of delivery, additional reference literature, decision-makers, contacts, etc. — in short, all the information that is needed to close the deal successfully. One or more commercial offers can be created from the deal, each of these offers having its own lifecycle. There can be many offers for different products and with different terms, but only one offer becomes the winner and becomes the basis of the future contract. One or more invoices are based on the contract. All this is done in one convenient interface, so the business process has the smallest possible number of steps.

Customer service. Request handling

The customer service department can be called the face of the company. This simple service automation tool increases customer loyalty. The customer comes to the service department with a certain relationship history. At the service stage, the customer's service parameters are determined. First, a specific SLA for the response time is assigned for each customer. Second, the service limits are defined: this is the volume of services that can be provided (the number of potentially handled requests or the volume of services provided). Third, it is possible to manage service contracts if this service is performed on a commercial basis. The last stage is the request distribution between various channels. A request has several lifecycle stages: it can be created, resolved, or closed. Requests can be arranged in different hierarchies. Just one response can be given to several similar requests.

Marketing (Sales module). Campaign management

Drive the growth of your business and increase sales through targeted marketing campaigns. The Sales module offers marketing management capabilities but only limited to marketing campaigns. Here you can find a card with a campaign profile and marketing lists. You can plan different activities for each campaign: form emails, send emails, and plan calls. This is a tool for fast campaign management; it does not support complex marketing processes (campaign management).

Marketing. A full set of marketing tools

Engage the right potential customers by launching targeted multi-channel campaigns. It's a cloud-based module with everything required to manage marketing operations and prepare marketing campaigns. The visual editor allows you to define the chain of sequences for launching a campaign. The campaigns can be multithreaded, with different waiting conditions and complex routing algorithms. The functionality of this tool is similar to that provided in BPM systems, but it has a narrower focus on the execution of marketing campaigns.

This module also contains an event management tool. It allows you to automate the full event management cycle: from event organization conditions to registration of potential participants, checking their actual presence, determining the event budget and the campaign costs, and managing leads and deals. This module also has a tool for registering leads and initiating deals.

There is also a dedicated tool for landing page configuration. With this tool, you don't need to have a special service for creating the landing page: it simply generates a page with a link and sends it to customers. The customers visit this page, register, and provide their info, which is loaded into the system.

There is also a tool for creating visually compelling and modern mass emails. Its main advantage compared to third-party services is that the email can be sent to customers that are already available in Dynamics. This module also collects all statistics on the email campaign.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM development focus

Reliability and performance. Microsoft is committed to improving system performance and reliability. The system load testing made by the vendor has shown that Dynamics responds in 0.4 seconds, with 8,000 users simultaneously working and 1400 transactions per second. An impressive figure, indeed!

A modern and simple user interface. The key design concept is that every role has a specialized interface tailored for it, so that the user needs very little effort to find the necessary functionality.

Seamless integration with a variety of tools is necessary to ensure the omnichannel customer communication approach.

Personal data protection

What about the compliance with personal data laws for the servers beyond Russia?

Microsoft has released a depersonalization plugin specifically for this situation. The expert review of this plugin proves that the data is completely depersonalized when they are on Microsoft servers.