Microsoft Dynamics CRM is collection of applications those support three main front office processes of the company Sales, Marketing and Customer service. There are several other facilities which can be availed on customization and development along with the usual features available with the core application. Dynamics tool kit contains SDK which gives developers the power to make changes to enhance and activate add on features provided in the application. Let's look at the major features of this business application in Microsoft Dynamics CRM review.
In the sales section of the core application of Microsoft Dynamics CRM details of leads, quotes, invoices and bills are stored along with customer interactions via e-mail and phones, it can also store details and specifications regarding customers and products. Contact management and opportunity and lead management, competitor and referral libraries and product catalog management are some features of sales force automation part of Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Marketing section can help marketing teams in handling responses from the possible customers, responding to advertisement campaign, mass mailing etc. This also gives details about the responses generated through a particular activity which helps the marketing manager in choosing the most viable marketing campaign for the company. Customer services comes with features providing login, assigning, and tracking customer details, complaints and complaints status and details of person attending it. Knowledge base for customers to find answers to their queries, queue management to handle work queues, onsite services, installations are also recorded along with these scheduling and dispatching details of service calls are also maintained.
There are other features those can be provided with the core application like customization of entities, facility to assign, add, delete and relate new and old entities while customizing the forms. Developers can create and design new work flows and assign new tasks and responsibilities to the specified user.
Though there are few criticisms against Microsoft Dynamics CRM and one of them is lack of multi tenancy support. In the small companies where few groups might be accessing same customer data for marketing and lead generation that company needs a CRM which shall provide multi tenancy support so that one tool shall be able to fulfill the needs of all the groups in the company. This will save time, IT infrastructure and money of the company. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is also criticized for its extra IT infrastructure cost it incurs. Dynamics requires three servers to run or a small business server where all the three can be rolled into one. It requires Active directory server, web server and Sql server, the web browser supported by it is only IE which makes it look like windows only solution. This initial extra cost also makes it out of budget option for smaller companies.
However with its ease of use, easy compliance and integration with other Microsoft tools and facility to use extra features makes it easy to customize application for one's need and requirement. Web interface provides remote access to the data which makes it very beneficial for the small and midsize users in expanding their business and reach. The use of AJAX technology for web interface makes it fast compared to other products of similar architecture. This Microsoft Dynamics CRM review has covered all the major features, advantages and disadvantages of using this software.
