CRM Options for Your Business – NetSuite CRM or Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM 

CRM is not just a piece of software businesses can use to manage current and potential relationships and interactions. CRM is a business strategy that intersects between people, process and technology – leading to enhanced customer experiences and business drivers. It centralizes all critical data, which increases the opportunity to meet your customers’ needs and enables you to tactically manage campaigns, track leads and make important business decisions with an increased data-driven approach.

Businesses that use CRM tools have experienced increased lead conversions in sales and marketing, as well as increased customer retention and satisfaction. As you consider CRM options, let’s dive into two potential CRM solutions for your business: Oracle NetSuite CRM or Microsoft Dynamics 365.

One of the most common and useful CRM solutions for small to mid-size companies is Microsoft Dynamics 365. It includes distinctive features such as Lead & Case Management, Sales Forecasting, Reporting and Analytics, Email Integration and Marketing Automation. Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a cloud-based solution but also offers on-site and cloud deployment options. As such, it’s a strong option for a company that wants to own and host its software on its servers. MS Dynamics CRM is available on Android and iOS mobile devices, enabling you to check up on your business anytime and anywhere. It also has an App Marketplace where you can choose from thousands of extensions such as Power BI and Power Apps provided by Microsoft and other third-party independent software vendors (ISVs). Each provides beneficial options for a scaling company going through natural business changes. There are a few CRM tools in MS Dynamics CRM, including Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Field Service.  

Minimize your time and figure out who will be the best possible customers. The sales tool helps you create the timeline from stranger to lead to a prospect opportunity to sale. The CRM application can help strengthen the first steps of your B2B sales funnel and determine qualified leads that will convert into an opportunity. Leveraging AI, team members answering phones can gain valuable insight and recommendations by analyzing the customers’ emotions, sentiments and priorities during the phone call. The recordings and transcripts of the phone calls will enable analytics and training opportunities in the future.

The marketing tool will help you target the right audience through personalized advertisements. By using data, access to an AI-driven tool can help deliver the right content to the right customers, at the right time, thus creating a more customized and enhanced customer experience. The information can help you throughout the B2B sales funnel, attracting new leads, prospects and customers while driving customer enablement strategies for retention.

You can create your own AI-powered virtual agents to help resolve fewer complex problems, freeing up more time for customer support agents and saving costs simultaneously. The AI tool can also help you classify customers’ problems and route them to the right agent for the resolution of the matter. Moreover, it gives the agent a full view of the customer’s profile and helps customers engage in their terms across different channels such as phone, chat (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.), and social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

Field Service presents the opportunity for remote collaboration with customers to solve issues in a timely matter. When a technician is in the field, they can use the mobile app to track service activities such as booking, work orders, and customer assets to increase technicians’ productivity and utilize company resources. AI can be used in the field to facilitate the automation of scheduling recommendations leading to saving time including delayed, canceled and urgent work. Managing the activities combined with AI can help with improving customer satisfaction, enhancing efficiency and reducing costs. 

NetSuite CRM is ideal for small to mid-size businesses that want to scale up and create more leads. Managing external stakeholder information in one place enables a connected and seamless experience for customers. NetSuite’s unique value proposition is that customer-related activity gets integrated with other aspects of the business such as accounting, operations and the e-commerce platform. Following the B2B sales funnel as mentioned earlier, a great CRM system enables you to capture customer information from the Awareness Stage all the way to when the customer purchases your item. Using CRM features like automated emails to nurture and gain a deeper understanding of your customer preferences can generate increased sales in the after-sales or customer enablement phase and create a loyal customer base. 

With NetSuite CRM, your ERP system is in a single, unified platform with a CRM system that as you scale the business that enables you to deliver a seamless customer experience throughout all interactions in the customer journey; from eCommerce, to point of sale and customer loyalty programs. Moreover, an integrated CRM system can improve sales performance by giving team members the information they need at their fingertips. Included with the NetSuite CRM is Lead to Customer Management, Opportunity, Sales Funnel and Transaction Management, Interaction tracking with multi-channel communications and an advanced report writer to create customizable reports. These features will greatly improve your sales team’s performance and result in an increased probability of sales and customer retention.  

NetSuite CRM includes sales force automation that enables your sales team to have full visibility of all customer relationships. As a result, sales activities, and inbound or outbound support cases can be followed up and solved in a timely manner. When anyone from the sales department needs to check contracts or check inventory, they easily have access to the back office information included in the integrated NetSuite CRM software. 

The Marketing Automation feature enables you to engage the customer in all parts of the customer journey. From creating Awareness, tracking Interest and measuring the lead’s activity, finding possible leads, all the way up to the Decision stage where leads turn to prospects and then to customer sales. 

Customer service management is integral to building good after-sales relationships and getting repeat orders. NetSuite CRM allows you to manage support cases effectively. With case management, customer service representatives can review and follow up with customers and provide the support they need. With a centralized online knowledge base, customer service reps can connect customers to the right support they need if they are unable to handle the case themselves. 

The Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) is a NetSuite add on that allows customers with rule-based or dependent sales cycles to easily manage complexity and create custom quotes. The feature is especially useful for companies with a lot of variation in the final product that is restricted (i.e. if you buy this computer, you can only upgrade to this sound card).

NetSuite’s Partner Relationship Management allows companies to manage their partners, gain valuable insight into the buying cycle and assist partners to sell their products. A good partner relationship management software helps streamline processes and allows the company to have control of sales and marketing processes. When having joint marketing campaigns or order processing, having this system can help you have control over any partner-related activities. 

NetSuite’s CRM is mobile, which means anyone from your company can view, enter and update key information through any mobile device. Mobile access is necessary for the modern work environment and enables your sales team to manage everyday activities such as logging call notes, creating price quotes and viewing reminders in your calendar. 

 Generating reports and using real-time analytics to manage business performance is integral to business success. Role-based dashboards, sales and marketing performance can be measured and analyzed to see impacts on new client acquisition, engagement and evaluate key conversion metrics throughout the customer journey. Using a CRM system enables you to use data to make important business decisions. 

All in all, a CRM system is a powerful tool for managing customer relationships and interactions in today’s data age. Especially with the digital transformation for all sizes of companies, if an enterprise wants to survive in this competitive market, a CRM solution is an essential component in your customer relationship management strategy. The strategy seeks to proactively manage business processes throughout the customer journey. Building a customer-centric organization is a key paradigm in your business strategy and at Withum, we focus holistically on the full cycle, gain an understanding of your needs and recommend appropriate solutions that focus on your people, process and technology.

Authors: Mars Lomtakul | [email protected] and Angie Ng | [email protected]