Commerz Real improves investor and employee communications with Dynamics 365

Commerz Real AG is the asset manager for the Commerzbank Group’s real asset investments, managing more than 35 billion euros in tangible assets for customers across 19 countries on four continents. The firm’s services include creating tailored investment funds for insurance and healthcare companies, pension funds, and private investors, managing corporate and retail real estate funds, and investing in renewable energy projects such as solar parks and wind farms. Commerz Real turned to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Insights to streamline event management and improve communications with investors and employees. 

Banking on a new marketing and event planning solution 

Commerz Real is committed to prioritizing the needs and benefits of its tenants, investors, and the public. To demonstrate that commitment and maintain strong relationships with its investors, the Commerz Real sales and marketing teams regularly send out e-newsletters to institutional and retail investment clients and organize events that showcase the company’s offerings.

Marketing employees relied on Microsoft Dynamics CRM, two different emailing tools, and customer lists in Microsoft Excel for email merges. Christian Wanner, Consultant Business Intelligence/Product Owner Microsoft Dynamics 365 & Power Platform at Commerz Real, explains, “The data was not centralized, so it took a lot of time to put newsletters together, which wasn’t efficient. For one of our use cases, our sales team spent a week preparing a newsletter to send to investors twice a year, due to having to manually personalize each email. We sent a total of 48 different emails and then we couldn’t track responses for them.”  

Event managers also struggled with heavily manual processes for emailing invitations and tracking registrations and confirmations for each event. “We had to manually export contact details, produce and send the emails, and then try to track everything in Excel,” Wanner says. “We also had to work with a third-party agency to create the registration form for attendees, which was costly.” 

To address its marketing and event planning challenges, Commerz Real decided to add Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to its existing Dynamics 365 environment. The company worked closely with Microsoft Partner DIGITALL to implement the solution and tailor it further to their requirements. Because Customer Insights is integrated with the Dynamics 365 platform, Commerz Real could begin using the new solution immediately. Wanner explains, “It only took us six weeks from the time we started implementing Customer Insights to sending out the first four newsletters because we didn’t have to try to integrate with any third-party software tools.”

Creating and sending emails in hours instead of weeks 

The firm standardized and automated the entire newsletter process in Customer Insights – Journeys. The marketing and sales teams can easily design and email newsletters to investors, customized by contact, segment, or buyer stage thanks to the solution’s segmentation and personalization features. “Previously, we had to gather all the investment client data from our different CRM systems and manually build and personalize each email,” says Wanner. “All the data is now centralized in Dynamics 365, so we can build and send an email in a half day instead of nearly a week like it used to take, and our marketing employees can focus on more strategic tasks. Today, we only prepare two emails and the rest of the personalization is handled by Dynamics 365 and we can track the responses.”

"Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys has improved our efficiency by streamlining processes and reducing manual tasks. With consolidated customer and partner information, we respond quickly and effectively. Its seamless integration within our Microsoft workplace is a benefit and supports our IT strategy to minimize applications and tools,” adds Dr. Nikolaus Schmidt, Global Head of Technology and Innovation, Commerz Real AG.

A more efficient process allows Commerz Real to increase the frequency of its client communications. The marketing team now sends targeted emails to investors every month instead of four times a year. The firm also uses the solution to send monthly regulatory emails to investors with updated information required by law.

The gains aren’t just in productivity. The marketing team now has more useful campaign data because the solution tracks newsletter responses and click-through rates. “We have better insight into who is reading the information in the emails through the personalization features in Customer Insights,” says Wanner. “For example, if we see someone clicked on an article about a real estate fund in the newsletter, we can send new information about that specific fund to that person in the next email.” 

The company can get investment information to more people as well. “Previously, we’d send a newsletter to the manager of a bank sales team and he or she would send that to the rest of the sales team,” Wanner says. “Now, the salespeople can subscribe to the newsletter, and we can send news directly to them.”

Managing investor and employee events more efficiently

Commerz Real uses event management in Customer Insights to standardize and automate organizing events for investors. With a central location for event planning and management, attendee contacts and communications, and registration information, event organizers can easily send personalized invitations, session information, and automatic email reminders. They can review attendance and customer feedback on each session to use in planning future events.

Commerz Real also uses Customer Insights – Journeys to manage internal events, and the company’s board members use it to manage events. And because all event-related activities are recorded centrally in a customer's contact history in Sales, Commerz Real sales staff have an up-to-date overview that they can use for the next communication with the customer.

“The entire event management process is streamlined in Dynamics 365, from the initial invitation to the registration and travel information,” Wanner says. “It’s a more efficient and effective process now.”