Five Ways Customers Are Getting More Done with Microsoft Sales Productivity Solution

At the core of successful business growth is sales productivity – the ability to quickly and seamlessly access all necessary sales tools and, in turn, provide the best customer service possible in any scenario. Without it, precious time and employee energy is wasted. Great business applications such as Dynamics CRM Online together with productivity tools in Office 365 and the analytics of PowerBI can fill in the blanks. But don’t just take our word for it. Several Dynamics customers shared five reasons Microsoft offers the best sales productivity solution in the market. Here’s what they said:

 1.      Breaking Down Silos (at a Great Price)

As a privately owned, international organization specializing in high-temperature materials, Pyrotek knows a thing or two about hot commodities. After testing solutions from competitors including Salesforce.com and Aptean, Pyrotek determined that Dynamics CRM offered the most straightforward integration and the lowest cost. It also supports one of Pyrotek’s major corporate efficiency objectives: To do things in one place, at one time, through one process.

“We contended with database silos as well as data saved on individual laptops,” said Andy Maxwell, Pyrotek director of IS. “Our sales team could not always provide immediate responses to customers inquiring about their orders, and our management team sometimes found it difficult to run sales activity reports and to identify sales situations that required escalation. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, we only need to maintain one copy of the database. All company CRM information is stored in one central location.”

 2.      Increased Collaboration, Increased Revenue

Pyrotek discovered that in addition to improving the efficiency of sales teams, the connected solution has improved collaboration between the sales organization and internal teams, and it has provided management with real-time insight into pipeline status and sales performance.

“Dynamics CRM makes our sales personnel more effective by reducing the amount of time they spend on non-value-add activities and by creating more time to spend with customers,” said Joe Tarulli, Pyrotek corporate sales development manager. “And sales managers can now focus more time on training and coaching in relation to high-impact customer activities. Both of these enhancements have a major impact on our revenue-generation potential.”

 3.      Personalization that Sets Your Company Apart from the Competition

As the largest family-owned metals company in the US, O’Neal Steel prides itself on its history of growth while maintaining critical customer relationships, and gives credit to Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 for doing just that.

“We want to be a better company, a stronger company, and, of course, a larger company,” said David Goff, Sales & Marketing Manager at O’Neal Steel. “Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 are helping us maintain our focus on service as our business grows. When our customers need something, they know the person to call; and when they call that salesperson, they know they’re going to get accurate and timely information.”

 4.      Business Growth Depends on Customer Growth

O’Neal Steel also leverages Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 for its outside salesforce so they can accurately track relationship building and flag prospective customers. This business application solution has enabled O’Neal Steel to manage customer relationships centrally via the Internet, giving all employees access to complete, up-to-date information no matter where they are, using software they already know. Since then, lead conversion rates have skyrocketed from about 2 percent to 30 percent—resulting in consistently higher sales over the past two to three years.

“Now when a sales rep receives a lead, it’s a quality lead: a company that buys the product we sell in the quantities we want to sell them,” says Goff.

 5.      New Capabilities at the Right Time

Steven Hanna, VP and CIO for leading material science and manufacturing company Kennametal, said Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365 make it easy to stay ahead of the curve in technology and customer service updates – what took years with previous systems now happens easily and automatically in a single day.

“With our old technology, getting new capabilities took forever – you got a new release every three years. It would then take you nearly four years to deploy the new technology.” Hanna said. “With Office 365 and the Dynamics CRM Online, we’re in the cloud and see a steady stream of improvements every month.”

These inspiring examples simply scratch the surface of how organizations are boosting productivity with Microsoft solutions. For more information on Dynamics and sales productivity solutions, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-sales.aspx