Dynamics 365 & Microsoft Office – Better Together

Every month, more than 85 million people are more productive thanks to Microsoft Office 365. Users can work from anywhere, at any time and across any device.

Add Microsoft Dynamics 365 to your Office 365 subscription and transform the way you work with customers.

Let’s take a look at how Dynamics 365 and Office 365 work together.

Outlook & Dynamics 365

Create new Dynamics 365  records in Outlook. Never fail to track email leads again. Click one button and the email sender becomes a record in Dynamics 365. You can also bulk create records from any of your Outlook contacts.

Quick create customer tasks. Create activity lists in response to emails. Simply drag emails that need actioning into Outlook Tasks. These are automatically scheduled as tasks in Dynamics 365 and added to the customer record.

See important account info in Outlook. View account info next to the message. Dynamics 365 draws sales activities, cases and opportunity information about the account and places it next to the relevant mail.

Log your sales activities from within Outlook Calendar. With a single click from within Outlook Calendar, track meetings and customer appointments. Managers get an update on these activities without the sales rep having to log in to Dynamics 365.

Mobile. Take notes on the move. Dynamics 365 will connect these to the customer record.

Connect Excel to Dynamics 365 data at the touch of a button. If you prefer seeing reporting data within excel, Dynamics 365 will link with whatever reports you produce. The data in Excel remains linked to Dynamics 365, so your reports update dynamically. And because the data is drawn from Dynamics 365, user security roles are maintained. If the excel doc contains some data above your security clearance, that part of the data will be hidden on the spreadsheet.

Create custom dashboards. Set up all your key metrics in one window. Import datasets from Dynamics 365 with a few clicks, using the pre-built content packs. It’s never been easier to see the data you need, all in one place, on any device.

See calendars and shared docs from within Dynamics 365. Your company SharePoint accounts automatically get imported to Dynamics 365, making integration easy and seamless.

Smart collaboration on proposals. Source customer data from Dynamics 365 and those documents automatically get attached to the customer record.

Instant follow up. Conduct webinars or whiteboard discussions with Skype for Business and then immediately send a record of the event to participants. Dynamics 365 will track who received it, and add it to their customer record.

Don’t miss more articles by The CRM Team

Ensuring projects deliver: On time. On budget. At a profit.

• Coordinated Opportunity Management – Track and manage upcoming project opportunities, so that sales teams and project managers can work together to land as many projects as possible, without overlapping resources.

• Accurate Project Quotations – Quickly create comprehensive project quotes using standard or customized templates.

• Automated Resource Planning – Use Azure Machine Learning to forecast demand and resource allocation. It will automatically match people with the right skills and experience to the projects that need them.

• Team Collaboration – Combine Project Service with Office 365 and share project documents. You will be able to monitor the status on project deliverables and receive real-time updates by project members, simplifying risk management.

• Simple Tracking of Budget and Costs – Each project worker keeps a record of hours and expenses in their mobile device, which is automatically collated by Project Service. See the whole project costs visualized in real-time.

• Easy Reporting – See key project metrics in powerful overview dashboards, on your computer, or on-the-go. Quickly export these metrics into your project reports.

• Hassle-Free Billing and Invoicing – See project costs in a simple overview that can quickly be converted into an invoice – either within Project Service or in conjunction with your current accounting system.

Don’t miss more articles by The CRM Team

What is CRM?

Many people think that CRM is software. But it’s far more than that. 

Customer Relationship Management is about blending technology and strategy to guarantee great customer experience.

1.  Marketing

2.  Sales

3.  Delivery

4.  Service

A bitter let down

A guy in our office recently ordered a cell phone from a tele-sales company. Their marketing was excellent and they had created a strong brand that he trusted. The salesman on the phone was very knowledgeable. His easy manner made buying a simple process.

But when it came to receiving his phone, he had a different experience. On opening his package, he realised the phone was completely different to the one he ordered. When he contacted the company to correct things, nobody seemed to care. It took him a long time to get the company to deliver the phone he’d actually bought. When they eventually did, he vowed never to buy from them again.

Customers are lost through experiences like this.

It doesn’t matter how good certain teams in your business are, without consistency across the four touch points, you’ll always hemorrhage customers and revenue. This is where Customer Relationship Management comes in.

CRM gives you this consistency. A good, functioning CRM system provides great customer experience – right across your business. And because customers have a good relationship with you, you’ll be able to keep hold of them. This creates up-selling and cross-selling opportunities. Selling to current customers is far easier than attracting new ones.

Great customer relationship management doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a journey. But it’s a journey every company needs to be on.

At The CRM Team, we are experts on this journey. Whatever stage you have reached, we can assist you to get to the next one. See which stage you are at.

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