There’s no doubt that finding, nurturing, and quantifying your leads play a critical role in the sales management process. To achieve this, Australian businesses need advanced customer relationship management (CRM) software like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales — a platform of online tools that streamline the overall sales experience.
Through its intuitive, user-friendly interface, Dynamics 365 Sales allows users to enjoy detailed sales insights, simplified communication, and a clean, customisable customer database. The past year has implemented new features to enhance this digital sales experience, and we’ve highlighted their most significant upgrades below.
Digital selling
Users can now streamline the selling process through automated sequences and enhanced personal settings. Since early 2021, accessing your personal options and insights can now be found in a dedicated area switcher located in the Dynamic 365 Sales hub app. Here, you’ll find an upgraded email editor with a flexible template and signature customisation options.
What’s more, sellers can enjoy greater business efficiency through new, automated sequences. Traditionally, sales processes require tending to each customer’s status and crafting them a unique email with the relevant information. Dynamics 365 Sales’ new platform features, however, automate the customer management and email process with little to no seller intervention. Such sequences are reactive, meaning they can pick up on the next step of the sales process.
Forecasting, pipeline analytics, and gamification
Forecasting has now been made easier through enhanced insights, customisation, and automation options. The Dynamics 365 Sales platform currently analyses customer data to determine the specific attributes affecting an accurate predictive score for business leads and opportunities. With the new features, users can get a breakdown of these attributes and identify those that negatively or positively impact the resulting score.
Additionally, the improvements to forecast modelling now allow users to form fully customised, enterprise-grade forecasts. New options include the ability to use custom entities for forecast roll-ups and hierarchies, as well as breaking down forecasts by product quality or quantity.
Other upgrades include options to gamify the sales process, which is particularly useful for setting sales goals. Progress bars and leaderboards displaying key sales highlights will help you acknowledge your top performers and introduce some friendly competition among your staff.
Mobile experience
In a fast-paced business world, you may constantly find yourself on the go or working from home. This is especially true among field sellers, who spend much of their time travelling from one prospect or client to the next.
The new Dynamic 365 Sales mobile app now allows quick and easy updates to one’s CRM tools, keeping sales data current and accurate. Such mobile features include the ability to make quick customer updates, screen meetings, add notes, and update accounts. This also helps you to consistently keep your sales team up to speed.
Search experience among customer records has also been improved through a streamlined database. With responsive lists and lightweight, mobile-friendly forms, users can now intuitively look up and edit relevant information on the go. Assistant cards regarding these records are now also available, enabling you to come prepared for customer meetings or engagements.
Quote to cash
Dynamics 365 Sales’ ‘Quote to Cash’ functionality addresses the end-to-end quoting process between sellers and their customers. This area allows users to easily and accurately create quotes and develop contracts, allowing them to efficiently close business deals and boost revenue.
The platform has since enhanced this feature through new options regarding product lines and information. Users can now configure the details of certain product lines, as well as view additional information about each product before selecting them. These enhancements also extend to quotes, invoices, and customer orders, as users now have the option of adding product lines straight from these digital documents.
Updated features additionally allow easier browsing of product catalogues. Using their hierarchical arrangement, users can now search for products in specific categories, as well as easily select multiple product lines when necessary.
Usability enhancements
Finally, upgrades have been added to enhance the overall usability of the platform. Sellers now have a pop-up email feature, simplifying their communication by allowing them to respond and view emails without shifting from their current task. File attachments have also been made easier, with users able to add, remove, preview, and select multiple email files. Further enhancements to team communication may be possible with the platform’s potential integration with Microsoft Teams.
Generating and sharing standardised PDF files is now a more efficient process. New upgrades to the PDF generation experience enable users to easily form sales contracts and documents through existing Word templates.
Plus, enhancements to the platform now allow better management and clean-up of business data. Users can benefit from duplication detection and merge capabilities, helping maintain data hygiene and organisation. Data management with LinkedIn Sales Insights has also been made easier, as users can now transfer profile data easily and efficiently from LinkedIn to Dynamics 365.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales offers a wide range of functionalities for seamlessly closing business deals and enhancing customer engagement. Businesses keen on adopting this software can enjoy easy, efficient migration through the help of our Microsoft experts at Empower IT Solutions. We offer an initial consultation to determine the best applications for your business, followed by CRM migration services, customisation support, and future maintenance or repairs. Contact us now to boost productivity, revenue, and business opportunities through Microsoft’s solutions.
