Customer Service with Microsoft CRM

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So far, we have looked at Sales and Marketing functionality in Microsoft CRM and soon, after this article, I will be changing tact and looking at vertical market applications for Microsoft CRM 4.0.

This week, (and I apologize for not submitting anything last week, as I was at the Microsoft Partner Conference in Port Douglas, Queensland Australia), we will be looking at the customer service functionality in CRM. This functionality can be used in service scheduling, case management and multi-location scheduling to help your business run more effectively and to ensure that your customers are happy.
When you look at Microsoft CRM, you get your overall view in your workspace, including Sales, Marketing, Service and Settings. This being a users blog and not a developers or administrators blog, I probably wont venture into settings too much, however this is where a lot of your development platform functionality can be unleashed.

So, if we look at the overall cycle that a client takes with a typical company – this may not be your company, but go with it for now – a customer reads an ad, speaks to a sales person and then buys some product or services. So far, CRM has helped to gain this customer through Marketing and Sales functionality, however now they need to be service – ENTER CUSTOMER SERVICE MODULE (trumpets and drum roll please).

Now we can move away from CRM and into Business Process Analysis and lets have a look at the way a typical business operates. There are two main ways that a business will interact with it’s clients or customers. Through product sales, or service provision the needs of businesses are the same.

Product Sales

Let’s have a look at the process:
1. Customer buys product or service
2. Payment received immediately
3. Product needs to be modified or fixed
4. Customer contacts company
5. Customer Service person notifies manufacturer or supplier
6. Product replaced or modified
7. Customer notified
8. Customer picks up product or takes delivery of services result

Microsoft CRM 4.0 can handle this hole process and automate parts of it with ease, meaning that your customer is always notified of what is happening with their return or complaint, CRM can handle this through case management. When the customer contacts the company through the web, for example, they can enter their details into a form, this form can automatically enter a case into CRM, assign the customer with a case tracking number and inform the appropriate person as to the customer’s request.

One of the biggest problems with customer service is client contact. A lot of the time the internal serving of the client takes precedence over actually contacting the client and informing them of the status of the services that are being performed.
Microsoft CRM counteracts this problem through automatic workflows that can ensure that the client is contacted and informed of the status of their case automatically at regular intervals. This keeps the client informed, and therefore improves the likelihood of customer satisfaction as a result.

One of the biggest challenges in business is the efficiency at which a client can be serviced. If we lok at the example of a bike shop and customer returning a bicycle for repairs, you may need to schedule a person, a servicing kit, some time and at a particular location for the service to take place. Microsoft CRM helps in this area by providing you with a service scheduling agent which allows you to schedule your resources across multiple locations and including people, inferastructure, tools and warehouse space. Therefore you can ensure that a service level agreement can always be met and your clients will always be happy.

So lets look at an overview of Customer Service for product orientated businesses:

1. The right person receives the request
2. The client is automatically informed
3. The service is scheduled quickly and easily
4. Correspondence is tracked and logged
5. Processes can be automated (therefore cutting down on the load on people in your organization)
6. The client is the first priority and satisfaction is improved


Microsoft CRM can enhance your ability to maintain customer contact during the provision of a product or service through automated processes. This eleviates the need for gratuitous customer service agents within the business, in turn saving you money on an inherent business cost source.

To be able to spend more time and money on the areas of the business that make you money – sales, marketing and service provision, then you are going to enhance the business incredibly.

So when you are looking for a program to help you service your customers better, look at Microsoft CRM 4.0. And if your boss asks why, tell him it will make him money in the long run through increased leads, sales, better customer service and more return business.