Who knew cave living can be so chic?

Anyone who has not been living in cave lately has been bombarded with grim news about the world economy. What to do about these tough times for a business on a tight budget?

Consider investing in a Microsoft CRM solution. An effectively deployed CRM system can give an anxious company the edge it needs to intelligently retain its best customers and come out winning when dancing days are here again.

5 quick points on why an organization should invest in Microsoft CRM:

1. Tight budget?  Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is your weapon of choice

Microsoft has been selling their CRM Online service hard, and for very good reasons. Starting at an affordable $39 per user monthly fee, your business can have virtually all the same tools available to enterprise-sized customers. Businesses with tight budgets will not have crippled version of CRM. This includes the fully functional CRM client in your Outlook. I’ll let it sink in; that’s some serious stuff. We’re talking about the cost of a full-fledged data center and CRM software condensed into a fee that is cheaper than my cable bill.

Small businesses won’t need an I.T. staff and expensive servers to get the full benefits of Microsoft CRM. Register with Microsoft CRM Online and you will have room for up to 20GB of data, enough for even the largest corporations. When your business grows too big for the CRM Online account, Microsoft offers free support to migrate the data to an On-Premise solution. Ramping up to a full CRM solution has never been easier.

2. Streamline your business processes and never miss a sales opportunity

With the right setup, Microsoft Dynamics CRM will never let that one hot sales prospect fall through the cracks; we’ve all see that happen before. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has the customization tools to tweak the system to your organization’s heartbeat.

Are you adopting a new sales methodology (eg. Miller-Heiman)?  Most if not all of these practices are supported out-of-the-box, and easily configurable. If you need to issue follow-up phone calls for hot leads, the built-in workflow will schedule these activities automatically for your sales team. Think about the right “CRM flavor” you’ve been missing, and chances are only minor tweaking is required in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

3. Know your best customers to hold onto them

Everyone is worried about money these days, especially your customers. One smart strategy is to focus your organization’s budget and energy on your most loyal customers. But how to retain them if you don’t know who they are?

Leveraging the Report Builder and Advanced Find tools in Microsoft CRM, a manager can easily slice and dice customer data to pinpoint and label your target customers. Quickly build and run queries to determine customers with the most sales activity, and determine your highest performing salespeople.

4. Deploy effective Marketing Campaigns

Now that you know your best customers, what is the best way to keep them? Leverage the Marketing module in Microsoft CRM effectively by first assigning those customers to a Marketing List.

With this new Marketing List, a manager can run specialized campaigns that would address those best customers directly through different channels. If approached creatively, these constant “touches” can only add value to your customer relationships. These campaigns can include special promotions, event invitations, free gifts, requests for their personal feedback and more. A marketing manager can run e-mail blasts and mail merges, then measure the success of the campaign.

5. Keep them happy with responsive customer service

All the marketing campaigns in the world won’t help a customer with a service issue. A Customer Service Rep using the Service module can immediately create customer service cases, track activities and view case history. To make sure each issue is addressed promptly and reliably, CRM workflows can be setup to automatically assign activities and track status changes. A Knowledge Base Article database is available to record common issues and address them immediately. Also, Microsoft CRM is a relational database, so your salespeople also have full knowledge of open cases and intelligently address their customer accounts.

Feel free to contact me in the “About Me” page for consulting advice on deploying Microsoft CRM for your business.

Tags: CRM, CRM Online, Customer Service, Economy, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Miller Heiman, Sales, Sales Automation, Small Business