Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0
Works the Way Your Business Does
Solving the challenges of the customer CRM experience requires a holistic approach; from marketing and sales to customer service and support, the complete CRM solution must address processes and activities throughout the entire customer-experience life cycle.
In the course of product planning and research, the product design team found that, although companies were familiar with the benefits of driving new sales opportunities, proactive measures aimed at generating demand and identifying new or expanded opportunities were markedly absent. This breakdown can be attributed to 1) certain functions not being core competencies of the sales organization or of the management (such as marketing), and/or 2) simply not having enough time or staff power to make marketing, analysis, or planning a priority. Similarly, in the case of service-oriented businesses, the day-to-day management of tasks was cumbersome and often paper-based, resulting in decreased accuracy and effectiveness in the support of customers and business processes. As a result, Microsoft designed Microsoft CRM to provide greater control and visibility of business performance, freeing managers and staff to focus on deepening customer relationships without requiring the development of additional skills or securing additional resources.
Automated Project Management
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 broadens the definition of traditional customer relationship management by automating complex tasks such as marketing campaign management and service scheduling. Microsoft CRM also provides richer reporting and analysis tools to help businesses extract more insight from customer data collected in the sales and service components of Microsoft CRM. With this piece of the CRM puzzle in place, Microsoft CRM customers can integrate their sales, service, and marketing processes to maximize efficiency and present a single, consistent face to their customers.
Campaign performance report leverages integration with SQl Server Reporting Services (SRS) to reduce time spent on standard report generation and special reports requested by specific lines of business.
Customer Service Automation and Service Scheduling
Microsoft CRM continues to build on its core customer service functions such as Case Management, Contract Management, and Knowledge Base Management. These tools support business requirements for customer and product support departments, including personnel who manage telephone, email, and Web-based customer service requests, loyalty programs, and issue resolution. To expand on those core capabilities, the Microsoft CRM product team identified service scheduling as a key area where customers could significantly increase the value of their CRM solution, particularly for the services industry. A number of service organizations still employ a manual process, resulting in considerable imprecision in daily work schedules. Imprecise scheduling makes planning difficult, hinders positive customer satisfaction, and wastes time. Among those businesses where the quality of services is dependent on scheduled appointments, dentist offices, property management, and accounting groups are prominent examples. For these and other service organizations, professional and efficient service delivery is essential to creating operational value. In no small way, Microsoft CRM creates a great opportunity to leverage 'quality of service' in corporation branding initiatives. Many corporations, for example, tout local service and/or excellent customer care as proof of a real commitment to their customers. Utilizing Microsoft CRM, organizations can improve current customer relationships while tapping into new opportunities by advancing their reputation for excellent service delivery. Organizations that seek to establish a brand identity that portrays a strong customer service image will especially appreciate the positive marketing potential within Microsoft CRM
Automated Sales Management
Microsoft continues to expand the functionality of its automated sales management application. Customers requested enhanced capacity to deliver various approaches of marketing campaigns at different pivots, including at the local level, through brand offices or by individual sales representatives. In either case, Microsoft CRM provides customers with a vehicle to manage structured and unstructured customer data, integrating the management of sales, marketing, and service and support activities. It also includes tools to track and better predict sales metrics. This helps marketing teams measure the success of their campaigns while also helping to better inform business and marketing decisions.
Richer, More Supportable Reporting with SQL Server Reporting Services
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 uses Microsoft SQl Server Reporting Services (SRS) as its primary reporting solution. SRS enables the creation, management, and delivery of both traditional paper-oriented reports and interactive Web-based reports. SRS expands the reporting capability for business users by providing more options for custom reports and formats, including HTML, Acrobat, and Excel files. SRS also makes it easier for system administrators to provide both bulk and individual customized reports on a subscription basis. SRS enables additional functionality, including on-demand delivery ('pull'), scheduled or event-based report delivery ('push'), as well as personal report subscriptions that allow users to choose specific preferences for their reports.
With Microsoft SQl Server Analysis Services, businesses can take advantage of powerful ad-hoc analysis, data mining, and forecasting features to extract more value out of their CRM data.
More Powerful Ad-hoc Queries and Analysis with Microsoft Excel
Seamless integration with effective analysis tools like Microsoft Excel means sales managers can quickly perform ad-hoc analysis, such as forecasting, using real-time CRM data.
Useful Reporting Right Out of the Box
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 includes easy-to-use reports for certain business processes such as marketing campaigns and service scheduling.
- Campaign-response tracking. Reports are generated automatically to track follow-up, attendance at events, and response to outsourced campaigns. Through integration with the sales and service components of Microsoft CRM, managers can see the direct effect of a campaign on customer actions. For the first time, marketing managers are provided with insight on the effectiveness of their campaigns, with no additional effort required on their part.
- Service-scheduling reports. Service managers asked for reports that would allow them to spot trends and accordingly adjust resources and service offerings to meet market demands. Microsoft CRM allows users to see customer history, demographics, and preferences, enabling them to achieve the task requirements and use service history to better inform marketing and sales processes.
New entity customization built on the Microsoft .NET Framework.
Affordable and Easier Customization
Businesses have had difficulty in realizing value from CRM software because any given solution was often too general and too inflexible to be useful, or too expensive to design and implement. As a result, businesses would either stay the course without realizing the true benefits of a good CRM system, or continue to struggle with a solution that did not meet expectations. Microsoft CRM is built on the Microsoft legacy of ease and accessibility at all levels, both for users and for organizations. It was important to design a system that allowed for easy customization in order to address immediate needs, while at the same time allowing Microsoft CRM to be expanded for use as a development platform or as a component of a larger infrastructure solution. The customization is connected with CRM Web services to generate dynamic Web service definitions. These can be used by developers to work seamlessly with their customizations through the CRM application programming interfaces (APIs) within Microsoft Visual Studio® development system. Features in Microsoft CRM are built on .NET to provide a more flexible, modern application as well as a consistent and easy-to-use programming model for partners and developers. Microsoft CRM allows for the extension and addition of business logic components using any of the .NET languages, and easily plugs them into the CRM application (callouts). Using a .NET programming language, developers can also create Workflow libraries and plug them into Microsoft CRM workflows to extend their functionality and add new business logic to business rules. Extensions to CRM functionality with .NET plug-ins provide a powerful approach to different industry or vertical markets, with enhanced security, extensibility, and connectivity capabilities.
Built-in Web services
Standards-based Web service capabilities empower businesses by seamlessly connecting Microsoft CRM to external service providers and suppliers of information like credit scores and financial data. Custom solutions are now more powerful because partners and developers can access all of the CRM functionality through a set of standards-based Web services. The Visual Studio integration enables developers to access and use Microsoft CRM APIs and object models directly inside Visual Studio, reducing the need for the documentation-intensive programming model required in the previous version of Microsoft CRM. The Web services increase the capability to interoperate with other legacy or modern compliant applications.
