Get the Most out of Your CRM Tool by Tying it with Business Intelligence

For every organization, it is crucial to accurately monitor and measure customer service. To efficaciously manage customer relationships, organizations must determine priorities to serve key customers through understanding buying behavior and customer satisfaction metrics for various market segments, products and services.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a tool that helps organizations manage all aspects of a customer’s relationship which increases customer loyalty and retention. Business Intelligence (BI) is the technology that makes it possible to structure the CRM data as a knowledge source to the company in an efficient manner.

Integration of CRM with BI

Most CRM applications today are built with a small suite of analytic tools. However, very few of them have the capability to do advanced analytics on data.

By applying BI to data collected from CRM applications, one can extract more information that’s relevant to go the extra mile for customers and prospects. At its extreme levels, BI lets organizations predict their future. It also helps in determining customer retention ratio, market for the product (whether it will grow or decline) and customer behavior. BI brings the CRM data together with all the other company information. This ensures complete control of not only intra-departmental CRM processes but also cross-departmental processes including sales, customer service, logistics and finance.

Integration of a CRM with BI provides a holistic approach to customers by focusing on transactions to build long-term, profitable customer relationships. Forrester Research’s analyst James Kobielus says that companies will be able to use existing CRM data to vastly improve critical one-on-one interactions with customers and generate additional sales when customers contact them by analyzing incoming customer data in real time. For example, a customer calls an organization’s call center with a question or concern, and after solving the caller's inquiry the call center agent could be better equipped to offer the caller a particular sales opportunity based on their account information and prior purchases. This would all be visible on the call center agent's screen.

Major advantages of CRM embedded with BI

• Display and analyze information for finance and HR, partner relations, customer service, executives, sales, and marketing
• Make informed business decisions and projections
• Spot trends
• Automate annual business plans, budgets, forecasts, period-end reporting packages, incentive compensation plans, product price elasticity exercises, workforce analysis, regulatory compliance
• Manage the overall health of the organization

Tying a CRM application with BI enables organizations to have a 360-degree view of their customers. Organizations can use this view to steer their business wisely. With CRM+BI, organizations can determine their goals before they take their first steps, which enables them to achieve adequate payback from their investments of time and resources.

To learn more about the intersection of CRM and BI, check out the latest updates to Dynamics CRM 2015 here.

By Indusa – Dynamics CRM Partner