Microsoft® Business Solutions Customer Relationship Management (Microsoft CRM) is designed to help an organization acquire and retain customers and reduce the time spent on administrative tasks. Microsoft CRM provides a robust account management system that automatically tracks sales-related activities and revenues. It includes analytical, operational, and collaborative tools designed to improve and maintain good customer relations. It also provides tools that help assess customer value in terms of the future business they may generate.
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Sales Process Management
Sales Force Management
Sales and Contact Management
Communications Activity Management
Sales Process Management
Sales process management includes all the tasks associated with finding sales opportunities and closing deals. This includes:
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Prospecting and qualifying leads.
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Managing contacts, opportunities, and accounts.
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Tracing the stages of deal closure and its related probabilities, including the variable compensations directly or indirectly related to closing deals.
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Managing and tracking communications between salespeople and customers, such as conducting direct e-mail campaigns.
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Maintaining a database of product information in a format that’s easy for the sales force to access, either online in the office or offline at a customer site.
Sales Force Management
The automated sales force management in Microsoft CRM organizes the basic information required to track:
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Sales activities
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Account ownership
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Variable compensation
This information can also be used to structure the sales force into territories and teams.
Automated sales force management systems can be invaluable because they measure both the tangible and intangible factors that affect the bottom line—customer satisfaction and sales force effectiveness. Even if company profits are up overall, tracking revenues generated by individual salespeople and assessing these figures against sales costs provides valuable insight into how the organization is faring. If this analysis reveals, for example, that the amount of time spent on administrative tasks is equal to or greater than the time engaged in sales-related efforts, sales costs are too high, and the sales force is not functioning optimally, then your organization can take steps to improve these areas.
Microsoft CRM provides automation tools that reduce the time salespeople (and their managers) typically spend performing administrative tasks. These tools include communication management, direct e-mail management, and sales process management.
Automated sales force management also provides managers with the information they need about the organization’s sales efforts—a list of all salespeople and the contacts and opportunities they are working on, sales forecasts for the coming quarter, and a view of all the sales activity in each account. Microsoft CRM offers both predefined views as well as the ability to create custom views to access the information.
Organizational Structuring
Microsoft CRM can also be used to structure your sales force into territories and teams. This allows greater flexibility for sharing and collaboration. In addition, new leads and contacts can be assigned to product or territorial teams, or the manager can assign them to individual salespeople.
Forecasting
Part of sales management is obtaining realistic sales forecasts and managing the sales activities to reach those forecasts. If actual sales consistently do not meet forecasted figures, management needs to find out why and identify whether the issue is with sales practices or forecast methodology. Microsoft CRM provides tools to help with forecasting and with analyzing these numbers against actual sales.
Microsoft CRM also enables you to manage your entire sales process, analyze your opportunities and the stage they are in, and use real-time data for decision-making; such as, whether you should start marketing programs to create more leads or focus on closing the top opportunities.
Sales and Contact Management
As an organization and its customer base grow, more people may become involved in each sale. When more than one person is involved with handling an account, it’s critical that everyone understands the history and future plans for the account. The contact management system in Microsoft CRM enables individuals—and organizations—to manage, share, and collaborate on accounts. Efficiently implemented and used, Microsoft CRM logging and tracking features benefit the individual who makes the sale, the sales team, other supporting teams, and their management. The customer also benefits from better service during and after the sales process.
Marketing List Management
Many companies and salespeople purchase mass-marketing lists. These lists often include names of people who make purchasing decisions and the companies for whom they work. These lists are reviewed and individuals are either “disqualified” as unsuitable for the organization’s sales strategy, or “qualified” for further contact and opportunity investigation.
You can use Microsoft CRM to import lead lists into the database, perform the usual qualifying activities, and convert names to opportunities, accounts, and/or contacts if they qualify. Names that do not qualify are marked as inactive but are retained in the database for business reporting purposes, for example, to analyze the success of different list sources or to assess how much time the sales force spends prospecting.
Lead Management
Leads are individuals who have indicated an interest in finding out more about the products or services offered. They have been identified by a salesperson as recipients for additional information or other activities aimed at eventually making a sale.
Microsoft CRM makes lead information easily accessible. Profiles can be created and communication activities performed. All activities, such as e-mail, notes, and meetings, are logged, so a history is kept of every contact.
Leads that show an interest in buying become opportunities. Leads that do not qualify are marked as inactive, but retained in the database for business reporting purposes.
Opportunity Management
An opportunity is a potential sale to an account or contact. Microsoft CRM enables your sales force to:
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Track information about each opportunity.
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Save the contact information.
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Track the stage the opportunity is in.
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Identify the salesperson who is actively working on it.
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Assign revenue credit if the sale goes through.
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Assess the likelihood of closing the sale and the projected date.
Opportunities can be linked with competitor information and then analyzed to identify the most effective selling strategies.
Contact, Account, and Customer Management
Contact, account, and customer management covers the basics; including the name of the person the salesperson works with and his or her contact information, such as address, phone numbers, and company title. This information is stored with a log of any activities (e-mail, meetings, and so on) that have been done.
This feature enables salespeople, managers, and others (with proper authorization) to view and handle corporate accounts. Each account is also linked to order information, proposed sales opportunities, and so forth, so a complete history of each account is accessible from one place.
You can also use Microsoft CRM to create “child accounts,” for instance, when a salesperson does business with more than one department in a large corporation. In this situation, there might be individual department-level accounts that have separate contacts and ordering activities, but all invoices are processed through a single corporate purchasing account.
Competitor Management
Competing effectively is a valuable business strategy, and you can use Microsoft CRM to create and disperse competitor information quickly and easily. This information helps salespeople access information about the companies and products they are competing with, and to assess how big of a threat the competitor represents. For quick comparison facts, competitor information can be linked to product information.
Communications Activity Management
Reliable and effective communication between members of the sales team as well as between salespeople and customers is essential to the financial success of an organization. Through innovative automation tools, Microsoft CRM facilitates communication and tracks activities, enabling the sales force to focus on pursuing leads and closing sales.
The Microsoft CRM communication system provides e-mail support and records incoming leads. It also includes a calendar that can be used to schedule meetings and events, create tasks, and so on.
It’s common practice for salespeople to keep notes on conversations, a running log of product information sent, and to send task requests to other members of the team. Microsoft CRM provides tools for writing notes and linking files—for instance, copies of letters or product information files—to those notes. This helps other members of the sales team easily scan a list of what was sent, then open the files to read the contents. Salespeople can also create e-mail templates that add prepared messages and greetings, maintaining message consistency.
Direct E-mail
When sending direct e-mail messages, it is useful to measure the response rate to find out which marketing messages are working and where the best mass-mailing lists come from.
Reports
Reviewing reports on a regular basis is the best way for managers to keep up with account data, sales activities, and revenue. Microsoft CRM comes with over 100 templates for reports.
Sales Literature Management
The final important element of the sales process is to provide product information in a format that is easy for the sales force to access, either online in the office or offline at a customer site. Microsoft CRM includes tools to create product catalogs, including:
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Product descriptions
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Pricing and discount lists
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Links to sales literature
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Competitor information
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Customer profile and order history
These product catalogs help salespeople quickly learn about new or unfamiliar products and services, and provide them with the account-specific facts and data they need to help them close deals.
Because product catalogs can be downloaded to their laptops, salespeople can make customer calls equipped with all the information they need. Based on customer needs and past orders, they can make recommendations, answer questions about products, and make comparisons to competitor products or services. In addition, when a customer is interested in closing the deal, the salesperson can use Microsoft CRM to calculate product volume discounts and offer price quotes immediately.