Automate Your Sales Process with Microsoft Dynamics CRM

John Eccles, 24 September 2010

Joan’s blood pressure is rising.  She is beginning to work late and when she gets home, she is grumpy with the family.  So she has decided that her dead-end job is really not worth it.

The problem is that Joan knows the business well, is highly efficient and has become the critical person, the linch-pin, in the small but growing sales company she works for.  Joan’s job-title is Customer Services Officer.  The diagram below depicts the Sales Process:

Marketing generates sales leads by advertising via print media, internet and radio.  They frequently try different advertisements and media in the effort to maximise the leads per marketing dollar.  Prospective customers are driven to respond via the company’s website or by phone.  When they visit the website, their details are collected via an on-line form and an email sent to Joan.  When they respond via phone, the call is answered by a call-centre and the relevant details are collected and emailed to Joan.  The number of sales-lead emails received by Joan varies between 50 and 250.  Today was the 250!

Joan fires off the sales leads to the Sales reps making sure they are distributed evenly.  The company has learned from experience that sales leads must be followed up quickly so each lead must be processed within 48 hours.  When a sales rep has actioned a lead by making contact with the prospective customer they have to notify Joan.  If Joan does not receive confirmation within 48 hours, she has to notify the manager.  Joan hates doing this because it may mean a sales rep gets in trouble.

That’s not all.  Joan has to prepare regular reports to Marketing to show where the sales leads came from.  Marketing want the information at least weekly, but with the increase in leads, Joan has only been managing every 2 weeks.  She feels bad about that. 

One more thing.  When the sales reps have done their sales thing, they must either make a sale or declare it lost within a week.  This information is fed back to Joan who prepares a monthly report to the manager showing the conversion rate for each sales rep.  This is time-critical because bonuses depend on the report.

Over the last year the number of sales leads has doubled, as has the number of sales reps.  But the Customer Services department is still just overloaded Joan.

Now put yourself in the position of the Owner-Manager.  What will you do when Joan hands in her resignation on Monday morning?

Will you beg her to stay – offer more money?    If so, give yourself 1 out of 10.  It’s worth a try – but the best that will happen is you buy yourself a little more time.

Will you get a personnel-consultant to find a new, better Joan?  1 out of 10.  Even if you find someone as good as Joan, the same issues are going to come back again.

Will you hire two Joans to cope better with the increased work?  3 out of 10.  You’ve dealt with the work-overload – but you’ve doubled your customer service cost.

Or will you install a decent customised CRM system and automate the whole sales process?  8 out of 10.  This is a cost-effective solution that will be sustainable as the business grow

You would need CRM software such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM for all sales and marketing staff.  Probably you would already have the server and computers required.  You would need a custom portal to automatically collect data from the web-site and from the call-centre.  You would need workflows set-up in your Dynamics CRM system to automatically direct the leads to sales reps and automatically track the time from lead to customer contact and notify the manager if the 48 hours is exceeded.  Dynamics CRM can be programmed to automatically generate the reports that Joan laboriously produced.  But more than that, the key information can be updated and made available, in real time via a Dynamics CRM dashboard. 

And how much will it all cost?  If the Dynamics CRM is hosted, it will cost NZ$85 per month per user. Let’s say there are 2 marketers, 5 sales reps and 1 manager – that’s 8 licences for a total of $510 per month.  The portal plus customisation is at the low-end of complexity and would cost about NZ$30,000 for the system described.  And don’t forget training – say $8,000 for all 8 users.

That’s the best value for money solution.  The system would pay for itself in less than a year!

To get 10 out of 10, you would install the CRM system and promote Joan to be the Manager while you took a well-deserved holiday and planned your next business.

Find out more about Microsoft Dynamics CRM: http://magnetism.co.nz/whatwedo/overview.aspx

Find out about Magnetism’s Dynamics CRM customisation service: http://magnetism.co.nz/whatwedo/ourcrmexperience.aspx