Archive for month: September, 2017

Customer loyalty stems not from the service that a company provides its customers, but from the relationship an organisation maintains with its customers. An organisation which takes the effort to communicate with its customers is valued. Communication could be

• Asking a customer for feedback regarding a service
• A gentle reminder for a product service
• General call to check if the customer needs anything, which can also be used to soft sell new products or services

There are numerous types of calls that organisations can make to their customers. Besides calling customers, communication through text messages and emails are also effective.

Why is communication important?

Communication is the basis of all relationships. In a fast growing impersonal world it is important for companies to try and maintains a personalised connection with their customers. Personalised messages and emails have a great psychological impact. This can be used to create an indelible impression.

Communication reiterates the brand name on a customer’s mind. In case a need should arise the company that has kept in touch with a customer is the first name that comes to their mind.  Communication helps to build a link with the emotional heart strings. This is the most vital force for customer loyalty.

Communication with MS Dynamics

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM has the best tools for building and maintaining strong relationship bonds with customers. The enhanced communication facilities included in the MS Dynamics CRM program with automated email facilities makes it easier for an organisation to maintain a healthy relationship with their customers. Easy integration of MS Outlook with the MS Dynamics CRM eases the transition hurdles for employees.

Customer retention

Many companies focus on getting new customers and spend big money on marketing. Sometimes in the process they lose the existing customers while trying to get new ones. Retaining your existing customers costs much less and is more profitable to an organisation. Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps organisations to keep their existing customers happy while also allowing them to build relationships with new potential customers and expand business horizons.

Deriving the maximum benefit from the Microsoft Dynamics CRM is not a tranquil task for any organisation. It takes much contemplation and an in-depth understanding of the system. While the tools may be available in the Dynamics CRM, being able to leverage them is another matter altogether. It is not skill but a good training session with Pragmasys which can benefit an organisation multi fold.

Pragmasys support

Pragmasys is a Microsoft Dynamics CRM expert and can help organisations to obtain the optimal advantage from the CRM system. This encompasses a wide variety of services starting from upgrading, installation, customisation and training. Learning how to use the finer aspects of the CRM system is an art that an organisation must devote some time and attention to, as this is where the product demonstrates its true value for money. The MS Dynamics CRM can help the organisation reap huge dividends with the help of Prgmasys.

The expertise of the Pragmasys team can assist companies in making the most of their Microsoft CRM investment. This Microsoft Customer Relationship Management system can help organisations to manage customers and business operations on a global level. New strategies can be enforced on a wide scale and all operation can be managed centrally from any location.

Customer loyalty is essential for every organisation. Microsoft Dynamics can make it easy for a company to manage their customers with stream lined systems.

Commutation is the basic foundation for all relationships. This rule applies to customers as well. Organisations that make it a point to communicate regularly with their customers will not only share a better relationship with them, but will also reap greater rewards in the way of customer loyalty. Taking the time and effort to communicate, projects an underlying message to customers that the organisation cares about them. This goes a long way into securing a strong foundation in the market place.

Business growth

Timely and regular communication with customers is one of the enterprising features offered by the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system. Customers are the foundational blocks on which an organisation stands. A growing a customer base is not the end deal for a company, it is maintaining the customers through a personalised relationship which counts. Increasing customers signifies a business progression.

CRM communication tools

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers fantastic tools for communicating with the customer. The greatest advantage of the Microsoft CRM is the effortless integration of other Microsoft products like MS Outlook. Organisations that have been using outlook to communicate with their customers can continue using the familiar interface with the Dynamic CRM. This feature can be leveraged for effectual communication through email.

Regular Customer Communication

The CRM can send customers a monthly or quarterly update regarding their account. This is especially useful for the financial sector and other industries that have a regular customer base. Other industries can update customers about their product’s service due date, newer models with better features and various other products.

Attractive email templates can be designed and sent to customer regarding new products, schemes offers or just or updates about the organisation.  When customers are made aware of the progress of the organisation they feel happy to be associated with you. Some customers feel privileged to receive emails and spread the word around giving an organisation free publicity.

Automated communication

A wonderful feature offered by the Microsoft Dynamics CRM is the automated emails. Emails for occasions such as festivals or even personal events like birthdays, anniversaries etc. will be sent automatically on the correct day. The Dynamics CRM allows the user to have email templates for particular communication which can be summoned by the trigger when required.

Personalised communication: Addressing a customer by name may seem very insignificant to an organisation but holds great value to a customer. It makes a small but indelible indent that demonstrates that the organisation cares enough to send an email that is addressed to the customer personally. The features of the MS Dynamic CRM integrated with the MS Outlook allow organisations to take email communication to the next level.

Integrating the Microsoft Outlook contacts list into the MS Dynamics CRM allows direct communication through the CRM to customers. Employees can continue using the familiar MS Outlook interface for communication and sending emails. It allows collaboration of tools that can enhance the total communication process.

Without proper communication it widens the gap between the organisation and the customer making them vulnerable to offers by competitor organisations.  The Microsoft Dynamics CRM understands the need for an organisation to establish a secure relationship with customers and hence has made this an integral feature of the CRM system.

Any investment, upgrade or change is accompanied with a “Why?” Strangely this is the beginning of all progress. Many organisations are stuck in a rut, closed to change and determined to make outdated methods work for them. Most are overshadowed by their competition and lose business as a result of that.

Why CRM?

For every organisation the first question is ‘Why CRM?’ For a larger organisation it is easier to understand. For an organisation with smaller staff strength the logistics can be a bit challenging. Business has been progressing fine with spreadsheets and data sharing options. It goes without saying that installing a CRM system would mean additional costs on a recurrent basis not to forget the capital investment at the beginning.

As much as an organisation would like to stall on the arguments, the truth is that they do realise that this is the future. To keep pace with the competition as well as seek constant progressive growth one needs to consider change. Greater gains, involves some investment as well as advancing with technological changes. The CRM technology has been around for ages and is no new bug in the field.

The small companies watch the larger ones upgrade and get on the global platform with technological advancements. Was it the CRM system that helped them to grow on such an enormous scale? The CRM system streamlines workflow and enhances productivity. It allows the integration of various tools which help to analyse market patterns and consumer demands. Automating function helps to reduce the wastage of manpower on mundane tasks. These features definitely make a difference towards better productivity and business growth.

Which CRM?

Once an organisation decides that it is time to upgrade and take a stand on the global scale the very pertinent question arises – “Which CRM?” There are literally hundreds of CRM systems that are making their way into the market. An organisation that wants to make it to the top has to select a CRM that is used by the organisations in the top bracket. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM is among the leading CRMs on a global level. It comes at a price, but offers facilities and services which propel you way beyond what you could have even imagined. It gives you that double leap forward that makes others wonder how you suddenly emerged so far ahead.

Though there are many CRMs contending for the top spot, Microsoft is a name we are all familiar with and trust as well. The greatest benefit with the MS Dynamics CRM is that it integrates easily with the other Microsoft products. These are products that you are already familiar and comfortable with. It reduces the resistance to change and brings in a comfort level.

Making an informed choice regarding the CRM

Pragmasys is a Microsoft Gold Partner. We can help you to understand the concepts of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and give you a parallel comparison of the various popular CRMs currently trending. The decision to install the MS Dynamics CRM is a big step and must be carried out with full knowledge of what the change involves – the benefits and demerits the system involves. It is important for every business to fully comprehend what the upgrade entails. This allows you to leverage the features for business progress right from the start.

 

Email integration with Dynamics CRM has become an integral part of day to day activity for most of the business users. This enables a user to respond to messages at a faster pace as opposed to logging into the system to respond. Below steps would enable the configuration with ease & improvise on productivity factors.

Email Configuration Exchange Online

Check for License grants

Before beginning with the configuration, we need to check whether appropriate license is given to the user or not.

To check the license provided to the user, follow the steps.

1. Click on the main menu.
2. Click on the Users, Active Users.

3. Edit User, select the user listed.

Fig 1 : Go to Users record in admin portal

Email Configuration

4. Click on the edit
5. Check for Exchange Online (Plan 2) in your licenses and enable it.

If it is not available in your licenses then go to Billing section –> purchase services à select the product license which is having the Exchange Online (Plan 2) ( Ex : Office 365 Enterprise E3 Trial ).

 

Fig 3 : Enable the Exchange Online (Plan 2) service from the License assigned
Once the license is assigned and Exchange Online (Plan 2) is enabled. You are ready for Email Configuration.

Follow the below steps and refer the images along with.

Login to Dynamics CRM and navigate to Email Configuration as shown in the above Image.
Main Menu (1) -> Settings (2) -> Email Configuration

Click on the Email Server Profiles (1).

 
If Microsoft Exchange Online Record is not available, then

Click on NEW -> Exchange Online. Then save the record.
Now, navigate to Email Configuration

 

Click on Email Configuration Settings (1)

Email Configuration

Click on Email (1) -> Server Profile (2) 

Select Email Server Profile Microsoft Exchange Online.

Appointment’s, contacts, and tasks select Server-Side Synchronization (3)

Click OK (4).

Then navigate to Email Configuration

 

 

Click on Mailboxes (1)

 

Select each record(s) from the list (1),

Click on the Approve Email button (2).

On the next window Click OK (3)

Open each record from the list which is approved.

Check (1), (2), (3)& (4) as shown in the above screenshot.

Then click on the Test & Enable Mailbox button (5).

Refresh the page.After a few moments (6), (7)& (8) will changed to Success as shown in the above screenshot.

If it shows Failed in thosefields instead, click on Alerts, check the error details and resolve the problem.Then try Test & Enable Mailbox (5) again.

Email Configuration POP3\SMTP

Below screens & steps would help establish POP3 or SMTP configuration for the Emails

Navigate to Email Configuration as shown in the above Image.

Main Menu (1) -> Settings (2) -> Email Configuration (3)

Click on Email Server Profiles (1).

 

                                                                          

 

 

 Click on NEW (1) -> POP3/SMTP Server (2)

Provide details as displayed in the above image.

Name (1): Name of the Email Configuration

Incoming Server Location (2): pop.gmail.com

Outgoing Server Location (3): smtp.gmail.com

Note: (2) & (3) will be dependent on the actual pop and smtp servers to be used.

 

 

Set Use same settings for Outgoing (4): No

User Name (5): your mail id.

Password (6): Password for the same mail id

Incoming Port (7): It is different for different service provider (POP)

Outgoing Port (8): It is different for different service provider (SMTP)

 

 

Next select the Email Configuration Settings (1)

 

Click on Email (1) -> Server Profile (2)

Select the Email Server Profile created above.

Then click OK (3).

 
Now navigate to Settings (1) -> Security (2) and click on Users

 

Select all the users (1), and click on Approve Email (2).

Now, navigate to Email Configuration

 

Click on Mailboxes (1)

 

 

Go to Active Mailboxes (1)

Open each record (2)

 

Provide details for following fields:

Name (1): Name of the Mailbox (User)

Email Address (2): Email Address of the user

Allow to use Credentials for Email Processing (3): Yes

User Name (4): Enteremail id

Password (5): EnterPassword

Server profile (6): Select the Email Server Profile

Incoming Email (7): Select as in image

Outgoing Email (8): Select as in image

 (11): Save

(12): Approve Email

(13): Test and Enable Mailbox

Value in fields (9) &(10) should change to Success after sometime.

If it shows Failed in those fields instead, click on Alerts, check the error details and resolve the problem. Then try Test & Enable Mailbox (5) again.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at Email Engagement feature of Dynamics 365.

• What is email engagement?
• How to setup email engagement?
• How it helps you?

What is Email engagement??

To manage your relationships effectively with customers you need to gauge recipient interest and need to take appropriate action in time. Email Engagement enables monitoring of recipient activity on sent emails to offer insights into buyer behavior. You can:

• See when recipients opened your message, clicked a link, opened an attachment, or sent a reply
• Receive an alert right away whena recipient opens your messagethe first time
• Schedule most effective delivery time, and receive advice on best time based on the recipient’s time zone
• Choose most effective message template, with recommendations based on your organization’s previous email interaction history
• Set an alert to remind you when it’s time to follow up on an email message
• Review the full interaction history of a single message, or review KPIs

Setting up Email engagement, How to??

Pre-requisites:

• Create a Dynamics 365 trial (US tenant)
• Add an Office 365 trial to the tenant

Step 1 – Enable Relationship Insights

Navigate to Settings – Administration – System Settings – Previews tab – Relationship Insights and select Yes in the option buttons.

Step 2 – Enable Email in Document management

To enable document management for the Email entity, go Settings – Document Management – Document Management Settings – check the Email checkbox

Step 3 – Enable Email Engagement in Relationship Insights tab

To enable Email Engagement in Dynamics 365 and set other options (cards etc.) Navigate to Settings > Relationship Insights > Email Engagement tab > check the Turn on email engagement for your organization check box

Step 4 – Enable Relationship assistant

Navigate to Settings > Relationship Insights >Relationship Assistant >check the Turn on Relationship Assistant for your organization check box.

How it will help? (Example)

In this demo, we will send an email with an attachment to a customer. The mail is sent from the Activity Tab in CRM, and weFollow the email, as well as the attachment. This will helpus spot if emails (or attachments) we send to a customer aren’t opened and adjust our approach accordingly.

1. Navigate to the Activity Tab (Sales > Activities) and create a new email

Figure 5: Dynamics 365 Compose Email

2. As we have already configured Email Engagement the mail is pre-selected to be followed (1).

• We can schedule the mail (2) to be sent at a later date/time (eventually Relationship Insights will help us her with suggestion about when the recipient usually opens her emails as we pick up data about interactions with her).
• We can set a reminder (3)to follow up on this email.
• Finally, we can attach one or more files (4) and set them to be followed as well. Note that option to add an attachment becomes available once the Email message is Saved and in Draft status.

After attaching documents in the Attachment Grid, we can send the mail.

3.  Customer opens the mail and the attachment (opens in Word Online from One Drive for Business)

Figure 6: Email received by customer

4 In our Dynamics 365 organization we notice that we now have information about email opened by customer alongwith data/timestamp against individual customer records.Recipient activity on individual email records is also available once we open those records as displayed in the next screenshots.

Figure 8: Dynamics 365 Sent Email