Microsoft CRM software helps two companies increase productivity
See how Microsoft CRM software solutions helped two very different midsize organizations—a distributor of medical supplies in New York and a city government in Portugal—accelerate vital business processes as much as 50 percent.
In Summary:
| • | Microsoft CRM software helps a medical components supplier process orders of product samples 20 percent faster. |
| • | It has also enabled the company to grow revenue by 20 percent without increasing headcount. |
| • | Microsoft CRM software is helping the city of Abrantes, Portugal, enhance citizen satisfaction by processing requests twice as fast as before. |
In business, time can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Responding quickly to customers' problems, for example, can earn you their loyalty. Conversely, wasting time on rote tasks saps your bottom line.
Most organizations deploy customer relationship management (CRM) software to strengthen their customer relationships. But CRM systems often produce sizable savings of time as well, in ways that improve productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
Medical supplier improves marketing efficiency and consistency
 | To serve citizens, we need to know about their needs, their wishes, and who they are. |  | | Miguel Simoes de Carvalho
City of Abrantes
Portugal | |
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Consider medical components supplier Qosina Corp., for example. Since its founding in 1980, the Edgewood, New Yok-based company has based most of its marketing on a single offer: free samples of the surgical masks, beakers, syringes, and other items in its 568-page catalog, with same-day shipping.
That deceptively simple strategy is so effective that by 2004 Qosina's underpowered contact management application couldn't keep up with all the sample requests. The packaged third-party product lacked workflow functionality, so customer service representatives had to print out orders for the samples and manually route them to the warehouse. The software also couldn't schedule follow-up activities, so salespeople had to use word processing documents to track who had recently ordered samples. Meanwhile, the system's scalability limits forced Qosina to store customer information in five separate databases. As a result, up to 15 percent of the company's customer records were duplicates—which meant that some customers received multiple catalogs, and Qosina had to absorb those extra costs.
Convinced that its contact system was producing more problems than sales, Qosina worked with Business Solution Partners, a Microsoft Gold Certified integrator based in Roslyn, New York, to deploy Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Thankfully, workflow now runs smoothly: Customer service employees route new orders to the warehouse electronically, and shipping personnel use a custom form to view the order and print a mailing label, packing slip, and cover letter automatically. After the order ships, Microsoft Dynamics CRM automatically schedules a follow-up call.
What this means for business is that it now takes 20 percent less time to fulfill an order, which helps free up the customer service department to help more people. "We've grown probably close to 20 percent in sales [since deploying our CRM solution] and haven't had to add headcount," says Gerry Quinn, Qosina's chief operating officer.
Duplicate entries are no longer a problem, since Microsoft Dynamics CRM consolidates Qosina's customer records in a single Microsoft SQL Server database. This also gives the company deeper insight into customer behavior. The contact management system had no reporting functionality but using SQL Server Reporting Services and Crystal Reports, Qosina can now analyze ordering patterns and tailor marketing campaigns to specific customer needs.
Qosina's next step will be to deploy a dashboard program. Running on Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, the new system will combine data from both Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Qosina's Microsoft Dynamics GP enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. This integrated information will allow managers to see which sample requests ultimately yielded an order and which didn't. "It will be a tremendous benefit to us," Quinn predicts.
Portuguese city eases transaction process for citizens
The government of Abrantes, a city of more than 42,000 people in central Portugal, has cut its turnaround times even more impressively than Qosina, thanks to a CRM deployment that also began in 2004. Previously, the city stored information about residents in multiple systems supporting the fire department, public library, and other municipal services. Consolidating all of that data in one place, city officials suspected, would give them a richer understanding of their constituents. "To serve citizens, we need to know about their needs, their wishes, and who they are," says Miguel Simoes de Carvalho, the city's information and communications technology consultant.
Designed and implemented by Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Unisys, Abrante's solution is based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The system's consolidated database enables the city's walk-in assistance office, call center, and Web site to function as single points of contact for all citizen requests. If someone phones the call center about a sanitation issue, for instance, personnel can also update the caller about the building permit he applied for the preceding week. And since Microsoft Dynamics CRM maintains a detailed communication history, city employees can help right away with pending issues, instead of asking for background information first.
Today, an average citizen transaction takes half the time to process as it did before the new system. Meanwhile, the historical data that Abrantes is accumulating helps it anticipate citizen preferences and target its communications more precisely. "We can be proactive," Carvalho says. For example, if Abrantes hosts a sports event, it can send promotional materials to residents who have attended similar events in the past. That makes for happier citizens—and saves Abrantes money. "We've reduced our marketing expenses because we're focusing our publicity only on citizens who are interested," Carvalho says. The city even uses its CRM system to distribute electronic post-event satisfaction surveys, which help it further refine targeting for future activities.
With funding from the European Commission, Abrantes is extending its CRM solution to support nine neighboring communities. Many people live in one local jurisdiction, work in another, and attend cultural events in a third, Carvalho notes. The expanded CRM system will allow citizens to more easily get answers to or resolution of issues across the region. That's the kind of speed and convenience CRM solutions are making possible for citizens—and customers—everywhere.
 | Rich Freeman is a Seattle, Washington-based freelance writer specializing in business and technology. He has more than 14 years of strategic marketing and communications experience in the IT industry. |
