Unitek Microsoft CRM Blog

Visibility
A major reason organizations decide to implement a CRM system such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is to gain visibility into customers, their buying behavior and the sales process. This visibility is gained through collecting data and reporting on it.

Need Data
The company’s need to collect as much data as possible and the sales people’s need to not “waste” their time on what they consider administrative task can give rise to a battle between the company and the sales people. At the end of the day if sales people are frustrated with a CRM system and consider the system a hinder rather than an aid to their sales efforts, they will not use it. Without user acceptance and consistent use, an organization will never be able to realize the fantastic benefits of a CRM system.

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In 2007, Microsoft published their “CRM 3.0 Time Zone Data Update and Time Zone Wizard,” and since we’re coming up on the next DST (Daylight Saving Time) change, it is our recommendation that you review and download the information to ensure that your organization is prepared for Sunday March 9, 2008. For those of you in Arizona, feel free to take a break and grab a cup of coffee…
The DST Update & Wizard is approximately 27 pages detailing how to apply the changes to CRM, so be prepared! Click here to download.

If you want even more information regarding the DST updates, including Microsoft’s DST Help & Support Center, Click here This is not only a great resource for CRM, but for all of Microsoft’s products.

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If you are planning an upgrade and have considered the enhanced functionality with the new N:1, 1:N and N:N (Many to Many) relationships, you may be re-working some of your entities in the new Microsoft CRM 4.0 deployment, or you may just be cleaning up unused custom entities from your initial Microsoft CRM 3.0 deployment. We were excited at the flexibility in Microsoft CRM 3.0 with the many to one relationship creation and the platform’s protection and involvement in that process, but in many cases the creation of custom entities was over-used in Microsoft CRM 3.0 so we have some clean-up to perform.

If you plan on re-working some of your entities to take advantage of the new Many to Many capabilities, you may be removing some of your entities and consolidating them in Microsoft CRM 4.0, so it may save you some time to move the data from the re-purposed entities and delete them in Microsoft CRM 3.0 before you upgrade because when you go through the upgrade process you’ll have to consider removing references to your related entity from all your column views in the primary entities as well as the filter criteria.

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In one of our previous blogs we gave you the instructions to change the Default Views in CRM. Today we’ll discuss making another change to Views that is a simple change but the effect is powerful.

While viewing the History of an Account, Lead, Contact, etc., the default view in the History grid is missing an important column, Description. The Description field contains the details of the phone call, email, etc. This forces the users to open the activity record so they can read the full content of the record. For new CRM implementations, users can get quite frustrated with all these clicks (a double click to open the record, a single click to close the record). What we’re going to do is add the Description field to the views so that we can reduce those clicks.

In CRM 3.0 or CRM 4.0, go to Settings then Customization. Open the Activity entity and then go into Forms and Views. Locate & open the view Closed Activity Associated View. In the new window click the Add Columns on the right hand side. Click the Description field, and then click OK. Click Save & Close and make sure you Publish.

Since this is the Associated View for activities, it will affect all activities for all entities. Meaning you only make the change once and it will take effect on Contacts, Leads and so on.

Finally, even though the Description field is now a viewable column, users will still not be able to read the entirety of the many records since the length is too long. Our job now is to train users to use the mouse-over tool tip. By simply placing the mouse over the Description of one of our History records, the tool tip will display the contents (see image).

All in all, a very simple modification but one that will save possible hundreds of clicks per day!

DG
Microsoft CRM Consultant
Unitek Microsoft CRM Services

User acceptance should be the single most important focus of any implementation of a Sales automation system such as Microsoft CRM. User acceptance, demonstrated through consistent use by sales people, is very important if you want to realize the fantastic benefits of a CRM system. Absence of user acceptance has single handedly contributed to failure of most Sales Automation implementations more than any other factor.

This posting is part one of a series of best practice recommendations to ensure high level of user acceptance.

Most companies don’t give much thought to their sales processes until they are faced with implementing a CRM system. Or if they do, the rules are fairly lax and not consistently enforced. Then comes a system, such as Microsoft CRM, which implements and enforces policies and procedures, and stops sales people from bypassing the sales process. Most sales people consider this loss of capability/freedom and view Microsoft CRM as an enemy rather than an ally. I see lots of companies do this and alienate their sales people and never know what went wrong.

Best practice

• Separate announcement (and possibly enforcement), of new policies and procedures from the introduction of Microsoft CRM. This approach helps position Microsoft CRM as a friend that will help make the digestion of new policies and procedures easier. This of course is the “good guy bad guy” strategy. Microsoft CRM being the good guy and new procedures/polices the bad guy.

• Introduce the policies and procedures in small portions.
  • First introduce high level ones
  • Then as your sales people get used to those, add more detail and layers.

In Microsoft CRM, rules and guide lines can be added later using workflows and Scripts. This allows you to go live with a much simpler implementation and add complexity in stages.

In general, change, even the best kind, more often than not, is a source of stress for majority of people. Introduce change in digestible chunks instead of dishing it all at once. You will be much happier with the result, more successful with your implementation and save yourself and your team lots of unnecessary stress.

………If you would like to see more suggestions, stay tuned to my next posting by adding this site to your RSS reader.

If you have had user acceptance problems and overcame it, please share it so that everyone can learn from your example.

RM
Microsoft CRM Consultant
Unitek Microsoft CRM Services

Microsoft CRM is certainly a dynamic solution, but with ANY solution that has wealth of options, there must be careful consideration taken to ensure that your company’s implementation is specific to your needs. Everyday, I see companies that rush to implement CRM and don’t take the time to map out their business process or policies. Then, when it’s time to launch CRM, there’s the usual backlash of user adoption, frustration from divisions/departments, and sometimes a blatant distaste for CRM. Why?? CRM didn’t do anything! It’s the lack of forethought and proper planning that causes these headaches. For example, let’s look at Best Practices regarding leads…

Not all organizations will use leads because every organization considers qualified prospects differently. Those that depend on mass demand generation processes – such as advertisements, trade shows, cold calling lists, and so on – will likely use leads. These organizations would benefit from lead management because this process helps sort through the massive amounts of data and helps sales focus their efforts in the best direction.

Those companies that start their sales process from the opportunity stage rather than the lead stage would do better to eliminate the need for leads and focus only on opportunities. If the sales process doesn’t begin with a lack of information or a need to gauge interest, leads might not apply. Companies we’ve seen implement this practice are from a variety of industries like Real Estate, Housing Development, Government, Brick & Mortar Retail Stores, etc…

Ask yourself or your company this…

1. Do we invest time and money into generating lists of potential customers? Do we have mass mailings, cold calling, etc.
2. Do we keep lists of people who are target customers, but the lists have limited contact information?
3. Do we have personnel devoted to sifting through lists of possible customers to identify “good” prospects?
4. Do we need to manage lists of potential customers separately from the Accounts or Contact lists?

If the answer is “Yes,” then you may want to use leads. If “No,” then don’t! Don’t be afraid to make the necessary customizations to your Microsoft CRM implementation that will benefit your overall needs. This can ONLY be done when you have taken the time to analyze your processes and determine what is best. Don’t forget to keep in mind…”Where will we be in 5 years and will our processes be the same as they are today?” Without these critical steps, you and your implementation will suffer the consequences.

JH
Microsoft CRM Consultant
Unitek Microsoft CRM Services

1. Do you have the ability to review (in dashboard format) your sales pipeline report in graphical format?
2. Do your key performance indicators allow you to review sales efficiency in real time?
3. Do your users appreciate the seamlessness of the CRM Solution adapting to the business process flow?
4. Do you use automated workflow processes to simplify tasks for your users and to ensure the correct capture of customer data?
5. As a business decision maker do you have the ability to view successful marketing campaigns and determine on the basis of past performance quickly whether to repeat these campaigns?
6. Are you able to execute marketing campaigns in “lock-step” order?
7. Is your sales environment a collaborative one that your CRM solution offers a team-oriented 360 degree view per geographical, territories and/or product group basis?
8. Do you have a simple to use, knowledge base that allows reps to search, submit questions, post articles, and expose the knowledge base across the service organization?
9. Does your contact-centric organization have forms logically grouped in such a fashion to capture information in sequential format as they interact with customers without having to switch back and forth between screens, tabs or applications?
10. Have you watched your Training Cycle decrease as you began to use it also for company training to reduce the amount of technical information new sales reps need to come on board and quickly become productive?

MM
Microsoft CRM Consultant
Unitek Microsoft CRM Services

With the ever increasing demand for Microsoft CRM 4.0 Training from the east coast, our sales staff have had their desk phones forwarded to their cell phones for early morning inquiries. Last month, we had a reality check when Verizon Wireless sent us a gigantic phone bill. Our CFO nearly had a coronary, and asked us to look at other options.

After careful analysis, it seemed that AT&T Wireless / Cingular had a much better corporate plan (they also have the iPhone, but we neglected to mention that to the CFO). Unfortunately, we have a bunch of rabid ‘Verizon lovers’ around the office that insisted that Verizon had much better coverage around the Fremont, CA area. So, to shut them up, we decided on a road test. We had two volunteers drive around Fremont doing the ‘Can you hear me now’ thing. The first volunteer drove out from Unitek to the Mission hills (filthy rich people such as our CEO live up there, watching over us mere mortals) and then drove along Mission Boulevard to the extreme north end of Fremont. The second volunteer drove from Unitek to the extreme northwest point in Fremont (close to the Dunbarton bridge). On day 1, they used AT&T phones, and they used Verizon phones on Day 2. Continuous talk time was approximately 1 hour on both days.

Alas, those !#$!@#% Verizon lovers were right !! Verizon consistently delivered better cell quality throughout Fremont, and didn’t drop calls (AT&T did, occasionally). Much as we hate the gigantic phone bills (and love the iPhone), we’ve decided to stay with Verizon Wireless and hope that they come up with better corporate plan for their long-suffering customers. Can you hear me now, Verizon?

One of Microsoft’s strongest selling points of Microsoft CRM 3.0 was its integration with Outlook. Microsoft correctly deduced that many Users were used to managing their day to day activities through Outlook. This not only included email activities but contacts, appointments and other tasks as well. Many Users had become dependent on Microsoft Outlook’s calendar as their primary visual tool for managing their appointments and tasks. In Microsoft CRM 3.0 emails and appointments could be synchronized in CRM but not other activities (the biggest complaint was the lack of synching of phone calls). But my experience in teaching CRM 3.0 Applications to end users has been User frustration about not being able to fully use Outlook to manage all of their day to day tasks. They did not like having to go in and out of Microsoft CRM to schedule common tasks such as phone calls. They had grown used to scheduling phone calls as tasks in their Outlook Calendars and getting convenient pop-up reminders.

Well Microsoft has addressed this in CRM 4.0 with the ability to synch not only emails, but phone calls, faxes, letters and tasks. Users can now function primarily through their familiar Outlook interface using the Outlook Calendar to schedule tasks in CRM. They also get the benefit of being able to schedule useful pop-up reminders that Users have grown use to (or in some cases dependent upon) to remind them to do daily tasks. When a task is scheduled, the “Track in CRM” box gives the User a Drop Down option to select which type of task to be tracked in CRM. CRM tasks are viewed in the Outlook Calendar as all other tasks in Outlook. When tasks are scheduled within CRM they are automatically pushed out to the User’s Outlook Calendar. There is only one drawback to scheduling tasks directly in CRM and that is inability to schedule a pop-up reminder within Outlook. An Outlook pop-up reminder will still occur for those tasks directly scheduled in CRM but it will be for whatever the Outlook default pop-up reminder setting is set for. This new feature should make Outlook Users much happier and more comfortable using CRM.

KE
Microsoft CRM Consultant
Unitek Microsoft CRM Services

The three most important factors in being able to insure revenue maximization through proper management of your sales processes are:

1. Visibility
2. Visibility
3. Visibility

You may ask visibility to what? Visibility to the measurement patterns that are created by the data collected through your Microsoft CRM Sales Automation modules.

Patterns that show:

• What is the average # of days it takes for your deals to close?
• What is the average Close Ratio?
• How is every single sales person doing compared to these averages?
• Who your star sales rep is based on their average CloseRatio?
• Which sales reps need to be let go? Without this information you might let go of a good sales rep who is just hitting a slump. Hiring and training new sales reps are costly.

Without these kinds of metrics:

• How would you be able to determine who is doing well and who is not? Furthermore, how would you define what does doing well means at your organization?
• How would you be able to discover inefficiencies with you sales processes?
• Let’s say that you do find inefficiencies and correct them, how would you be able to tell if they worked and by what degree? Even if you find ways to tell, how long would it take you to get this information?

Your Microsoft CRM system is a gold mine of business data and as with any gold mine you have to dig for the gold and then process it before you can really have something of value.

Reports are the gold mining tools for your CRM gold mine. Reports are such vital part of any Microsoft CRM implementation that I would venture to say that it should be the first thing you start with when planning for your implementation. First thing is to know what types of report you would want to get out of the system. Keep in mind that even though Microsoft CRM collects lots of data, it does not collect all of the data that you might need to provide you the ultimate visibility that you would like to have. So by deciding what kind of reports you need a head of time, you will be able to insure that all the data needed for the report is collected.

We are going to have a free 3 hour Microsoft CRM Reporting live web clinic in the next couple of months. If you are interested in participating please contact us.

RM
Microsoft CRM Consultant
Unitek Microsoft CRM Services