Sales Solutions Center

The success of a company relies on the business and revenue it generates. Maintaining happy customers while pursuing new relationships is essential to this task. The Sales department not only drives future growth, but also shapes the direction of the company and enables it to meet its goals through the customer relationships created by sales engagements.

Sales representatives must have available to them the most accurate company data, including up-to-the-minute product and service pricing as well as information about clients. Success for the sales department depends largely on immediate access to business-critical information, which helps them respond to customer needs. Customer relationship management (CRM) software can give the sales team a strategic advantage and make information that can be hard to find or that resides in disparate systems more centralized and readily available.

Kevin: A day in the life of a Sales Manager

As a Sales Manager for a mid-size company, I am responsible not only for the performance of our Sales Representatives and our company's relationships with its customers, but also for setting goals, providing resources for the sales staff, and maintaining the image our company wants to project. For me, building a solid sales team and strong relationships with our customers is key.

With my busy schedule, I often work long hours. Microsoft Dynamics business management solutions help me to account for both the sales team's progress on converting new leads to sales as well as our actual sales results. With up-to-the-minute data, Microsoft Dynamics CRM lets me respond to any sales concern, determine pricing policies, and track individual as well as team performance. Thanks to Microsoft Dynamics, I always know how well we are doing.

Effective sales will increase our company's ability to compete and grow. With Microsoft Dynamics I spend less time looking for the information I need and more time improving our work. For example, I may lead a discussion on research and development, hold a sales meeting and share new solution selling tools, or work one-on-one with team members who need assistance.

In addition, I am the point of escalation for the customer service and sales teams. When I need to take a call from an unhappy customer and leave the person content, Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides me with a full account history and all the information that might help me in that conversation.

Michael: A day in the life of a Strategic Account Manager

As a Strategic Account Manager, I am responsible for maintaining the relationship with existing customers and for providing customer service, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is crucial for me to do my job well. If a customer has a question, I only have to go to one place to get the history of both the customer and the deal. I'm also responsible for the overall customer experience. With a complete customer record, nothing falls through the cracks. This lets me provide the kind of experience our customers want—and expect.

It's my job to manage the growth and margin of the account. It gets a little complicated because I talk with some customers every day and others every six months. Microsoft Dynamics CRM lets me stay focused on growing the accounts because it's easy to keep records of all my contacts and activities. I don't have to work to remember what I said to the customer the last time we spoke; it's all in the customer record.

When I see an opportunity for more business during my dealings with an existing customer, I pursue it without involving the Sales Representative who originally handled the deal. I'm able to act independently because the Sales Rep is using Microsoft Dynamics CRM too, and has included relevant customer information. However, I do give the outside sales staff tasks to follow up. Again, it's easy to do because Microsoft Dynamics CRM lets me automatically assign tasks that I can track to make sure they get completed.

I spend part of my time on the road, too. It's easy to keep on top of customer inquiries and sales deals because Microsoft CRM Mobile gives me access to the sales information I need through my Windows Mobile phone.