Partner Highlight: New Signature Delivers Transformative Cloud Experiences
In our continuing effort to shine the spotlight on Partners embracing the cloud-first, mobile-first world, we recently spoke with Reed Wiedower, Chief Technology Officer of New Signature. Headquartered in Washington D.C., New Signature is a system integrator dedicated to delivering compelling, transformative customer experiences in the Financial Services sector including nonprofit and Professional Services. Their business is growing and they see great opportunity with Microsoft Dynamics and Office 365.
“We’re on a tear! One year ago, we were one fifth the size we are now. We’ve grown from 50 to 250 employee’s and the pace is continuing. Our big focus is on the Dynamics stack as we see this as the next big wave,” states Reed Weidower, Chief Technology Officer, New Signature. The excitement and enthusiasm in Reed Weidowers’ voice is palpable.
About two months ago, Reed discovered that when it came to Dynamics CRM, most customers weren’t fully aware of its capabilities. Because of this, Reed determined that is was necessary for New Signature to get in front of customers and explain what Dynamics CRM had to offer.
One of the best ways to showcase Microsoft Dynamics CRM is through the Customer Immersion Experience. CIE is like a workshop delivered in-person or remotely where a partner, along with a Microsoft facilitator, demonstrates Microsoft’s suite of productivity tools. “This is when we can come in and paint a vision for them. We don’t see this as solely an IT conversation; it is a conversation with all the stakeholders across all lines of the business. This conversation about Dynamics needs to happen across the board. You as the partner need to realize that the customer just wants to do their job…you need to paint a vision so they can have the experience themselves.”
When it comes to Dynamics CRM Online, Reed explains, many partners are moving slowly; some are moving faster. “We are one of the few organizations that can bridge this gap. We have the ability to see into areas that are not necessarily core to Dynamics such as Customer Engagement or Self-Service Engagement. The New Signature team collectively builds marketing events that tie everything together, consistently delivering repeatable marketing and sales efforts that showcase how CRM can transform a customer’s business. We see it as a way to help our customers adopt the Dynamics platform.”
“The simplest component of Dynamics, not ground breaking capabilities, can change a customer’s view of Dynamics. When the customer is shown how Dynamics works, they are surprised by what the system is capable of doing. If we have a customer already using Office 365, one of our account executives is helping them to understand that Dynamics works with Office 365. This is the logical next step to take. They reach out to the customer, making sure the CTO and the CFO are included, and explain that it is not complicated, providing an inside view of the complete integration of Dynamics CRM and Office 365.
Companies want to do their job more efficiently and Dynamics CRM allows them to do this. “There are things that everyone wants, but most don’t associate it with Microsoft as they don’t think of Microsoft beyond Office and Windows. They don’t think that Microsoft can offer this type of solution. Once they’ve gone through a workshop, they come to me and say “this is amazing! This is going to save us a ton of time!”
Even with 3rd party add-ons, the vision that Dynamics laid out in video one year ago has become a reality. For example, DocuSign licenses; this was an aspiration for most companies a year ago, but now, companies can send, sign and approve documents critical to their business today.
New Signature’s view is that by presenting Dynamics CRM to the customer, you are able to continue the conversation with them, to help them grow their business in terms of capability. With Outlook or SharePoint, the customer ultimately takes over and there is nothing additional to do in terms of support. With CRM, there are new opportunities all the time. This helps to retain a customer, as you can keep growing the relationship with enhancements. You don’t want your customer to walk away; you don’t want to let your customer go. CRM is your opportunity to really have an ongoing relationship with your customer because of all the new capabilities.
The key is to keep learning and stay on top of everything that Microsoft is releasing. “There is so much new stuff coming out, if you don’t live and breathe it, you can be latent in your ability to speak with customers.” Customers can detect when they know you really don’t know what you are talking about. It’s critical that a partner be on the latest version of Microsoft Dynamics, and that is CRM Online!
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