Deep Dive into D365: Sales
The latest in our Deep Dive into Dynamics 365 series takes a close look at one of the core Microsoft Dynamics 365 offerings: Sales. Dynamics 365 Sales is an advanced customer relationship management (CRM) system that gives organisations the ability to manage their contacts and use intelligent tools and insights to transform prospects to customers. Here, our Managing Senior Dynamics 365 Consultant, Jess Salmon, takes us through some of the software’s key features and shares what she most likes about the platform.
Main features
Leads
- With Dynamics 365 Sales, you can capture information on leads you acquire from a wide range of sources, storing their information safely and securely and tracking their journey as they progress into the pipeline.
- Microsoft recognises that some leads may be ‘contacts’ (individual people), while others may be ‘accounts’ (organisations), and so Sales allows you to capture information on both and save any information you have as a hybrid record.
- Once saved, a lead can be rated as ‘hot’, ‘warm’ or ‘cold’, and this can help determine how you market to each lead. When D365 Sales is used in conjunction with Dynamics 365 Marketing, you will also get lead scores, which rank leads by how engaged they are.
Opportunities
- A lead becomes an opportunity once they have expressed further interest and (usually) had a conversation with a member of your sales team.
- The D365 Sales opportunities feature highlights leads and the potential sale for salespeople to qualify, propose, contract and close, depending on the stage of the decision-making process the lead has reached.
- If they successfully progress from lead to opportunity (i.e. are still interested in making a purchase), details on estimated close date, estimated revenue and more can be captured, and communications with the opportunity – and their activities – can be tracked.
Forecasting
- D365 Sales forecasting capability allows your sales team to use artificial intelligence to enhance the accuracy of any forecasts they submit. The forecasting functionality also highlights any risks and opportunities to encourage data-driven decision-making across sales teams and, in turn, enhance sales for the organisation.
Underrated features
Relationship tracking
- D365 Sales relationship tracking helps your sales team identify which prospects need attention most urgently by providing ratings of good, fair and poor and identifying which relationships have improved, declined or remained steady based on information it holds about their interactions.
- By providing this insight in an easy-to-understand format, sales employees can quickly decide which contacts need the more nurturing or which might be easiest to convert, enhancing their productivity and chances of success in their day-to-day role.
Why Dynamics 365 Sales?
Dynamics 365 Sales has lots of handy little features that, in Tisski Managing Senior Dynamics 365 Consultant Jess’s opinion, make it the ideal pick for a CRM solution.
“Some of the most recent additions to Dynamics 365 really make the most of artificial intelligence and the ways it can be used to help businesses make smart decisions and employees spend their time more wisely.
“The forecasting tools mentioned above also give some great visual representations of data, making this a great platform for anyone who works well with graphs and other visuals.”
As well as these features, D365 Sales works together harmoniously with Dynamics 365 Marketing. This means organisations using both benefit from unified data and the opportunity to streamline processes and the way they market to leads.
Expert’s choice
“I think the collaborative working elements of Dynamics 365 Sales are fantastic because they really have the power to encourage sales teams to work together as one. Anyone in contact with a lead can access past communication to understand what stage of the buying journey that lead is at without needing to chase down information from others – however, integration with Microsoft Teams makes it quick and easy for team members to check in with each other if they do find that they need to.” Jess Salmon
Managing Senior Dynamics 365 Consultant
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