Since 2022 Release Wave 2 updates were announced around August of this year, new features have been appearing in Dynamics 365 CRM apps. Some of these are flying under the radar, while others are front and center and have not been missed. Whether the former or the latter, we wanted to raise up a few features that we find particularly exciting and useful to admin and end users!

Often, there are too many disconnected apps at play in the workplace, so the challenge is to ensure that any additional app you add to your tech stack is multifaceted and adds tangible value to your work process. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems provide useful tools to teams who attract leads, build rapport with opportunities, and support current clients. Here are a few of the ways that CRM apps within the Dynamics 365 suite can be more than just a CRM.

Understanding the sales funnel and knowing how to navigate each phase is key for businesses to attract, win, and keep high-quality leads and build long-term customer relationships. Dynamics 365 Sales and Marketing are the cloud-based solutions that can help you meet every type of customer right where they are, with exactly what they’re looking for at any point in the sales funnel.

Manufacturers value efficiency, automation, and the ability to forecast orders, sales, inventory, and other important elements of their business. Considering these values, it’s perhaps a curious thing, or maybe not so curious, that many manufacturers use their enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution for customer relationships management (CRM) activities, or else they don’t use any solution for CRM at all. Considering the myriad benefits of CRM functionality—from lead and opportunity management, contact and account management, data analysis, automated marketing campaigns, event management, branded landing pages and forms, email creation, and so much more—it’s a wonder how a business could get by on the limited customer relationship functions a typical ERP provides.

As the new year rings in, many people make resolutions—new habits, self-improvements, changes for the better. Whether or not you ascribe to New Year Resolutions, here’s a change your business can make to kick off this year and build up your bottom line: invest in CRM. A Customer Relationship Management system is a tool that, when added to your tech stack, can return massive ROI by improving your sales and marketing performance and potential. In fact, in 2014, every dollar spent on CRM returned between $5.60 and $8.71 (Nucleus Research).

A happy customer is one who is listened to, their needs met. A resilient and successful business is one who fosters happy, loyal customers. Where these Venn Diagrams meet is an efficient and easy way to ask for and give feedback. Standard, generic feedback won’t give the nuanced insights to help a company serve its clients and grow; yet asking for specific, detailed feedback usually calls for time-consuming manual labor, developing a myriad of surveys for common situations and experiences.

Dynamics 365 Customer Service helps organizations offer end-to-end customer support services across multiple channels to meet customer needs, wherever they may be. The app tracks customer issues through cases, manages performance and productivity in the workspace dashboard, tracks customer requests across channels, and provides customers with assisted and self-service through a variety of scenarios.

With the upcoming 2021 Release Wave 2 updates, the app will see overall enhancements to AI insights, embedded analytics, collaboration tools, and bolstered case management abilities.

Engaging a customer at the opportune times is a tricky, time-consuming business; yet, this is a necessary act for many businesses to build and retain a loyal and satisfied customer base. Gathering touchpoint data, analyzing customer actions, anticipating customer desires, and sending proper emails or other communication at the right moment—what if all this effort and toil could happen automatically based on the customer’s actions? Fortunately, automation for a broad range of purposes, even across several Microsoft applications, can be easily established.

This blog will demonstrate just one example of Microsoft applications—such as Dynamics 365 Marketing, Microsoft Bookings, and Power Automate—interacting seamlessly to provide optimal, efficient business solutions for you, and a cohesive, satisfying end-to-end experience for your customers.

Gathering customer feedback is one of the most effective means to improving your company’s products and services. Successful companies—those who wish to build resilience, foster a growth-mindset, and earn and maintain customer loyalty—listen to and deliver on what their customers desire.

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is an online survey platform that can be used with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing that can help any business create and manage simple, effective surveys as part of their journey toward resilience, growth, and customer loyalty.

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is an enterprise feedback management application built into the ecosystem of Dynamics 365. Customer Voice enables organizations to take in feedback from their customer base and incorporate their voice into the decision making of business practices and processes.

Ensuring that every customer interaction adheres to brand standards should be the primary goal for all marketers and survey makers. New personalization features released in Dynamics 365 2021 release wave 1 give survey makers new ways to brand Customer Voice surveys and personalize the survey experience.

Customer Satisfaction surveys can have a major impact on both sales and customer service operations. Allowing customers to provide meaningful insight into their interactions with your organization can positively influence process changes and impact the bottom line.

With Dynamics 365 Customer Voice (formerly Forms Pro), organizations can create comprehensive customer satisfaction surveys and distribute them directly to contacts from Dynamics 365 apps like Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Service.

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is Microsoft’s premier solution for customer feedback management. Customer Voice provides organizations with effective solutions to build and analyze customer surveys and identify metrics they need to improve the experience of their customers.

In the work-from-home era, companies like professional service organizations have been forced to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Engaging with audiences without in-person interactions can seem like a daunting task. However, applications like Dynamics 365 Marketing do the work to help companies keep their customers engaged.

Microsoft has announced that it is offering 6 months of free licensing for certain cloud applications to help organizations respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. Licenses available with this offer include Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Apps portals, and Power Virtual Agents. This announcement follows a previous offer for six months of free Microsoft Teams licensing for organizations who have not already implemented Office 365.

Utilizing an integration between Dynamics 365 Portals or Power Apps Portals, Dynamics 365 Marketing can provide a front end to interact directly with a potential customer. Marketers can use marketing pages built on these portals to engage with their audience by registering for events, filling out forms, or performing other marketing actions and have it sync directly with the marketing platform behind it. This blog will explain how exactly the integration between Dynamics 365 Portals and Dynamics 365 Marketing works and what can be accomplished with it.