CRM Glossary

WHAT IS A BUSINESS’ MOST IMPORTANT ASSET?

Ponder that question and you may come up with a plethora of answers. But the bottom line is that… customers are the heart of any business. Without customers, a business simply wouldn’t exist. Next question, how do you keep track of your most important asset?

Many companies use spreadsheets to keep track of their contacts and leads, but spreadsheets can become lost, or outdated. Spreadsheets, Post-it notes, business cards sitting on the desk might be feasible for the first few years, but as your business grows, you’ll find yourself needing more – a better way to keep track of important data, but what?

Dynamics 365 is the engine behind customer engagement.

To keep up with the growing expectations of customers, businesses need to be constantly striving for not only ways to attract new prospects, but to develop meaningful, ongoing relationships with their existing customers. We know that customer engagement is a vital part of boosting sales. By maximizing customer relations, you are indeed maximizing revenue. Dynamics 365 is that key to helping to build customer relationships. Visit our blog to learn about 8 ways that Dynamics 365 helps build customer relationships.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM)

Sure spreadsheets are an easy to use and well-known way to organize your data, but they also have many shortcomings. You need different spreadsheets to track different types of data and not everyone in your organization has access to all of them. Wouldn’t you love one location to store all of your company’s important data? This online database is accessible to everyone in your organization on any device at any time.

More and more companies are turning to CRM  to gather and analyze customer data as a way to improve their understanding of their customers. This allows them not only to provide more relevant marketing messages but also to improve the overall customer experience. If customers are the heart of any business, shouldn’t we be investing in more efficient ways to reach our customers?

If you are not already using Dynamics 365 CRM, we can get you started quickly with our Sales Accelerator. Our Accelerators are prepackaged Dynamics 365 implementations designed to get your business up and running rapidly. Contact us today.

CRM GLOSSARY OF COMMONLY USED TERMS

We’ve put together a quick reference for common terms used in Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, and Marketing. Our CRM Glossary will ensure that everyone in your organization is on the same page regarding CRM knowledge. Our glossary is a great introduction and also a reference document. The first three terms in our CRM glossary are basic common CRM terms.

• Account – Accounts represent organizations that you have established a relationship and are the backbone relationship in Dynamics 365. Accounts can have different relationship types – Vendor, Customer, Prospect, Partner, Competitor.

• Contact –  For a B2B CRM, contacts generally represent the people at the Accounts. Contacts can have a role – decision maker, employee, cheerleader, etc. Dynamics 365 contacts sync with Outlook contacts.

• Activities – Activities such as email, tasks, phone calls are the ways to document your interactions with other records – primarily contacts and leads. Activities are “Set Regarding” to records in Dynamics 365 and can bi-directionally sync with Outlook.

The following terms in our CRM glossary are commonly used in Dynamics 365 Sales

• Lead -Leads are the first step in the buying cycle. The buyer has identified themselves to you, but you have yet to qualify whether they are a match to your business. When sales can meet the lead qualification criteria, the lead is qualified to an Opportunity. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a great way to attain new leads and opportunities, but also a great way to build relationships with current customers. Visit our blog to learn more about how LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365 Sales are combined to empower sellers to drive more personalized and meaningful engagements with buyers.

• Opportunity – An Opportunity is a qualified lead – generally one that has identified budget and a timeframe for purchase.

Opportunity value can be calculated from opportunity products OR from the estimated value.

• Business Process Flow Ribbon – Business Process Flow ribbons allow users to document the steps in completing a business process.

For example, an opportunity might have several stages – Qualify, Propose and Close.

Each of those stages has steps required so complete that stage. Stages are reflected in the pipeline reports.

To read about more CRM terms that are used in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, throughout the Dynamics 365 infrastructure, and in the marketing realm, visit our blog.

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