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CRM Overview
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Key Topics for
Management Consideration On This Page
A well-organized online
business structure must accurately reflect the existing structure of the
organization; including subsidiaries, divisions, and departments. If a
current organization chart exists, this is the place to start. If one does
not exist, it is worth the time to create a hierarchical structure on paper
before modifying your Microsoft CRM installation.
The following topics of
organizational management using Microsoft CRM are discussed.
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Creating the
Organization's Structure
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Managing Users
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Automating Business
Processes
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Creating the Organization's
Structure
Using the Microsoft CRM
interface, you can set up the top organization and underlying business
units. Then create the functional regions, branches, departments, and so
forth that divide your company into its existing reporting structure (or
one that you would like to establish in the organization). You can
create an organizational structure that has multiple levels or one that
is relatively flat. Then, you can do the following:
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Create users
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Inherit e-mail
templates
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Set up business
processes and other templates
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Provision a business
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Depending on your management
structure, you can assign a manager at each level and, under each
manager, add the employees that report to him or her. If your
organization does not have a hierarchical management system, you can add
employees directly at the corporate level.
Microsoft CRM includes
templates that allow viewing and modifying the organization, users, and
other features. For example, in the Business Units area, the system
administrator can view the existing business units and make changes,
such as add business units or departments or modify existing units. Top
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Managing Users
Microsoft CRM offers features
for managing users that are flexible, yet secure, and that simplify the
process. However, depending on the size of your organization, and
considering the amount of turnover and internal transfers and
promotions, managing users and their access privileges can be a daily
task.
Usually a system
administrator is responsible for adding users, but a manager or team
lead can also do this task. When a reporting hierarchy changes, an
employee's user record can be updated by simply changing the manager's
name. If there is reorganization and whole departments change, the
organization hierarchy makes it easy to select several users,
disassociate their relationship with the current manager, and then
create an association with the new manager.
When you create user records,
add information that is essential to the organization, for example, full
name, job title, home address, e-mail address, and phone number. After
users have been added to the system, they can manage non-essential
personal information themselves.
Note All
information entered in user records is available for all users of your
Microsoft CRM system to see.
To preserve the integrity of
the user data, security privileges should be based on the individual's
role in the organization and the type of work he or she needs to do. For
instance, a system administrator should create teams and make
organization changes, and a line supervisor or manager redefines only
the employee roles within his or her teams.
Microsoftฎ Business Solutions
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 customers may generate.Top
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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.Top
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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
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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,
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.Top
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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 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.Top
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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.Top
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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.Top
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Lead Management
Leads are individuals who
have indicated an interest in finding 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.Top
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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.
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Opportunities can be linked
with competitor information and then analyzed to identify the most
effective selling strategies.Top
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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, appointments, 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.Top
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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.Top
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Direct E-Mail
When sending direct e-mail
messages, it is useful for you to measure the response rate to find
which marketing messages are working and where the best mass-mailing
lists come from.Top
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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.Top
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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
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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.
When businesses think of
customer service, they usually think of the high cost of finding and
training customer service representatives (CSRs) and look for how they can
provide customer assistance for the lowest possible cost. When customers
think of customer service, it is often of customer "disservice" in the form
of being placed on hold for a long time, difficulty speaking with a human
being, not being helped, and getting answers that do not solve their
problems.
Microsoftฎ Business Solutions
CRM provides an extensive set of features designed to improve your customer
service. The Customer Service module provides tools that help create a
multi-level customer assistance policy and provides an interactive CSR-based
service. This service includes:
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Call routing and
assignment
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Queue management
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Call tracking
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Entitlement processing
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Problem resolution
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Logging
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Monitoring
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Performance management
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A knowledge base (a
database of information)
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Customer Support Cost
Levels
The following describes an
example customer support policy designed to keep costs relatively low
while simultaneously increasing the quality and efficiency of service
that customers receive:
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At one level,
possibly a lower level of support, the customer sends a service
request by mail. This engages a CSR on a one-to-many
relationship, because one CSR can respond to several messages.
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At a higher level of
support, a phone call from a customer engages a CSR on a
one-to-one relationship. This level of support could be reserved
for the most challenging issues or customers with preferred
support relationships with the company.Top
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Contract Services
One of the challenges of
managing customer services is keeping track of what customers are
entitled to, both internally and from the customer's standpoint.
Through the Customer Service
module, CSRs create and track service level agreements (SLAs) and
entitlements for new and existing customers. In addition, they can edit
and update existing ones. Creating and using contract templates makes
the process of creating service agreements easier and faster when a
business offers different service plans to meet customers' specific
needs.Top
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Knowledge Base
Businesses tend to have the
knowledge of how to solve problems or answer questions that their
customers encounter. Unfortunately, this information is usually known by
one or two employees in the organization and is not shared. As a result,
a CSR that encounters the specific question may not have the answer
available and has to track down the person with the answer.
Microsoft CRM has a Knowledge
Base feature that organizations can use as a repository of collected
knowledge within the organization. This information can be made
available to anyone working with customers. It is easy to browse and
search, and find any piece of information available in the system. The
Knowledge Base provides the means for internal users of a business to
access answers to questions about products and services.
A separate component allows
users the ability to create multiple templates with which to create
Knowledge Base articles. The Knowledge Base includes a structured
Knowledge Base article and template system for rapid creation of
Web-based (HTML) answers. The articles can be rich text articles and can
contain hyperlinks to multiple types of external information. All
creation, editing, and publishing of information and the templates are
managed with Microsoft CRM tools and stored in a Microsoft SQL Server
database.Top
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Managing the Knowledge Base
To preserve the integrity of
your Knowledge Base, the addition or removal of all information must be
submitted for approval and publication by a person with manager
privileges. Users with appropriate privileges can do more than just
search and browse for Knowledge Base articles. They can also:
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Change the
information in published or unpublished articles.
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Add comments to
articles.
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Approve or reject
articles that are submitted to the Unapproved folder.
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Publish articles so
that they are available in the Knowledge Base.
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Delete or remove
articles that have already been published.Top
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Case Management
Resolving cases is a key
function of customer service, and the Customer Service module makes this
process easier by providing collaborative activity tools with a
browser-based interface through which issues can be submitted and
tracked to resolution and closure.
Using one of the predefined
views, cases can be filtered and reviewed, activities can be logged, and
the time spent on each case can be tracked for performance and
productivity analysis and contract allotment. Both active and resolved
cases can be accessed through searches, and when necessary, resolved
cases can be reactivated. Reports can be generated using this tracking
information that show statistics, such as individual CSR numbers (call
lengths, resolutions, and so on), average length of cases, and types of
cases.Top
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Case Queuing and Routing
The Customer Service module
includes Web-enabled queuing and routing tools designed to improve how
incoming requests for customer service are handled.
With the help of a wizard,
CSRs can create queues based on existing product team assignments or
subject matter expertise, and modify or merge them as organization,
product, and customer needs change.
By adding routing rules to
determine how service calls are handled within a queue, organizations
that provide high-priority or "VIP" service can create an "escalation
queue" to handle specific callers. Customer service departments
organized by product or expertise can create product queues to handle
specific types of calls.
An additional benefit of
viewing queue details is that it provides immediate feedback about
what's going on in the customer service organization. For example, who
is assigned to a particular queue, how many customers are waiting in a
queue, and how many CSRs are engaged in handling cases. This kind of
information can be used to quickly organize staffing when demand
increases, and also to forecast and schedule the workforce.Top
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Performance and
Productivity Management
Logging and monitoring
service requests provides the information needed for precision
scheduling, workforce forecasting, and improving performance management.
The Customer Service module offers management and administration tools
that provide detailed transcripts of customer interactions, statistical
information about call length and calls handled, as well as information
about products, their components, and their usage.Top
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Customer Feedback
Traditionally, the success of
customer service operations is measured by internal and quantitative
data, such as how long the average interaction time is and how many
calls each CSR works on. One reason that these metrics are cited so
often is that quantitative data can be collected and analyzed
automatically and internally. The Customer Service module can be used to
provide detailed quantitative statistics for efficiency analysis and
forecasting purposes.Top
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Once you have a solid foundation, you can now leverage that investment
using automation tools from PowerAssist to create more efficiencies and
revenue opportunities:
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Decrease costs and increase revenues based on solid business case
reviews.
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Deploy e-document management solutions and paperless processing for
even more powerful results!
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Integrate other system data such as back office, portfolio,
accounting and distribution informationTop
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Automating Business
Processes
Each organization has a set
of business processes unique to that organization. To run smoothly,
organizations should standardize processes across the organization, and
encourage all users to adopt these standards. Microsoft CRM provides a
solution for automating internal business processes by creating workflow
rules that describe routine and repetitive tasks involving daily
business operations. These processes can be designed to ensure that the
right information gets to the right people at the right time. They also
help participants keep track of the steps they need to take in order to
complete their work.Top
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A Solution from
PowerAssist will consider all areas of your business to ensure a
PROACTIVE approach to client and process management.
Whether it is a basic CRM your are looking for, or an advanced workflow
management solution - we ensure that the right technology is implemented
to reflect YOUR business. That is the PowerAssist Success Model.
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