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Microsoft CRM Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What is Microsoft Customer Relationship Management?
Microsoft Customer Service Relationship is a comprehensive CRM solution that
helps small and medium sized businesses increase sales success, provide
superior customer service, accurately forecast sales, and analyze business
performance.
Accessible from both Microsoft Outlook and the Web, Microsoft CRM offers a
flexible, scaleable architecture that integrates easily with Microsoft Office,
Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions, third-party applications, and your
business's customer-facing Web site.
Q. What sort of sales management functionality does Microsoft CRM offer?
The Sales Module supports your sales team at every stage of the sales cycle,
from leads and opportunities management to fulfillment and invoicing:
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Complete customer view and activity management: View and manage account activity, customer history, calendar, and communications including phone, fax, and e-mail.
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Outlook synchronization: Access full sales functionality either online and offline from Outlook.
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Reports: Use or customize a wide range of reports to forecast sales, measure business activity, and identify trends
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Opportunity management: Qualify leads and track opportunities separately from customers through the sales cycle.
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Workflow rules: Use or customize automated business processes for leads routing, opportunity tracking, and pipeline management.
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Information sharing: Centralized data storage and integration capabilities make it easy to access, update, and share consistent, current information across teams and departments.
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Order management: Automatically update orders with product catalogues, quotes, and invoices.
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Quotas: Measure sales against individual employee goals.
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Direct e-mail: Customize templates and use Mail Merge from Microsoft Word to send e-mail to targeted groups.
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Sales library: Create and maintain a searchable library of sales and marketing literature.
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Q. What sort of customer service functionality does Microsoft CRM offer?
The Customer Service Module helps customer service representatives deliver
stronger, more consistent and efficient support, with the following features:
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Case management: Create and assign cases for customer service requests and manage those cases from creation to resolution.
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Activity management: View and update calendar, workload, and records.
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Routing and queuing: Use workflow rules to automatically route service requests and cases to appropriate resources for resolution or reassignment.
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Searchable knowledgebase: Easily create and update a library of articles and FAQs.
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Contracts: Create, update, and manage contracts and service license agreements.
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E-Mail auto-response: Use customizable templates and send automated responses to customer requests.
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Q. How does Microsoft CRM integrate with Microsoft Office?
The Sales and Customer Service Modules are integrated with Microsoft Office
2000 and Office XP applications, supporting full sales functionality both
online and offline from Microsoft Outlook, e-mail templates and Mail Merge with
Microsoft Word, and data export to Microsoft Excel.
Q. Does Microsoft CRM integrate with Microsoft Great Plains Business
Solutions?
Microsoft CRM integrates with Microsoft Great Plains. Integration of key data includes: Contacts,
accounts, contracts, products, price lists, orders, contracts, and more. Data
mapping can be customized using Microsoft BizTalk Server tools and services
that ship with Microsoft CRM.
Q. Does Microsoft CRM integrate with non-Microsoft applications?
Yes. Your Microsoft Business Solutions Partner can help you customize your
Microsoft CRM solution for integration with third-party applications, using
open Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Microsoft BizTalk Server
tools and services.
Q. We'd like to offer self-service for customers, but we already have a
customer-facing Web site and don't want to create a new one.
The Microsoft CRM Customer Portal integrates with your customer-facing Web site
and with the Sales and Customer Service Modules. This allows customers 24/7
access to a knowledgebase of articles and FAQs and the ability to update data,
check order status, submit service requests, and chat online in real time with
customer service representatives.
Q. How is Microsoft CRM implemented and supported?
Microsoft CRM is designed for rapid implementation, with centralized
server-side installation that ensures faster deployment, easier maintenance,
and more straightforward upgrades.
Because Microsoft CRM is delivered, implemented and supported through highly
trained Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions partners, you'll have
hands-on assistance with the setup and maintenance process, as well as 24-hour
access to Microsoft Technical Support services.
Q. We need a solution that salespeople can use with Microsoft Outlook and that
they can also access from the Web.
Microsoft CRM offers both a rich client (accessible through Microsoft Outlook)
and a thin client (accessible from anywhere through a Web browser). Users can
work either online or offline to access sales functionality from Outlook. This
means that they can pull up accounts, contacts, products, sales literature,
activities, and opportunities, as well as synchronize Microsoft CRM contacts,
appointments, tasks, and e-mails with Outlook.
Q. My salespeople hate being controlled by complex, time-consuming data entry
requirements of our current contact management software. Is Microsoft CRM
easier for them to use?
Using Microsoft CRM virtually eliminates redundant data entry. Centralized
information storage and viewing let users easily share, manage and update
information across the Sales and Customer Service modules and across other
business applications and systems.
Q. Can Microsoft CRM help me with turnover among my customer service
representatives?
Microsoft CRM makes it easy for your business to provide consistent, effective
service and increase volume capacity without adding headcount. Service
employees can easily view, share, and update customer and product information,
ensuring efficient, up-to-date sales and service. Automated routing and queuing
of support requests ensures that Customer Service Representatives can assist
customers efficiently from initial contact through resolution.
Q. We need a solution that not only helps us acquire customers, but also keep
them. Can Microsoft CRM help?
Microsoft CRM helps your business improve customer acquisition and retention.
With a complete view of customer information, your sales team can track
customers and new leads through the sales cycle and easily update records,
while service representatives will find it easy to track and manage support
incidents from initial contact to resolution. Microsoft CRM also ensures more
efficient and consistent sales and service processes, with customizable
workflow rules that let you create and automate processes for sales, support,
routing, and notifications-so responses are always timely, and customer
requests never “fall through the cracks”.
Q. We need to accurately forecast business activity. What reporting
capabilities does Microsoft CRM offer?
Microsoft CRM includes a comprehensive set of reporting tools for measuring
business activity and forecasting sales. You can run and view reports for sales
activity and quotas, closed and pending orders, support incident management and
resolution, closed and pending orders, financial summaries, and more.
The robust reporting capability of Microsoft CRM will help you identify the
opportunities, trends, and problems that guide your business decision making
processes. You also can easily export Microsoft CRM report data to other
applications, such as Microsoft Excel.
Q. Is Microsoft CRM hosted or on-premises?
Microsoft CRM is available on-premises or through hosted offerings
provided by our channel partners.
Q. How is Microsoft CRM different from Microsoft bCentral Customer Manager?
Microsoft CRM is designed for both small and medium-sized businesses, offers
full sales and customer service functionality both online and offline, and
integrates richly with other financial and business systems. Microsoft bCentral
Customer Manager is designed for small businesses with fewer than 25 employees
and offers leads management available only through the Web.
Q. What if we're not in a position to invest time and money training our sales
team to use a new solution?
Microsoft CRM offers the same logical user interface and intuitive work tools
that your sales and support staff is already familiar with for Microsoft Office
and Microsoft Outlook. Implementation includes online tutorials and 24-hour
Web-based support from Microsoft, so training costs associated with upgrading
to Microsoft CRM are minimal.
Q. Can we customize Microsoft CRM to suit our specific needs?
Microsoft CRM can be tailored to meet your business needs, processes, and
environment. You'll be able to import existing data from multiple sources,
integrate with new or existing solutions, and scale the installation as your
business changes and grows.
Q. What are the implications of Microsoft CRM being a .NET business
application?
The first business application built from the ground up on Microsoft. Net
technologies, Microsoft CRM delivers tremendous business value through easy
integration with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Great Plains business
applications, third party applications, and Web services. In addition, the
flexible .NET architecture gives users the choice of working online or offline
in Microsoft Outlook or directly through a Web browser.
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