Get a 360 View of Your Business with an Integrated CRM Solution

Being able to leverage timely data that helps you understand prospective customers is more important than ever in today’s fast-paced business environment. That explains why the CRM software market is forecast to grow to $36-billion by the end of 2017, according to Gartner.

But with more than 750 different CRM system options, it’s important to understand the potential payback of any CRM investment you make. The truth is, standalone CRM solutions that do not take into account financial and operational data from your ERP system could cause you to miss growth opportunities, resulting in lost revenue or reduced profit.

Gain key advantages from integrated data

Knowing what prospects want is one thing. Knowing how to deliver that in the most profitable way is something else. An integrated ERP/CRM solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a 360-degree view of your business, giving you a comprehensive platform to identify and capitalize upon more profitable business opportunities.

But winning new business is not the only concern. Industry research shows that a 5% increase in customer retention can boost lifetime customer profits by about 50% on average. That’s another area where a shared database of integrated CRM and ERP data can improve your ability to enhance profitability.

In each case, Dynamics 365 delivers specific resources for building customer relationships and business success:

• Centralize customer information. A well-designed CRM system lets you record all relationship information and activity in one place, and share it with all team members to leverage for maximum benefit, as needed. Incorporating ERP data with that centralized CRM information enables you to do still more in terms of analyzing performance and evolving new strategies for more productive and profitable operations.
• Automate marketing interactions. Timely action is key to closing a sale before your competition has a chance to get their foot in the door. Automating the distribution of promotional emails, inquiry follow-up, or timely re-order reminders can help you generate results more quickly, while follow-up analysis helps you plan more effective future promotional efforts.
• Provide business intelligence. Being able to track, correlate, and analyze the results of all promotional efforts – successful or unsuccessful – generates business intelligence that can help you quantify productivity and evolve new approaches to future marketing success.
• Facilitate communication. Dynamics 365 helps you deliver consistent cross-channel customer experiences to minimize abandoned transactions – regardless of which channel a customer or prospect follows. It also helps you simplify internal communications with business associates and external communications with customers and prospects. This includes CRM portals that increase engagement levels and foster relationships with customers, communities, employees, and partners.
• Track sales opportunities. Not every customer contact results in an immediate sale. But tracking performance by individual account as well as overall demographic profiles enables you to determine which combination of promotional and communication activities provide the best eventual return on investment.
• Analyze data. Most CRM systems offer some type of modeling and analytical capabilities. But Dynamics 365 adds a whole new layer of Power BI (Business Intelligence) capabilities to help you visualize data for a 360-degree view of all relevant metrics – across sales, marketing, customer service, operations, finance, IT, and HR.
• Enable responsive customer service. The reality is that customers often require some degree of personal intervention before the sale, or follow-up service after the sale. Being able to provide instant account background to any associate who comes in contact with a customer, prepares them to resolve that customer’s need as quickly as possible.

Learn how to leverage greater CRM performance, with FREE AlfaPeople support

If you are a Dynamics AX, Dynamics CRM, or Dynamics 365 user, we are offering two months of FREE support to help you get the most out of any Dynamics CRM investment. And it’s available whether or not you are already an AlfaPeople customer. Contact an AlfaPeople dedicated consultant who is a fully accredited Microsoft Dynamics user, for answers to your questions about better CRM possibilities.