Automate your sales force and close more deals
Updated: June 22, 2006
To succeed in the global marketplace today, your company’s sales force relies on getting accurate customer and product information, whether they are in the office or on the road. Your sales force also needs a unified, organized way to track customer leads, contact information, and histories. And management needs a way to analyze historical sales data for future opportunities. By centralizing data storage and standardizing sales tools and practices, companies competing in this environment can:
| • | React quickly to customer trends and changes in the marketplace |
| • | Automatically route leads to sales staff and prompt them to follow up |
| • | Identify more opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell |
| • | More effectively forecast sales figures |
| • | Focus on improving customer relationships |
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The challenge
Companies that are rapidly expanding into the global marketplace must collect and interpret large amounts of data in a timely manner. Challenges can arise from companies working with the variety of business practices, processes, and tools used by their partners and subsidiaries. Information may be stored in multiple locations, in a variety of formats and applications. No standardized methods may exist for getting critical information about leads and promotional offerings to and from a sales force. And salespeople may have difficulty accessing important customer, account, and inventory information while meeting with customers. In addition, management may not have a reliable way to measure the success of past sales strategies.
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Business scenario | Wide World Importers, a fast-growing furniture importing firm, recently acquired four global subsidiaries. With this acquisition came 150 salespeople—a sales force constantly on the move, working in multiple languages, and accustomed to a variety of sales processes and ways of recording their customer information. Salespeople were wasting valuable time in the office, searching multiple databases for the information they needed. Out on the road, they relied on the customer and account information they had taken with them, and on phone calls to a global support staff. Sales leads and inventory reports were out-of-date before they were distributed. Because there was not a unified data storage system to record customer contact and sales histories, management had a hard time identifying new marketing opportunities to convey to the sales team. Management soon realized that if Wide World Importers wanted to succeed in the furniture market, they quickly needed to automate the tools that their sales force used and standardize their sales practices. |
The solution
A solution based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows growing businesses to automate their sales force and develop best practices for their salespeople. Microsoft CRM provides a unified view of customer information and interactions through integrated sales, marketing, and customer service features. Users can view information in Microsoft CRM not only from within the application, but also by using Microsoft Internet Explorer, or using Microsoft Office Outlook. Because Microsoft CRM is integrated with Microsoft Outlook, salespeople can record contact information, schedule customer appointments, and send e-mail messages directly from Microsoft CRM. Salespeople can then synchronize calendars in the two applications.
On the road, salespeople can access Microsoft CRM through Microsoft Outlook to quickly look up and update business contact information or check inventory, even when using Windows Mobile on a Pocket PC. Back in the office, salespeople can synchronize their Pocket PC with their desktop computer. Because Microsoft CRM centralizes data storage, the new information that a salesperson enters into the system will be immediately available to the rest of the company. On the back end, Microsoft CRM works with Microsoft SQL Server to generate timely reports in minutes. These reports provide managers with accurate data that they can use to measure and forecast sales activity and automate various stages in the sales process.
A solution based on Microsoft CRM, and incorporating Microsoft Outlook, Windows, Mobile, and Microsoft SQL Server, can help midsize businesses gain a competitive edge by providing:
| • | The ability to make timely decisions. Salespeople can access current inventory, account information, and sales scripts to quickly close sales at the customer location. |
| • | Faster, more efficient ordering processes. Automated sales practices help salespeople operate more efficiently and increase productivity. |
| • | Opportunities to develop better customer relationships. With the information they need readily accessible, salespeople can concentrate on fulfilling the needs of their customers. |
| • | Better analysis and forecasting tools. Using unified reporting tools, management can measure the success of past sales campaigns, develop more effective sales strategies, and forecast future revenue. |
Next steps: Set up an automated, centralized solution for your sales force
