What’s new in Dynamics 365 for Marketing

Dynamics 365 for Marketing is a leading marketing-automation application that is part of the Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 platform of business apps. It delivers comprehensive capabilities for creating and running multi-channel campaigns. The application includes event management, lead management, embedded intelligence for segment targeting, lead scoring, and interactions insights. Being built on the same platform as Dynamics 365 for Sales, your marketing and sales teams can share common information and business processes to help them collaborate closely throughout the sales cycle.

Here’s what’s new:

1. Multi-channel campaigns

Create automated multichannel campaigns using the customer journey designer. Each journey establishes a target market segment and can then deliver automated communications, make automated decisions, generate internal tasks, deliver follow-up communications and respond to customer interactions.

Run high-volume email campaigns to deliver personalized messages that look great on all platforms and screen sizes. Judge the effectiveness of emailing campaigns with detailed counts of opens, clicks, forwards, etc.

Use the embedded segmentation engine to set up sophisticated, dynamic marketing segments that perfectly target your campaigns. The engine queries against a high-volume database that uses your collected behavioural, demographic, and firmographic data to find targeted prospects.

2. Rich content creation

 Create modern online content, including visually rich email messages, landing pages, and forms using intuitive, graphical digital content designers. You can get to work quickly by starting with professionally designed templates, which can easily be customized and saved to help reinforce brand identity and build brand awareness.

3. A new event management module

The Marketing application features comprehensive event management, which helps you plan, execute, promote, and follow-up on webinars and in-person events. Start your planning by modeling your venue, booking speakers, collecting sponsors, and setting up your event schedule. Then publish your event details directly to an event portal, where attendees can read about the event, view speaker bios, register online, and build their session schedule. Finally, set up a customer journey to promote the event, collect registrations, and follow up with attendees. 

4. Improved Lead management

Use landing pages to invite contacts to register with your organization and generate leads based on those submissions. An automated, rule-based lead scoring engine helps identify your hottest leads as they interact with your marketing activities. The engine can then automatically forward sales-ready leads to salespeople when they reach a defined score threshold. Run lead-generation campaigns on LinkedIn and import those leads directly into Dynamics 365 for follow-up, nurturing, and qualification.

Dynamics 365 business apps share the same platform, making it possible to share data and collaborate with sales, marketing, customer service, and other business groups.

5. Embedded marketing insights

The system continuously collects customer-interaction data, keeps records of marketing activities, and holds financial details. You can view targeted analytical dashboards right in the app and explore detailed interaction records for any email, landing page, or customer journey. Generate detailed analytics with pre-made widget-based reports. Gain qualitative insights, improve decision-making, and maximize your return on marketing investment (ROMI).

Dynamics 365 for Marketing is an intelligent marketing application that will help you turn your prospects into customers. As well these features, it comes with a Microsoft Social Engagement, an application to monitor and interact with social posts and Voice of the Customer, an enterprise level customer survey tool.

Want to get more information around what a sales solution could do for you? Check out our solution’s page.

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What’s new in Dynamics 365 for Sales

Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 for Sales is a sales automation and forecasting business application that is part of the Dynamics 365 platform. It enables salespeople to build strong relationships with their customers, take actions based on insights, and close sales faster. You can keep track of your accounts and contacts, nurture your sales from lead to order, track your opportunities and forecast accurately.

Here’s what’s new in the 2018 Spring release:

1. Embedded intelligence

Embedded intelligence (previously known as Relationship Insights) collects, manages, and analyses the diverse data and communications created throughout the sales process. It captures relevant activities and then automatically suggests the next best actions. In streamlining admin tasks, it free salespeople up to spend more time selling. Embedded intelligence has the following features:

• Relationship assistant offers timely and actionable insights by continuously analysing customer interaction data stored in Dynamics 365, Microsoft Exchange/Outlook, and other sources, and then generating a collection of action cards with suggestions for relevant next steps.

• Auto capture scans a sales user’s Outlook inbox for messages and appointments relevant to deals they’re working in Dynamics 365, and then offers them as candidates for tracking.

• Email engagement monitors actions taken by recipients such as opened, clicked on a link, opened an attachment, or replied. Sales users can schedule when an email is sent and receive follow-up reminders.

2. Relationship analytics

Relationship analytics helps salespeople manage the opportunities pipeline by analysing relationships and presenting data and insights about the health of customer relationships. Relationship Analytics includes sentiment analysis to enhance relationship health calculations. Sentiment health analyses a range of customer interactions and signals to inform salespeople the health of their customer relationship. A simple, good, fair or poor scale is used.

3. Deeper LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration

With LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration, salespeople can tap into their professional networks and relationships to improve their pipeline.

In the Spring release, LinkedIn Sales Navigator controls have been added to forms. These give insights and help salespeople build connections as they work deals. The controls provide a full view into Sales Navigator member or company profiles, or focused views into lead icebreakers, mutual connections, and related leads, as well as account connections, recommended leads, and news.

With the LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration, salespeople now see LinkedIn profile pictures on dashboards, grids, and forms for any contact record synced with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Seeing LinkedIn profile pictures for contacts helps salespeople build recognition of their prospects, and helps deepen connections throughout the sales process.

InMail is LinkedIn’s way of messaging people. Now with embedded InMail communication within Dynamics 365, salespeople get one-click access to people in LinkedIn.

4. Standardised Dynamics 365 Sales Reports for Power BI

Using Power BI, Sales managers can easily take Dynamics 365 data and track sales performance across products and salespeople. They can also monitor the health of their pipeline and quickly identify at-risk accounts that they may want to focus their attention on. The standard report provides key KPIs like win ratios, lead conversion rates, and year-to-date (YTD) revenue.

As well as this, entire reports can be themed with your brand colours. When you apply a report theme, all visuals in your report use the colours from your selected theme.

These Power BI reports can then be embedded back in Dynamics 365 so that all your data is in one place.

Want to get more information around what a sales solution could do for you? Check out our solution’s page.

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Reduce costs. Sell more. Make your customers happier.

But the pressure isn’t just on contact centres. Cost cutting has meant field service agents need to see more customers per day. Project teams need to shorten the project length – with less and less personnel.

What’s needed is an intelligent, comprehensive solution. One that can increase efficiencies in the whole service division. It needs to be flexible enough to allow customers to find answers themselves, receive assistance remotely, or arrange for service personnel to come on site. And it needs to manage the process from first engagement right through to completion.

Welcome to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Service.

It’s a comprehensive way of managing every service interaction. With its incorporation of machine learning, intelligent analytics, and the Internet of Things, it will enable you to stay ahead of the competition: saving money and increasing your up-sells and cross-sells. All the while, you can ensure your staff give a consistently great experience to every customer.

Have a look at what Dynamics 365 for Customer Service could do for your company:

Not only does this enable customers to engage with you in the way they prefer, it also reduces your costs. With more people finding their own answers and logging their own service cases, you’ll need less customer service personnel.

Field Service: Dynamics 365 for Field Service is Dynamics 365’s complete field service management business app. It’s incredible. Once you have it, you’ll wonder why you ever settled for anything else. Read all about it here.

Project Service: Working alongside project management software, Dynamics 365 for Project Service Automation can manage your project costings, ensuring that your projects complete on time and on budget, and at a profit.

So, whatever your service needs, let us see how we can help you. Contact our team now…
 

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What does a CRM implementation look like?

A refreshing new approach.

Unlike traditional system deployments, we’ll get your team up and running on CRM very quickly. We know that time is money. The longer a deployment takes, the longer for you to experience its benefits and get a return on your investment.

How quickly can we implement a solution? It depends on the complexity of your requirements. Simple set-ups take a single week. More complex projects: 4 weeks.

1. Our Solutions are Cloud-Based.
As well as faster deployment, we like cloud CRM because it is the securer option for your data. You can read all the reasons why we opted for cloud here.

2. Our Implementation Processes are Streamlined.
Our team have completed 100s of projects. This has enabled us to templatise a lot of the process. This doesn’t hinder us from tailoring a solution to your requirements, it just makes the tailoring process faster.

Another way we are streamlined is through carrying out early customer validation. In more traditional deployments, you’d agree on what you want up front. But the next time you gave input would be when the final product was presented to you. In our experience this only means one thing: extended project deadlines. In contrast, receiving regular customer input is the best way to ensure the project finishes on time.

On larger projects, we ensure on-going customer validation by using an agile methodology called Scrum. Scrum was developed to streamline software creation and we have adapted it for our CRM installations. It’s a process that ensures your involvement at every stage. This is extremely useful, because it allow for changes to be made during the install.

With complex deployments, customers only fully know what they need once they have seen a functioning version of the system. Scrum understands this and plans for it. When you opt to go for a CRM solution with us, it’ll be a process you’ll enjoy.

Want to see if CRM would be beneficial for you? Have a look at the business case for CRM.

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The Business Case for CRM

The stats from 362 companies

The headline numbers above are average increases reported for each department. Much bigger increases are possible with full interdepartmental CRM co-ordination – something we call operational/analytical CRM.

If you do a CRM installation with us, we can get you to this operational/analytical level. It’s not something you can achieve overnight, but letting us help you makes the whole process a lot quicker. It’s something definitely worth doing. Nucleus Research estimates this unlocks a whopping four-fold increase on the benefits above.

Want the full Nucleus report? Click here

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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.

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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.

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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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