CRM system is a crucial part of any organisation’s operations, if used correctly, it will offer insight into your customers that empowers you to improve their experiences and manage relationships. With that, you’ll maintain happy, loyal customers who help you meet your goals.

Your organisation – particularly your sales and marketing teams should live by your CRM. But while many businesses have a CRM system, not all of them use it to its full potential.

Microsoft offers an incredibly powerful CRM in the form of Dynamics 365. However, you’ll only unleash that power by using it consistently and correctly.

We’ve put together seven tips to help you get more value out of your Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?

Microsoft Dynamics 365 – previously known as Dynamics CRM – is a collection of solutions that can help businesses manage their customer relationships.

image courtesy of Microsoft

Under the Dynamics 365 umbrella sit:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Service – deliver consistent support across your customer service channels and provide faster resolutions.
• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – gather real-time data on your customers’ journeys to truly understand and better target them.
• Dynamics 365 Sales – helping businesses to automate the sales force and close deals faster.

Together, these tools extensively cover all the areas a good CRM should. Using them, you can progress prospects, learn more about your customers and provide a service that exceeds expectations.

Plus, each tool is connected so your customer relationship management is streamlined.

What should a good CRM do?

Before you can learn to get more out of your CRM, it’s crucial to know what you’re aiming for.

A good, well-utilised CRM should:

• Align sales and marketing, giving them a shared view of customer data and enabling better targeting.
• Monitor customers at every stage of their journey to improve relations, identity risk and tailor experiences.
• Make it easier to predict the future behaviours for strategic planning.
• Optimise workflows by letting teams share insight and collaborate in a customer-focused way.
• Give you one place for customer data, so everyone can gather the insight they need.

if you aren’t getting the benefits, you’re not getting return on investment from your CRM. This is a sign you either need to invest in a new CRM or learn how to use yours better.

How to make the most of your Dynamics 365 CRM_

1. Set out the right categories_

Dynamics 365 can monitor large volumes of customer data and organise it meaningfully. However, it can only do so if you set it up sensibly for your organisation.

Make sure you have set up everything you want to see, like reports and pipelines. You’ll want to make sure you label and track your customers in the correct way, such as categorising them by segments, journey stage, historical behaviour or other demographical information.

By setting up your CRM well, it’ll be much easier to use and improve data analysis. It’ll also help you to automate tasks (like sending automatic emails to customers entering new journey stages).

2. Give everyone customer visibility_

CRMs are often associated with sales and marketing – but everyone can benefit from it.

Finance teams can use it to improve their accounting, like flagging potential missed payments and sending payment reminders. IT and development can use CRM data to improve digital experiences. Product teams can gather feedback and optimise their strategies. In short, your CRM gives everyone insight into your customers. This enable every team to make customer-centric decisions that boost satisfaction and sales.

Dynamics 365 offers specific solutions for different departments, so they can get the tailored data and automation they need. Better yet, these solutions will integrate with one another, so there’s no risk of working in silo. Everyone has the same visibility of your customers.

3. Bring all your data sources together_

There’s nothing more frustrating than data stored in different areas or having to remember hundreds of login details. It often leads to information being missed and limits decision-making. Dynamics 365 integrates with a wide range of Microsoft apps and third-party tools. So, whatever platform or app you’re working in, you have sight of relevant data and actions.

For example, if you’re looking at an email from a customer in Outlook, you can see information on recent transactions for full context.

By connecting your different systems, it’s easier to progress actions and collaborate with other teams. This streamlines your processes and enhances productivity.

4. Create bespoke experiences_

Another huge benefit of Dynamics 365 is that it can be entirely customised to your business. With Power Apps, you can easily build bespoke apps that solve different business needs and challenges.

These apps also connect to your CRM, extending the functionality. Examples, include customer self-service portals, with tickets instantly stored in your CRM. Alternatively, you can create feedback and satisfaction surveys which are recorded in customer files.

With this customisation, your CRM can perform in a way that truly serves your business and users. You’ll also craft tailored customer experiences that give them what they need without increasing service demands.

5. Utilise AI to automate basic tasks_

With Copliot, Microsoft’s AI assistant, you can gain productivity benefits while avoiding risk. Copilot is now embedded with Dynamics 365 for the automation of basic tasks. Here are a few examples of how you can use it:

• Summarise your customer calls, with follow up dates and actions for sales to complete promptly.
• Generate content suggestions for customers, based on their previous emails, including personalised data for their needs – like promotions and deadlines.
• Send automatic emails at the right time, such as delivery reminders or birthday offers.
• Draft quick response emails, such as responses to customer service tickets.
• Ask Copilot natural language questions to receive relevant data results for customer analysis.
• Describe customers you want to contact and let AI generate relevant segments for you.

Each of these can empower your sales, marketing and other teams to operate faster and reduce the effort associated with these tasks. And that frees them up to focus on the value work that will increase your customer base.

6. Maintain maintenance standards_

Once you’ve set up your CRM and established the best practice for your business, you need to stick to it.

If they aren’t carefully maintained, CRMs become chaotic, with data stored incorrectly. This will make it hard to gather accurate insight and may decrease usage across your organisation, resulting in isolated working.

Document your best practices and share them internally. By doing so, you can maintain standards and processes to get continual value from your system.

If you do need support in maintaining or setting up your CRM, it may be wise to work with a trusted partner to ensure the right processes are implemented.

7. Follow updates and support_

The benefit of using a Microsoft CRM is that they spend considerable money on research and development to bring new functionality to their products. So, you benefit from cutting-edge innovation.

Microsoft products like Dynamics 365 get regular updates, through Wave releases. These tend to happen every 6 months. This means features are added to better serve businesses. These updates improve productivity, enhance usability and allow you to do more in your CRM. There’s also constant support, meaning you can get help whenever you need it.

It makes it easy to get more value from your system as it evolves with your business.

You can read our guide to successfully managing Wave release updates here.

Elevate your Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The right CRM can be revolutionary for your business. By investing in Dynamics 365 and leveraging it properly, you will be able to reap countless benefits. Like better aligned teams, efficient processes and customer-centric decision making.

With this, you’ll be able to consistently delight customers and unleash your selling potential, with everything you need stored in one place.

And AI is taking things further. You can now get better insights from your CRM, improve targeting and optimise workflows to boost efficiency and impact.

Our on-demand video series, Get to AI, is full of sessions covering how AI can drive progress in your business – including within Dynamics 365.

Get your free access below.