With such a growing imperative to maximize customer value and reshape the customer experience, many top-tier firms are turning to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. As a fully centralized and interactive business management tool, CRM 2011 provides a complete, reliable, and integrated 360 degree view of client-related information so that companies can better identify, segment, service, and retain their customers and create a more positive customer experience in the following ways:

• Cultivate and deepen relationships to earn client loyalty, retention, and pave the way for repeat business via upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
• Dissect the critical information found in the client profile to develop more targeted marketing campaigns, more effective sales call plans, and more seamless, cost-efficient service delivery strategies that are relevant and tailored to the unique customer purchasing preferences and habits.
• Glean insights on a customer’s interaction, ad response, and transaction history across various channels and touchpoints to grow company-wide awareness and knowledge of each customer’s unique needs and be better positioned to offer value-added products and services.
• Facilitate employee and department collaboration, sharing, and communication of critical information to improve and automate front-office sales and service processes, minimize response times to client inquiries, and reduce customer frustration by not having to ask the same questions repeatedly.

The good news here is that all of the above benefits of improving the customer experience and overall client satisfaction will eventually grow customer spend, provide an incremental sales lift, and maximize the lifetime value of your more profitable clients and prospects.

To learn more about how the vast experience and expertise of Customer Effective combined with our industry specific accelerators and pre-built configuration templates can help lower your total cost of ownership, shorten your implementation timeline, and increase the return on investment of your new robust Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 system, please visit www.customereffective.com.

Post by: Kevin Wessels, Customer Effective

Improve Customer Relations and Reshape the Customer Experience with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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We are excited to announce a FREE webinar on February 15, 2012 at 2:00pm Eastern Time

The webinar will cover topics including:

• How companies have integrated AssureSign Electronic Signature Technology into Microsoft Dynamics CRM 
• How to merge your documents with Microsoft Dynamics CRM data fields and send them out to one or many recipients for signature using a single interface. 
• How to track the progress of documents out for signature, send executed copies to all required recipients, and bring completed documents back into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. 
• How to streamline your business processes by integrating electronic signatures, keeping all documents electronic, and eliminating overnight charges or delays associated with faxing

 You can visit the Events Page on Customer Effective’s website to Register for this great Webinar!

by Customer Effective, Florida, Georgia Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Customer Effective and AssureSign to Present Webinar on February 15 at 2:00pm Eastern is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Every day, Sabert pushes all of the customer data from SAP to CRM using Scribe. Sabert’s 70 field sales representatives report that they are saving hours a night per person on clerical tasks now that they can get the information they need — such as order status reports — from CRM through Outlook on their laptops.

Mike Freeman, Director of Information Technology at Sabert knew they needed a partner like Customer Effective to make their CRM project a success; “When we were evaluating CRM solution providers for sales force automation, Microsoft CRM had what we needed: a native Outlook interface, which our field sales already used on their laptops, and the ability to work offline. We knew there would be heavy integration requirements, and we didn’t want to add staff, so we turned to a trusted partner and integration platform.”

Read the entire news article on Sabert’s success on our Customer Effective News page

by Customer Effective, Florida, Georgia Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner

Sabert Corporation Uses Scribe to Integrate SAP ERP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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With its advanced data recordkeeping, management, and business intelligence reporting capabilities, CRM 2011 enables Asset Management firms to quickly and accurately respond to the influx of inquiries from prospects, clients, partners, institutional consultants, and regulators. These Asset Managers are better equipped to reply to mounting requests for data collection and analysis because their client and portfolio data is more organized and easily searchable in one centralized location within CRM. Since Microsoft CRM 2011 offers a consolidated, comprehensive 360 degree view of client information, employees can easily filter, locate, sort, aggregate, and report on data in real-time to promptly collaborate and correctly respond to all of the incoming audit, compliance, and investor due diligence requests. Additionally, Asset Management personnel can access and leverage CRM 2011 directly within their Outlook to refer to interaction history with key relationships and stakeholders, monitor capital raising pipelines, automate new fund launch marketing campaigns, track lead and referral sources, and streamline client on-boarding processes. The ensuing combination of increased employee productivity and more informed strategic business decision-making results in enhanced service levels to the firm’s client base. Therefore, the ever-increasing demanding clientele will be more satisfied with their overall investing experience with the firm, and thus be less likely to move their money down the block to a competitor. Furthermore, the firm is more agile and better positioned to adapt promptly to the more stringent regulatory environment to remain in compliance.

On the other hand, Investment Managers lacking a single core CRM system, and instead using siloed legacy applications and spreadsheets will inevitably severely lose assets and market share. Moreover, their widespread operational inefficiencies could potentially place the firm at a higher risk of being out of compliance and ultimately shut down.

Customer Effective is ready to partner with your firm to establish and successfully execute an industry-tailored CRM deployment, which can either be hosted in the cloud or installed on premise. To learn more about the operational simplicity and flexibility of Customer Effective: FinServ for Capital Markets and how we can accelerate your CRM ROI, lower your total cost of ownership, and grow your business, please visit www.customereffective.com.

Post by: Kevin Wessels, Customer Effective, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partner in FL and GA

Rely on Microsoft Dynamics CRM to Satisfy Increasing Regulator Compliance Burdens and Investor Due Diligence Requests is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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Associate Executive Director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, Roger Orman says, “In addition to the churches we have 43 Baptist associations as partners and each of those associations is also autonomous. They voluntarily associate with us. Each of the 2,100 churches has a pastor. Then you have the ministers of music , the youth minister, ministry assistants and secretaries, maybe an outreach minister, a missions minister, a recreation minister, Sunday school teachers, the list goes on and on. In all there are over 60,000 individuals we service and it requires a state-of-the-art CRM system to keep it all humming smoothly.”

Tap Haley of Customer Effective says, “In the past, the Convention would receive reports from its member organizations showing leadership changes and other statistics once a year. Now with Microsoft Dynamics CRM in place we are able to help the Baptist Convention keep this information well organized. However, the annual paper based update kept the information from being completely fresh. We addressed this in our second phase through the creation of a a web based “Pastor’s Portal” where member organizations log in and report weekly statistics about attendance, giving, and missions, and also update and add contact and position information. The Convention will receive all this information in real time rather than once a year and that will make their lives easier while adding value for the member organizations.”

Interested in learning more? Visit our website to: Download the Case Study

Post By: Hannah Mayer, Customer Effective

Customer Effective Publishes New Microsoft CRM Customer Success Story for Project with the South Carolina Baptist Convention is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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However, when you respond quickly, with the right message and attitude, you’ll most likely snuff out the “fire” and sometimes even make your company look like a hero.

Social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, have given customers a greater voice to express dissatisfaction with brands to an audience who value their opinion – their friends and followers. It used to be that an unhappy customer would tell a handful of close friends about an unpleasant experience with a company and the news would stop there. Now, just one status update or tweet can reach thousands of people with a single click and then be shared or re-tweeted from there. With social media, bad news travels very far and fast.

While traditional customer relationship management (CRM) does a great job with equipping your service staff with the information they need to effectively resolve in-coming calls, what about the complaints being expressed outside the company’s walls, online? How do you stay on top of and respond to those complaints when they’re not addressed directly to your company?

Social Networking Accelerator for CRM

This is a key reason why Microsoft developed the Social Networking Accelerator as an add-on module for Microsoft Dynamics CRM – to enable users to more efficiently track online conversations about their brand from multiple social media platforms, all from within a single application, Dynamics CRM.

Consider the possibilities for faster, better customer service when you seamlessly integrate social media with Dynamics CRM.

• Instead of getting blind-sided by bad news spreading quickly, configure your CRM to serve as an early warning system for product or service issues by monitoring social networks for complaints and issues relating to your brand
• Monitor chronic complainers to identify top potential service issues
• Instantly create a case within Microsoft Dynamics CRM from online conversations so you can then effectively address the case offline through an established problem resolution process
• Address new issues by posting a response online quickly and automatically tracking responses within Dynamics CRM
• Identify the most talked-about issues about your products or services and leverage that feedback for future improvements

The Need for Speed

When it comes to online conversations or complaints about your brand, the speed of your response is paramount. By combining social media tracking capabilities with CRM, you’re equipping customer service staff with the information they need – within a single application – to accelerate response times and WOW customers.

To explore the possibilities that come with integrating social media with your CRM, contact ERT Group at 954-825-0888.

Enterprise Resources Technology Group, Inc. (ERT Group) is a technology consulting firm that empowers companies to grow and succeed with business solutions that streamline processes, improve productivity, and squeeze more profit from operations. ERT Group is a Florida Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a 2010 President’s Club member for Microsoft Dynamics – offering Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics ERP.

Social Media + CRM Accelerates Customer Service Response, Builds Loyalty is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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This is a perfect fit for CRM users that want to customize or redesign forms and parts of CRM that don’t really fit their needs.  Well, here are a few examples of integrating Silverlight applications with Microsoft Dynamics CRM:

Creating your own Entity Form with Silverlight

Whether you want to integrate this form in CRM or use it as an “accelerator” outside of CRM, both are possible:
As you may know, you can customize an existing form in CRM and add IFrames to it. These IFrames allow you to launch external applications within a CRM window, like for example a Silverlight Application.

• Are you tired of opening plenty of windows to create only one record? why don’t you create your own form in Silverlight and add tabs, fields, pictures, or any other visual element.
• Another possibility is to create an independent application that can be executed externally of CRM. This kind of application can query CRM through the CRM Web Service. Of course the framework and the possibilities are more limited than if it was an application hosted within CRM. But it allows you to manipulate records.

• If you have a salesperson, always on the road, that would like to add Quotes or Orders easily after visiting customers, what’s more convenient than doing it from his Smartphone?
  Your salesperson can create Orders in CRM through a Silverlight application on his mobile phone (Note that it exist as Silverlight framework for Mobile Applications).
  And a Silverlight application can be launched through any web-browser (Silverlight is a cross-platform technology) or directly installed for the client.
  And then you have a simple, basic application that can query/update your CRM remotely (assuming your CRM has been configured to be accessed/queried remotely).

Creating your own CRM report with Silverlight

Reports are what make data more attractive and understandable. Microsoft Dynamics CRM already has powerful reporting features, but there is another way to make your reports express exactly what you want.

The Silverlight framework contains a lot of different graph controls: Area Charts, Bar Charts, Pie Charts, Bubble Charts, etc.

You can find plenty commercial Silverlight components that offer customized Silverlight charts with advanced features like user-interactive charts or 3D charts.

 You can customize, by yourself, default Silverlight charts (as well as every other Silverlight control) by editing the default chart template. This gives you infinite  customization possibilities.

So even if you don’t find what you want in the large panel of existing Silverlight controls, you can still implement it yourself!

Now let’s go back to CRM:  All these controls can help you BUILD high-level CRM reports with the kind of chartS, data, and layout you want. You can create a report in CRM and link it to the Silverlight application; or you can embed your Silverlight report into an IFrame (Cf. previous paragraph) wherever you want in CRM.

Conclusion

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has many extension points where third-party applications can plug-in. With the latest versions of Silverlight and the development of rich commercial Silverlight components, you can turn your Microsoft Dynamics CRM into a high added value product.
So, this, combined with rich features of Silverlight, can participate in making your Microsoft Dynamics CRM experience better.

Here are links to interesting articles about Silverlight and CRM integration examples:

http://blog.davidyack.com/journal/2009/11/18/new-silverlight-4-book-content.html

http://blogs.inetium.com/blogs/azimmer/archive/2010/01/21/silverlight-applications-in-crm-4-0.aspx

Article written by Julie Brat, Technical Consultant – ERT Group

If you’re looking for specific CRM software information, check out the resources on the ERT Group website. You can also contact ERT Group for assistance in determining if a technology solution can help your organization better serve your business needs.

ERT Group is a Florida Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a 2010 President’s Club member for Microsoft Dynamics – offering Microsoft Dynamics ERP and Microsoft CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 and Silverlight, a Match Made in Heaven! is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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CRM Accelerators are a range of add-on solutions developed for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 customers and partners.  Each accelerator is available at no cost and will showcase how the CRM 4.0 platform can be configured and extended to broaden marketing, sales and service capabilities.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and partners are encouraged to further extend these accelerators to meet their specific business needs. Each accelerator is supported as per any other customization for Microsoft Dynamics CRM that follows SDK guidelines.  Additionally, all samples are supplied with full source-code so they can be extended further to meet specific customer requirements.

Highlighted Accelerators

• Notifications: Allows CRM users to subscribe to RSS feeds of their CRM views. For example, if  you have a view in CRM that displays your user’s leads in CRM, you can have a notification RSS which you can use outside of CRM (RSS reader application, Web Browser or even a Windows gadget for instance) and see the identical information.
• Event Management: Event management gives organizations the ability to manage planning, execution, tracking  and reporting requirements for events, particularly with web registration for events which can then be tracked in CRM
• eService: Allows users to extend entities to an IIS driven website (customer portal.)  Sample data set includes case management capabilities within the portal. For example, a CRM user can invite a customer to join the portal and once logged in the customer can log cases which feed directly into CRM.

Microsoft offers several other accelerators in addition to the three I have highlighted.  Be sure to check out CodePlex and ERT Group for additional information.  I encourage you to take a look at these free add-ons and see how they might benefit your organization.  Happy customizing.

By ERT Group – Florida Microsoft Dynamics Gold Certified Partner

Extending CRM Functionality, No Strings Attached is a post from: CRM Software Blog

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