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One of the most basic requirements of most CRM solutions is to improve the
sharing of information within the business. By pooling the
information held by individuals and departments it becomes possible to
present a more 'joined-up' business to your clients and get away from
individuals holding spreadsheets and other lists that no-one else can use.
Failure to share information costs your organisation in terms of the
duplication of effort that often occurs when the left and right hand of a
team can't see what has already been said or done for a client. The
clients themselves become frustrated at having to explain the same thing to
more than one person and marketing can not effectively control communication
with them. The quality of client data you hold is compromised since it
is rarely clear who has the most up to date information. Effective
contact management is the key and Microsoft CRM enables companies to
to this in the most natural way possible - from inside the Microsoft Outlook
program most staff use all the time. Using Microsoft CRM it is simple
to capture the details of new contacts and immeadiatly share this new
knowledge with your colleagues. Accounts, Contacts and Leads
The Microsoft CRM application provides a customisable set of basic
record cards (Accounts,
Contacts &
Leads) that can be
tailored to meet the needs of each individual organisation. Even the
name of the forms can change so if you do not have 'leads' in your business
maybe calling them 'Enquiries' would suit you better. Microsoft CRM allows
you to build as simple or sophisticated database of your clients as you will
need. If required you can sub-divide companies and fully represent the
way your clients company is structured. Security Control Access
Of course while sharing of information is vital to creating an informed
and aware organisation there are situations where some data is of no
relevance or must only be maintained by certain departments or individuals.
Microsoft CRM's powerful security model means that sharing data does not
have to mean excessive access. The model can also be used to restrict
access to parts of the system so that users are presented with a simpler
interface that only offers those parts of the system needed to perform their
job. The role based security model also ensures that your system
administrator will find it simple to allocate and assign appropriate access
to groups of user.
Remote Working
Effectively sharing information with staff who are not office
based is critical to the smooth running of most companies. Microsoft
CRM makes this possible in two ways; which is most suitable will depend on
the type of work your staff undertake. Home Office Workers:
For these individuals (who use your VPN to connect to your office) the
light web client can provide a very simple way to access the corporate CRM,
alternatively since they probably already use Microsoft Outlook on-line to
your Exchange server, they can work on-line from the outlook version of the
application just like all your other head office users. Mobile
Users: For those staff who really need access to your corporate data on
the move Microsoft CRM offers a sophisticated way to take just the client
data that is need offline and then share changes made in the field and the
office the next time the user connects to the corporate network. For
example sales staff can access a client history on their laptop, write up a
visit report in the car and sync it to your office when they return home at
the end of the day. |
