Building Your Business Hub: Using the Power of Social for a More Productive Enterprise

Microsoft is entering an exciting new phase for Microsoft Dynamics CRM! Today, we are announcing the general availability of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM November 2011 service update. This release reinforces our commitment to delivering familiar, connected and intelligent experiences to our customers.

We encourage you to read more about the release here, but I’d like to share with you our vision for social CRM. I don’t think anyone would argue that social technologies are fundamentally changing the way organizations and people interact. Many organizations, however, are just beginning the process of determining how to harness social technologies for real business benefits.

Microsoft’s strategy and vision for social CRM is simple: use social technologies to help customers and businesses build more productive relationships. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, we will provide businesses with built-in social CRM capabilities that enable them to manage all relevant relationships and interactions (both internal and external) in a way that cuts through the chatter, drives deeper relationships and increases employee productivity.

Social CRM is an increasingly important way to collaborate and engage, but it doesn’t replace the fundamental challenge of business: finding, winning and retaining customers. Whether you are using social technologies to simplify collaboration for your employees or to listen to and engage with customers through external communities, the social CRM capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM aren’t a separate application experience; rather it extends what you’re already doing and provides a new channel of engagement across sales, service and marketing processes. Like all our CRM investments, our social capabilities are tightly integrated with the Microsoft productivity tools you use today, including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Lync and Microsoft SharePoint.

To learn more about our social CRM vision and strategy you can watch this video or read this product release guide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBN-k8umpiw&feature=player_embedded

Microsoft Dynamics CRM partners are already experiencing ROI from the new features in the release. Here is what Jon Petrucelli, CRM Practice Leader, Microsoft Dynamics National Practice, of Hitachi Consulting had to say; “Customers are very excited about the new features being released in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM November 2011 service update. They report that the new Activity Feeds have been very beneficial to sales teams, enabling increased communication and team collaboration around sales opportunities to get the big deals done. Also, the social capabilities have increased the level of collaboration between internal sales and service teams. Now they are experiencing higher win rates, increased productivity, and are able to provide a greater level of customer service.”

This service update marks the first of several waves of social CRM investments and includes the following:

• Activity Feeds that simplify business insight and collaboration across internal communities through a simple experience. Users can follow important business events and activities in an intelligent and timely manner. The activity feeds capability is available today within our Outlook and Internet Explorer end-user experiences, and will be available on other browsers when Microsoft Dynamics CRM becomes available for Chrome, Firefox and Safari browser users in the first half of 2012.

• Microsoft Dynamics CRM mobile Activity Feeds for Windows Phone enable real-time activity feeds on the mobile device and provide a simple-but-comprehensive timeline of the business events for users no matter where they are. Users can post statuses directly from their phone, access their CRM data, initiate phone calls and find directions through Bing Maps — all through single-touch actions.

So, what’s next? Future releases of Microsoft Dynamics CRM will extend our social CRM capabilities with additional external collaboration, business intelligence and analytics to better understand the impact of social interactions. Example scenarios include the following:

• Building your “business hub.” Users will have instant awareness of each customer’s profile information, current status and business value by looking across CRM system information and social data. Microsoft Dynamics CRM acts as a “trusted advisor” for salespeople by proactively identifying valuable relationships and suggested actions.
• Providing “looking glass” capabilities. Organizations can listen and respond to external social networks and will blend this new channel seamlessly into your existing marketing, sales and service processes.

When it comes to social technologies, Microsoft's strategy is to help organizations turn social from an interesting phenomenon into a tool for driving more productive and intelligent relationships with customers and partners. With the broad range of social technologies across the Microsoft product family, and with more than 2 million Microsoft Dynamics CRM users across more than 30,000 organizations around the world, we think Microsoft is ideally positioned to deliver on this vision.

Find out more about our November 2011 Service Update here.

Brad Wilson, General Manager, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Management Group