Archive for the ‘Microsoft CRM’ Category

As over used as the tag line of "let's you do more with

less" is, that is exactly what happens when you properly

use Microsoft CRM segmentation.

Why?

Let's say that one of the products that you company

sells is the Alpha 5. Perhaps your company is getting

ready to replace the Alpha 5 with the Alpha 6 which has

many new features as well as compliance benefits in the

states of California, Arizona and Texas.

With CRM segmentation you could run a marketing

campaign targeting only companies who purchased the
Alpha 5 in the last 3 years who are based out of California,
Arizona or Texas.

Maybe your current sales data base has 100,000

prospects and clients in it but only 7,500 customers world
wide own the Alpha 5 and only 500 of them have purchased
the Alpha 5 in the last 3 years that are based out of

California, Arizona or Texas.

This means that instead of doing a mass mailing to

100,000 that you can do a targeted mailing to 500. If

the cost of each mail piece, including postage, that you
want to send is $3, this means that the cost of mailing
for the campaign would be $1,500 instead of $300,000.

Not only would your mailing cost for the campaign be

dramatically lower but now you can make your messaging

much more relevant to your target group.

Now instead of sending out a generic message to the

100,000 people in your data base your messaging might be

something along the lines of:

*************************************************

Hi Bob,

As an owner of the Alpha 5 since March 4, 2009, I am

excited to let you know that we are getting ready to

come out with the Alpha 6.

The primary advantages of the Alpha 6 over the Alpha 5

are:

Advantage 1

Advantage 2

Advantage 3

Plus the Alpha 6 is in full compliance with your new

Texas OSHA regulation A5208 which the Alpha 5 is not.

For the next 90 days, until Dec 21, 2011, you can

purchase the Alpha 6 at our prefered customer

promotional pricing of $72,500.

After Dec 21, 2011 the price of the Alpha 6 will return

to its normal price of $105,000.

I will give you a call in the next few days to discuss

this further.

Sincerely yours,

Joe Salesperson

***************************************************

If this sounds like something that you would like to learn more about, then give us a call at 858-541-1820 or send us an email at info@rbdata.com and we will tell you more about how you can put this power of CRM segmentation to work for you.

The most common starting point for many organizations is reporting.  Many organizations need to improve reporting whether this means speeding it up, making it more flexible or reducing the reliance on internal or external IT experts to provide this information.  This is especially important when looking to add Business Intelligence to Microsoft CRM.

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here. 

Last month, we talked about CRM Business Intelligence and since there was so much interest in that topic, let's go a bit deeper.

So many companies do a great job of capturing information in their Microsoft CRM system but are awful at being able to use that information to make better decisions faster.

What about you?

Are you quickly able to quickly segment your data base to execute a new marketing campaign so that it is targetted just those customers who have purchased a certain product in the last 18 months?

Are you able to identify the characteristics of your most profitable customers such as

* SIC Code
* Zipcode
* Company Size
* Position of purchaser
* Is company in growth mode or decline

* Etc

so that you can intelligently purchase a new list of prospects?

Do you know what the average lifetime value of a customer is along with the margin rate?

Do you understand the behavior of a customer who is growing discontent with your product or service BEFORE they stop being a customer?

If you use your website to either conduct sales or generate leads do you know things like:

* How many unique website visitors it takes to generate a lead
* How many leads it takes to set an appointment
* How many appointments it takes to generate a sale?

The point is to be able to successfully grow your business you must know your numbers (commonly called metrics).  If you do, then you are in a position to make better decisions faster.

To help you get started, we are offering you a free 60 minute Business Intelligence Quickstart consultation.  This offer is valued at $250, is limited to the first 8 companies that request it and expires on July 8, 2011.  Sorry, but this offer is limited to US based companies who have over 25 employees.

If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please contact us at 858-431-1820 or by email at info@rbdata.com and we will set up a mutually convenient time for your free Business Intelligence Quickstart consulation.

5 Reasons To Consider Microsoft CRM 2011 Online

If you are not to the point of embracing Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011 Online, here are five reasons you should at the very least consider it for your business:

1. Scalability- You can get as many or as  few licenses as you need.

2. Availability- Microsoft promises 99.9% uptime, and will offer a service credit of 25% for uptime between 99% and 99.9%.

3. Security- Microsoft's security strategy covers a number of aspects from information security to asset management, but also to human resources security, physical and environmental security, and much more.
 

4. No Infrastructure- Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online is available at $34 per user per month through June 30, 2011. (If you're a qualifying non-profit, that cost can be as low as $9.99 per user per month.)
 

5. Free Trial- You can get the full feature set of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 to test for an entire month.

If you're now considering Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Online, sign up for a free 30 day trial.

If the benefits above speak to you, it's time to contact us at 858-541-1820 or at info@rbdata.com  to learn more.

One of the most important topics in Customer Relationship Management or CRM that can have the biggest impact on your business is known by several names.  Some people call it "Business Intelligence" or "BI".  Some people call it "Analytics" and some people just call it "Dashboards".

Microsoft is referring to it as "Actionable Intelligence". 

But what is it and why should you care?

For many organizations, perhaps I should say most, putting information into their CRM system is like putting it into a black hole.  You know it is there but it can be tough to find.  More importantly, it can be darn near impossible to use that information to quickly make sound business decisions.

Sound familiar?

Virtually all businesses can be made more profitable if the management team know their essential 5 to 10 core business drivers, or metrics, and can instantly access that information.

These core business drivers vary business to business but some common ones include:

Year to date sales compared to this time last year.

Sales pipeline opportunities with an 80% likelihood of closing in the next 30, 60 & 90 days broken down by region and sales rep.

Sales quota versus actual sales broken down by region and sales rep.

Which marketing activities have been successful and which have duds with hard numbers to back up those findings?

Which marketing activities have produced the highest number of closeable leads and what was the cost of per lead?

What is the average lifetime value of a customer?

Number of open support tickets.

Number of open support tickets that have been unresolved for over 3 days.

What are the top 5 support issues along with the solutions?

Again the key is to know what your key business metrics are and to be able to quickly access that information.

The most common starting point is reporting.  Many organizations need to improve reporting whether this means speeding it up, making it more flexible or reducing the reliance on internal or external IT experts to provide this information.

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here. 

Aren’t we all? Attend this Microsoft-led webcast titled Productivity, Process & Time Management tips with Microsoft Dynamics ERP, Outlook and CRM at 10am PT on May 12^th to learn about common time management challenges people face, and to gain insight on using technology you may already have to address these time management challenges. Learn how applying process, sharing data, and making a few simple changes can free up time and help prioritize the tasks most important to you. This is a must attend session for anyone that feels overwhelmed with the volume of things being thrown at them. Whether in finance, operations, sales, marketing, or customer service, if you use a computer, this session can help you better organize your time. We can’t guarantee you won’t still be overwhelmed, but we do believe some of the tips and hints in this session will be well worth the 1 hour spent.

To learn more about Microsoft CRM contact us at info@rbdata.com or call at 858-541-1820.

According to this Gartner Report, software as a service (SaaS) drives customer relationship management (CRM) market growth despite leaner budgets, while the competitive environment intensifies. Worldwide SaaS revenue within the enterprise application software market reached $9.2 billion in 2010, up 15.7 percent from 2009 revenue of $7.9 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.  

The market is projected for stronger growth in 2011 with worldwide SaaS revenue totaling $10.7 billion, a 16.2 percent increase from 2010 revenue.

Putting your Microsoft Dynamics CRM "in the cloud" may just be the answer for your business. Download this PDF

to learn more about adopting the cloud with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

Efficiency. Seems simple enough right? If you look up the definition you may get 3 different explanations:

    1.       The state or quality of being efficient.

    2.       Accomplishment of or ability to accomplish a job with a minimum expenditure of time and effort.

    3.       Effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost (as in energy, time, and money.)

The ratio of the useful energy delivered by a dynamic system to the energy supplied to it.

Does it still seem simple enough?
    

Perhaps not, but it is a word that we hear every day in our businesses and impress upon our employees that they need to be efficient. 

How do you know if you are efficient within your company?

If you think you are efficient because your revenue is good, you may be mistaken.  It's definitely a benefit if you have good revenue, but you may still have inefficiencies which are hindering an even larger revenue potential. 

If you are struggling to hit your revenue goals, then this is a telltale sign that you can be more efficient in your operations.
 

As a business operates we need to look at our efficiencies on a daily basis to measure our successes.

Take some time to review your current software, reports, processes, cross-department communications and workflows to see if they still make sense in your business.  You may quickly find out where you can redefine your business to become more efficient.

For more information on how RB Data Services can make your  organization more efficient, contact us today at
858-541-1820 or at info@rbdata.com. 

The recent release of Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 2011 for On-Premise installations complements the latest version of the online customer relationship management (CRM) version as a powerful successor in the Microsoft Dynamics® CRM platform. The new versions have been designed together to provide a seamless experience for users regardless of how it is deployed. 

With new software releases there are always two questions that can cause concern within an organization: 1. “How will I be able to grow with this platform?” and 2. “How easily will the end users adapt to the new interface?” Here are the answers to help alleviate those concerns:

1.     Scalability is always a concern and this version delivers the ability to have up to 150,000 concurrent users on a single instance while still delivering response times of less than a second.  This just goes to show just how well designed this solution is!

2.       Ease of use is achieved through a familiar Microsoft Outlook like interface, guided dialog, and point and click configuration through the web interface. End users can easily customize dashboards and personalize the interface to provide the information that is relevant to the decisions they need to make.

Read the full press release from Microsoft for more information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. Contact us today at 888-685-6370 (toll free) or at info@rbdata.com  to discuss how we can design a solution around this powerful new platform that will help your business experience the Power of Productivity.

If you or your management team are evaluating the investment in a customer relationship management solution (CRM), here are 10 good reasons to look at Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

10. Affordability: Not only do you get competitive pricing for both on-demand and on-premise deployments, Microsoft provides several CRM Accelerators that are available to customers at no additional charge.

9. Industry Leadership: See Analyst Reports and Awards on why Microsoft Dynamics CRM is one of the top CRM solutions.

8. Great Fit: Because Microsoft Dynamics CRM is based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA), it easily integrates into your existing systems using industry-standard Web services. Its exceptional customization feature also simplifies adapting it to your processes, models, and technology infrastructure. Learn more about the technology.

7. Operational Insight: The reporting engine generates compelling data reports within Microsoft CRM to help you make informed business decisions. Get deeper insights by integrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Microsoft Business Intelligence products for performance management, scorecards, data mining, and OLAP reporting.

For reasons #6 through #1, which includes Rapid Innovation, High User Adoption Rates, Unmatched Value and more, check out the rest at

http://crm.dynamics.com/en-us/whycrm.aspx.

Then contact us at RB Data Services at 858-541-1820. We can help you make a well informed decision for your company's needs.