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Business moves at light speed today, requiring that every company continuously reexamine direction, strategies, suppliers, partners—literally every variable and relationship that might lead to complacency. The intensified search for competitive advantage may mean that some of your best customers pick up and leave without you ever knowing that there was a problem. How well can you react to—and
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even predict—ever-shifting customer needs and competitor moves?
Infuse your organization with new levels of customer intelligence using Microsoft Dynamics CRM version 3.0, an all-new customer relationship management (CRM) system that gives every customer-facing employee the information they need to truly impress customers. With Microsoft CRM, you can create a centralized repository of customer data that sits neatly alongside Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Outlook—the applications your employees probably use every day. From Outlook, employees access Microsoft CRM sales, marketing, and customer service modules to make sales decisions, market products, solve problems, and get strategic views of the business. It’s CRM that works—and works very well—because it works the way your users already do, works the way your business already does, and works the way technology should.
Works the way you do
Microsoft CRM is quite simply the fastest and easiest way to add CRM capabilities to any organization that uses Microsoft Office or Outlook. Because it was designed to partner with Outlook, Microsoft CRM delivers lower training costs, broader user adoption, less application-switching, higher productivity, and an incredibly rapid return on investment.
Microsoft CRM can give your employees direct access to customer information through Microsoft Outlook or Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA), enabling access to the information they need when they need it, in the office or on the road. Microsoft CRM lets you work the way you want to work with features such as:
- Tight integration with Microsoft Office and Outlook, allowing employees to easily pull information from Microsoft CRM into Office applications such as Microsoft Excel spreadsheet software and Word.
- Quick and easy access to your data through context-sensitive information for populating forms or taking next steps without changing screens.
- Customized workspaces that allow users to create, save, and reuse favorite views of customer data without the distraction of unneeded information.
- Service Calendar that allows service schedulers and dispatchers to schedule activities by resource, time, or service.
- Powerful reporting and analysis tools that make it easy to identify opportunities and problems at a glance.
- Great mobile support that allows field workers to get instant access to customer data from any personal digital assistant (PDA), laptop, or browser.
Works the way your business does
Microsoft CRM not only slips right into your employees’ lives without disruption, it also adapts easily to your existing business workflow and processes. You or your information technology (IT) partner can quickly modify application forms, data fields, and relationships and add new activities and objects without writing a single line of code. This makes it easy to tailor Microsoft CRM to suit your needs and fit your business like a glove. You’ll also find a number of elegant workflow innovations that speed use, including next-step suggestions and automatic task assignment. Microsoft CRM also includes capabilities such as:
- A new marketing automation module that makes it easy to build customer or lead lists, create targeted marketing campaigns, track the progress of those campaigns, and follow up on campaigns.
- Quick Campaign wizard that allows marketers and salespeople to send out e-mail blasts to targeted lists and track response.
- Service scheduling that allows you to centrally manage all aspects of a service request, from logging and dispatching to tracking and follow-up.
- Easy customization of Microsoft CRM to your business workflow by adding custom objects and activities, designing custom views for different users, and building business logic into the CRM so that Microsoft CRM automates repetitive tasks, tells users next steps, sends e-mails, and raises alerts for open items—nothing falls through the cracks, giving your customers a better experience.
- Flexible reporting that enables managers to easily see how your business is doing—CRM data can be transferred into Microsoft Excel for analysis or into Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server for updating executive dashboards or collaborating on customer-related documents.
Works the way technology should
Microsoft CRM works the way your IT staff wants it to because it’s based on proven, industry-standard Microsoft technology that’s easy to learn and work with. You’ll enjoy a rapid, low-cost deployment; low support costs; and easy scalability as your business grows. IT-friendly features include:
- Easy to modify forms, data fields, and information relationships so that users can get the customized information they need.
- Streamlined installation diagnostic tools that reduce setup time and help ensure a successful deployment of Microsoft CRM.
- Fast data searches across large volumes of customer data that help users find the information they need.
- Easy to use step-by-step Microsoft Exchange Connector Deployment Wizard that simplifies Microsoft CRM integration with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook.
- Simple and fast connectivity to external data sources that gives users access to relevant information.
- Advanced management and notification tools that are centralized and give the IT staff the right information to manage a CRM system.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is available in two editions: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition and Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Professional. Both editions provide organizations with a flexible and customizable platform that works the way you and your employees work.
The new Microsoft CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition is designed to operate on the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server. It can be installed in just 10 mouse clicks and configured through an easy-to-use wizard. This edition also offers easy migration of customer information stored in Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager.
Microsoft CRM 3.0 Professional is a customer relationship management (CRM) system that gets used by employees. It is easy to operate, easy to deploy, and easy to adapt to the unique needs of any company. It also offers flexible deployment options. Microsoft CRM 3.0 Professional can be deployed at your business location or hosted by a third-party service provider.
Key distinctions between Microsoft CRM Small Business Edition and Microsoft CRM Professional
Consider the following to help you determine what edition is right for your business:
- Microsoft CRM 3.0 Small Business Edition is deployed on the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server, and it can accommodate a maximum of 75 simultaneous users. An ideal solution for small businesses, this edition is simple to use and features click-through installation.
- Microsoft CRM 3.0 Professional is designed for large enterprises using multiple servers in a distributed environment. When operating in this configuration, Microsoft CRM 3.0 Professional is readily scalable—the amount of users can be increased to meet the needs of a large organization.
- Both Microsoft CRM 3.0 editions can be acquired through licensing, but only Microsoft CRM 3.0 Professional is available through third-party service providers.
Apart from server usage and scalability, the two editions offer almost identical features and functionality. Both integrate easily with existing sales processes and workflows and with other Microsoft applications.
Features that Microsoft CRM 3.0 editions have in common
Both editions of Microsoft CRM 3.0 provide a complete suite of powerful marketing, sales, and customer service capabilities, all with a familiar and consistent user experience based on Microsoft Office and the Microsoft Office Outlook messaging and collaboration client. Here's what these features can do for your business.
How Microsoft CRM 3.0 works: Sales
Among the rapid returns that flow from an investment in Microsoft CRM 3.0 is an increase in the number of qualified sales leads and opportunities, better coordination of sales activities (leading to a more focused sales effort), and a sales force more aware of customer needs and histories. Specific functionalities within the sales module include:
- Opportunity management makes it easier to convert leads to opportunities, and then track them throughout the sales cycle
- Sales process management enables the consistent tracking and closing of sales opportunities
- Pipeline optimization uses analytical tools to provide sales people with qualified leads and opportunities
- Quotes are generated using a full-featured product catalog that supports complex pricing levels, units of measure, and discounts
- Order management converts quotes to orders that can be modified and saved until they are ready to be billed as invoices
- Sales force management makes it possible to measure sales performance against quotas
- Sales literature can be created, managed, and distributed
- Direct e-mail uses templates to send customized e-mail messages to customers sharing common characteristics
How Microsoft CRM 3.0 works: Customer service
Microsoft CRM 3.0 promotes more efficient and effective customer interactions by enabling users to respond more quickly to service issues, apply appropriate resources to service requests, and schedule and dispatch service resources in a timely fashion. The customer service module includes the following features:
- Case management enables customer service requests to be created, assigned, and managed from a central location
- Complete view of customer information promotes better understanding of specific customer needs and other account-related issues
- Automated routing and queuing of service requests is achieved using customizable workflow rules
- Auto-response e-mail generates automatic responses to customer requests
- E-mail management automatically records customer communications and associates e-mail messages with appropriate customer records
- Service scheduling makes it easy to manage service resources and to better understand resource and equipment allocation, usage, and effectiveness
- Searchable knowledge base is a repository for the publishing of support articles and information
- Service contracts can be created, maintained, and updated automatically
How Microsoft CRM 3.0 works: Marketing
Translating a wealth of available customer data into effective selling strategies is one of the great challenges in marketing. By creating a single view of every customer and storing it in a single, readily accessible location, Microsoft CRM 3.0 enables users to better understand what customers are telling them. This knowledge can then be used to focus the marketing effort and execute smarter campaigns. The marketing module can help you build effective marketing strategies via the following functionalities:
- Marketing campaigns can be planned based on budgets and expenses, promotion codes, target products, marketing collateral, and more
- Create lists for specific campaigns by using existing customer information or by importing contact information from various sources
- Qualify lists so they can be queried to locate accounts meeting specific criteria
- Campaign templates can be created and then used again in future campaigns
- Campaign execution can be tracked, and lead conversion and cost and performance data can be analyzed in this way
- Track marketing information to assess campaign success based on opportunities, cost versus payoff, and other criteria.
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