A Quick Look at the 2021 Release Wave 1 Plans for Dynamics 365 & Power Platform
CRM for Small Business
In today’s dynamic market, businesses need to be proactive and respond fast, which is why successful small and sized firms drive transformation through CRM.
Connected processes
Is time being wasted through inefficient business processes?
Work smarter with connected processes across your business teams.
Business Insights
Are you making decisions with incomplete or unreliable data?
Access on-demand reporting that will drive timely, data-driven decisions.
Customer Service
Do you struggle to see where you are with each customer?
Personalise service with a complete view of each relationship in one place.
How Preact Supports Businesses with CRM
Remaining on top of any leads, prospects and customer data is key to success. As a start-up or small operation, it’s possible to maintain data manually, but if your company is experiencing growth then it’s likely you’ll already be thinking about how CRM can accelerate your business and processes.
As a small or medium-sized business, cost, familiarity with existing systems and change management are all obvious barriers to implementation – so what are the true essentials when it comes to finding one which falls in line with your specific business needs?
Here at Preact, we specialise in supporting businesses of all sizes achieve successful outcomes with CRM technology. To help you establish the potential benefits of CRM in your organisation, and what criteria you might want to look out for, we’ve shared some ideas below.
What are the key CRM benefits?
Collecting and organising actionable data can be both challenging and labour intensive and as such, investing in a high-quality CRM system is a must if you are looking to take things to the next level. The right solution will help you to identify, understand and assist your clients more efficiently.
Here are five key CRM benefits that can help you to find success:
1. Enhance Relationships
Makes it easier for teams to deliver amazing service, with instant access to recent interactions. Complete customer detail means that everyone has immediate access to every client communication, relationship and processing detail in a single interface.
Furthermore, you’ll be able to proactively build relationships with personalised marketing campaigns that grow account revenue.
2. Grow Efficiently
Legacy processes involving manual steps and duplicated effort hold businesses back and risk future growth at a time when greater scale has never been more important.
Smarter processes managed by the right CRM system will cut admin overheads by automating routine tasks or handling a complex series of steps through workflows that are triggered by an event or action.
3. Safeguard Your Business
Your client database is a castle that needs protection in a digital and connected world. Whether on-site, in the cloud, or on mobile devices, centralise your data in a single, secure database.
Modern CRM systems are built with privacy by design featuring sophisticated access control and encryption that will keep your data safe in the cloud.
4. Do Business Anywhere
Access the customer and business data that matter most to you from anywhere, on virtually any device.
Options for offline working and web access as well as mobile apps empower everyone to do business wherever they work.
5. Improved Business Insight
Businesses have a wealth of data about their customers and processes but often struggle to bring it together to uncover insights and boost productivity.
With modern CRM apps, uncover insights to assess performance and make sure you are on track to achieve your goals with live dashboards and reports.
Turn data into action through business intelligence and forecasting to increase opportunities, improve service and optimise marketing campaigns.
Choosing CRM for Small Business – What Should I be Looking For?
Now you understand what can be gained, how do you go about choosing the best CRM for small business?
Based on our experience and customer success stories, we’ve shared seven areas for consideration.
Defining your broad requirement at the outset and having a good steer on the budget available will go a long way to helping you find the right solution. Even though you might not need a number of the more advanced features these offer, it doesn’t mean that you won’t in the future, so it’s worth giving some thought to how you may want your chosen system to grow with you over time.
Cost - Working out annual and upfront cost is a good starting point. Consider the number of users you’ll need, what functionality they'll need, what the onboarding process is, and what ongoing support will be available.
Your Processes – While there are many features which are universal across systems (activities, opportunities, cases for example), what other processes or relationships need to be managed? How easily can each system on your shortlist be adapted.
Implementation – How quickly can you get started? This should be determined by your own requirements, whether you are looking for a simple implementation to one team, or a more complex deployments. Check with your vendor how long they realistically anticipate the implementation will take.
Integration – What key applications and data sources do you need a new CRM system to connect with? For each system on your shortlist, can this be done out of the box, using a packaged solution, or will this require a more time-consuming process to build a custom integration?
Scalability – Will potential systems keep pace with your growth? It’s worth considering how your business might develop and what you might need from a CRM in a few years’ time if you needed. Even before that, will the prospective system have the flexibility so that user change requests can be quickly implemented.
Training and Support – User adoption can often prove to be a significant barrier, so it’s essential to know that everyone will have access to thorough training and phone help when it's needed. Also, consider what options exist. Does the solution have a broad partner network in the UK or just a few providers relying on manufacturer help.
Vendor Capability – Studying a vendor’s website to gain insight into the types of companies they work with and the type of projects they've delivered. You can also check for testimonials and case studies, which will give you a good idea of how they work and what their specialist areas are.
Why Choose Microsoft Dynamics 365
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is all about helping businesses maximise the value of their customer relationships and transforming service delivery.
The technology is the central hub where all customer and business process data is connected and made visible to create valuable insights that will make all the difference to your decision making. In short, your left hand knows what the right is doing.
Through its connected business apps, your entire operation is unified and works together.
Dynamics 365 can be quickly customised and configured to fit unique requirements enabling companies to manage any type of data. Role based CRM apps provide coverage across sales, service and marketing while custom apps can be quickly deployed to fit bespoke needs.
6 Examples of how Dynamics 365 Benefits Growing Businesses
1. Connected business apps
Build out Dynamics 365 apps to suit your needs, from sales and customer service to field service, ERP and more.
2. Real-time insights
Track progress against key performance indicators across your teams and processes for improved, data-driven decision making.
3. Complete view of every client
Unify and share relationship detail between teams across virtually any device from a single system.
4. Connect with Office 365 apps
Dynamics 365 connect with familiar apps including Outlook to surface functions directly from emails.
5. Transform business processes
Create guided process flows that will ensure consistency in how routine workflows are handled to improve data quality, and help you target, win and keep customers.
6. Start with only what you need
Reduce complexity and limit costs by only paying for the CRM functionality you need. Choose the licence types that reflect current user needs and upgrade when more capabilities need to be added.
Getting up and Running – The Preact Way
We’ll get you started with Dynamics 365, and we'll be on hand to answer user questions, share best-practice and help you extend its benefits. Whether you simply want to talk through the options, get advice or join us for a demo to see Dynamics 365 in action, please get in touch.
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Contact us today to discuss your requirements and find out how Preact will help realise your CRM vision.
Dynamics 365 Digital Transformation Guide
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