Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 is wasting no time in showing its strength in delivering intelligent customer engagement. We are pleased to announce that TMC, a global, integrated media company and publisher of CUSTOMER magazine, has named Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 a CUSTOMER Product of the Year Award winner.
As we continue to innovate with the customer in mind, we appreciate the recognition of the investments and steady progress we are making in this area. This is what our new leader of Dynamics CRM, Jujhar Singh, had to say about the award.
“Over the past few years, we have been focused on transforming our CRM offerings to leverage the full power of Microsoft – harnessing the strength of the intelligent cloud to help companies deliver amazing customer experiences across the breadth of sales, service, marketing and social engagements.
“We are honored by this Product of the Year award, which confirms both our momentum and the benefit to customers of a solution that delivers both increased productivity and the intelligence to drive more personalized, proactive and predictive service experiences.”
The 2016 CUSTOMER Product of the Year Award recognizes vendors that are advancing the call center, CRM and teleservices industries one solution at a time. The award highlights products which enable their clients to meet and exceed the expectations of their customers.
On behalf of TMC and CUSTOMER magazine, Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC had this to say about the award. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 has proven deserving of this elite status and I look forward to the continued innovation from Microsoft in customer service in 2016 and beyond."
For information on deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM in your organization, please call us at 800-257-0691 or fill out the contact form below and an expert will contact you shortly.
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The new light-weight CRM App for Outlook
What is it?
With no installation, no configuration, and no additional log-in steps, you can now quickly track your important customer emails directly within Outlook, whether on your PC or Mac running the desktop version of Outlook, or on the go through Outlook Web Access on your laptop or phone (Windows, Android, or iOS). You can even see relevant information from Dynamics CRM Online about the person who sent you the email, or pop open the full form directly from within our new CRM App for Outlook.
What’s the difference between the new CRM App for Outlook and the existing CRM for Outlook Add-in?
The new CRM App for Outlook is a light-weight app directed to accomplish a few specific tasks like tracking and converting emails as well as reviewing a few details about the specific contacts and leads from the email. Alternatively, the CRM for Outlook add-in is a full client for Dynamics CRM that allows you to have complete access to all of Dynamics CRM’s functionality, including dashboards and full grids, and even allows you to work offline.
How do I get the new CRM App for Outlook?
Note: The CRM App for Outlook is rolling out over the next few weeks to CRM Online organizations independently following the CRM 2016 release. If you don’t see the below options, your organization hasn’t yet received the feature. This app requires Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016 Online and Exchange Online.
Dynamics CRM Online users can easily add the app to their Outlook directly from within Dynamics CRM Online. Simply click on the gear icon and choose Apps for Dynamics CRM. Then choose Add app to Outlook under the CRM App for Outlook heading. The app will show up in the user’s Outlook interface when reading or composing emails anywhere they use Outlook.
Dynamics CRM Online administrators also have the ability to push the app to user’s Outlook interfaces through the newly added CRM App for Outlook settings page. To do this, simply navigate to Settings > CRM App for Outlook and click on the Add App for All Eligible Users button. Optionally, you can select individual users from the grid to add the app on an individual level. Use the auto-add feature to ensure all newly added eligible users automatically get the app added to their Outlook.
Keep in mind that for both cases, in order for users to be eligible to get the app, they will need to have their Exchange mailbox configured with Server-Side Synchronization for incoming emails as well as have the Use CRM App for Outlook user role privilege.
I’ve been using the preview version of the app, do I need to do anything?
Yes. With the release of Dynamics CRM 2016, the preview program for the CRM App for Outlook will end. Thank you for all of your valuable feedback. Once your CRM Online organization is upgraded to Dynamics CRM 2016, the older app that was available during the preview period will no longer connect to your Dynamics CRM service, and will be removed from the Office Store. You will need to manually remove the app and then follow the instructions listed above to get the new, fully-supported app.
To remove an app from Outlook, simply open Outlook Desktop and choose Manage Add-ins from the File menu, or from Outlook Web Access, choose the settings gear icon, then Manage add-ins. From there, choose Dynamics CRM and then choose the uninstall button to remove the app.
Wednesdays with Will: From Marketing to Smarketing Leveraging Microsoft Dynamics CRM
By William Marchesano, Technology Advisor & Evangelist
As a Chief Marketing Officer, VP of Marketing, or Director of Marketing you are always looking for new, exciting, and most importantly, efficient ways to build your company’s brand awareness and cultivate new business leads. The little time you have between creating and managing email campaigns, improving your SEO, scheduling webcasts, organizing live events, and countless other tasks, you sometimes wonder if all your efforts are having the effect you desire. What if there was a way to not only gauge the impact you are having but simplify most if not all of these facets to marketing?
Based on the challenges I identified above, you may think I currently work in one of these roles. The truth of the matter is that I work closely with the individuals in my organization that comprise our marketing department, or as they call it, Smarketing. You may now be wondering, “what the heck is ‘smarketing’?”. I’m glad you ask. We define it as marketing smarter and by that we mean, “how can Marketing make the biggest business impact requiring the least amount of time and resources?”. To accomplish this our marketing team leverages a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform.
Many of you have most likely heard the term CRM or are currently using one today. In the past, this technology was usually associated with the sales team of your organization. There are many manufacturers out there that offer this platform with Salesforce being probably the most recognizable. But how does it relate to marketing and making your life easier? As you may have noticed, the way people buy today is not the same way they bought 10-15 years ago. Today, the average buyer is at least 57% through the decision making process before they engage a salesperson. The role of an effective marketing team may be more apparent now than ever.
Most organizations have been able to adjust to the shift by the way they communicate and engage with their prospects and clients. In doing so, many are using multiple disparate systems for different tasks such as creating and managing campaigns, nurturing leads, managing clients, tracking appointments and opportunities, taking notes and creating follow-ups/alerts, gathering analytics, etc. Each workload serves a purpose but also consumes a lot of time and, in some cases, money. Luckily there is a streamlined and centralized way of accomplishing these goals with ease of use and management. We have found Microsoft Dynamics CRM to be more than up for the task.
Using Social Engagements in Dynamics CRM, you are able to get insight as to what people are looking for by what is trending on multiple social network sites. That information is gathered and displayed in an easy to understand dashboard. This can be useful for determining the message or communication to your target audience in your next campaign. Once a lead has been captured you can then assign it to a designated nurture path. Lead scoring allows you to determine when a lead has “graduated” from one nurture path and is ready for the next stage. Campaigns can be created and managed directly through Dynamics CRM allowing you to track the cost for running different campaign types as well as analyzing how successful each were. This is a great tool for determining the effectiveness of a campaign as well as how to reallocate your spend more dynamically. If you work in a team setting, the built in approval workflow will help with developing your campaigns. What better way to keep everyone on the same page than a staged process?
Remember, every business is different as well as their needs and requirements. If you’d like to determine if Microsoft Dynamics CRM can solve your challenges let’s discuss. I hope you enjoyed and found this week’s article informative. If you’re interested in some how-to related CRM material, check out blogs by my colleague Ben Ward here. Till next time…
About the author:
Will has over 16 years of experience in business development, team management, and project management. Will has worked at Managed Solution for over four years and is currently advising businesses on best CRM practices and implementations. Will’s focus is on process improvement and analytics specializing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Will is a Microsoft Certified Professional, with certifications in Presales Technical Specialist – Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Sales Specialist- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Application, Sales Specialist- Office 365, Sales Specialist- SMB Infrastructure and Sales Specialist- Datacenter.
For information on deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM in your organization, please call us at 800-257-0691.
Wednesdays with Will: Making Your Business Intelligent
By William Marchesano, Technology Advisor & Evangelist
You are a Business Owner or Operations Manager who is always looking for a way to improve efficiencies in your organization. Recently you heard about Office 365 and were wondering if it would be the right fit for you and your employees. There are a few reasons why you are considering it. You realize your 5 year old email server has seen better days. It hasn’t been functioning as it should and is possibly costing you business because employees are not able to send and receive email communications internally and externally as they should. You also realize that the version of Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc...) is not the same throughout your organization so additional time is needed by employees to change formatting when sharing and opening documents. This costs the company time and causes frustration for your employees. Your workforce is becoming more mobile and some of your employees work remotely from the office. Last but not least, you are looking for an easier way to collaborate on the latest version of documents and spreadsheets. For these reasons and possibly more, you decided it was time to look for a way to improve your situation.
Microsoft Office 365 is typically considered because it is a versatile solution that can address these individual scenarios or all of them. This means you can just use the parts you need such as Exchange (Email, Contacts, Calendaring), Office Pro Plus (the current version of Office Suite), Skype for Business (IM, Presence, Video Conferencing), SharePoint (Intranet Portal, Document Storage) or more. It doesn’t require additional hardware and you can add each piece of the solution as needed. This allows you to easily operationalize your costs while providing your employees the latest tools to be successful in their job. Under this model, Microsoft is now able to revise and improve the product more frequently at no additional cost. This also improves user experience and adoption because the changes now are much more subtle and less drastic to a complete version change.
Microsoft recently extended its Office 365 Platform to include Dynamics CRM. If you are not familiar with Dynamics CRM or what a CRM is in general, let me tell you why you’ll want to know. The most basic description for a CRM is that it’s a business intelligence tool that can be leveraged by your Sales, Marketing, Services, and Management teams improving customer engagement and customer experience. This will help your organization generate more business and improve client satisfaction. The analytics gathered will also allow you to maneuver more fluidly with the changes in the businesses you work with as well as the current environment. Over the next few weeks I will be taking a deeper dive into:
How Dynamics CRM integrates with Office 365
How Dynamics CRM is used in each team setting (Sales, Marketing, Services, & Management)
How Dynamics CRM is used by different industries
Hopefully you enjoyed my article and if you’d like to read more you can follow me here. If you’re interested in some how-to related CRM material, check out blogs by my colleague Ben Ward here. Till next time…
About the author:
Will has over 16 years of experience in business development, team management, and project management. Will has worked at Managed Solution for over four years and is currently advising businesses on best CRM practices and implementations. Will’s focus is on process improvement and analytics specializing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Will is a Microsoft Certified Professional, with certifications in Presales Technical Specialist – Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Sales Specialist- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Application, Sales Specialist- Office 365, Sales Specialist- SMB Infrastructure and Sales Specialist- Datacenter.
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