The Sales Director's Guide to Evaluating Microsoft Products

Sales directors drive the transformation of leads into customers through the creation of trust and the communication of value. In today’s hyper-competitive selling environment, sales teams need to take advantage of tools for organization and communication to ensure reliability for clients and prospects. This is why Microsoft software like Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement, Power Platform, and Microsoft 365 is invaluable to the modern sales professional.

In the digital economy, sellers must leverage a variety of software to stay competitive. Leveraging the right software, sales managers can increase agility with communication and collaboration tools, while scaling their team. By giving sales users access to the best Microsoft tools available, you empower them to close more deals and build customer relationships.

Increase profitability through more effective engagement of current and prospective customers in digital and physical settings using data

A leader in international logistics, C.H. Robinson, experienced a complete return on investment (ROI) for Dynamics 365 Sales in only 11 months. C.H. Robinson attributes this rapid ROI to a more complete view of their customers with valuable data insights. Their director of CRM determined an 89% increase in quality of customer data after making the switch to Dynamics 365 Sales. The platform brought about superior organization within the sales team and company the as a whole. Unified data and task automation led to less confusion over lead ownership and time spent on busy work, allowing sales to focus their time on selling.

Sales Director Challenges:

Growing Profitability: Hindrances to keeping current and prospective customers engaged across all channels
Aligning Sales and Marketing: Difficulty determining clear sales plays to keep marketing qualified leads moving efficiently along the pipeline
Upskilling and Re-Skilling Teams: Challenges maintaining the necessary product knowledge among representatives
Staying Relevant to Customer Needs: Lack of visibility and data insights to assess changes in customer pain points
Communication with Customers and Teammates: Insufficient collaboration tools within teams and inadequate software to create personalized customer experiences remotely

The landscape of selling must adapt to the rapid transition global business is making into the digital economy. Enable your sales team to meet client needs no matter geographic location through utilization of Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement applications. New releases from Microsoft further integrate products for sales use including greater interaction between Dynamics 365 Sales and Microsoft Teams. Sellers can now be notified of leads via instant messages and make client calls that are anlyzed using AI. This AI provides transcripts so that your representatives never miss a detail and automatically inputs data collected from speech into Dynamics 365.

Unify Customer Data and Close Deals More Efficiently by Combining Dynamics 365 with Power Apps

Utilizing the Dynamics 365 suite of customer engagement applications in tandem with Power Platform products can help sales directors eliminate paper-based processes and increase selling efficiency. For example, a Power Automate Flow that populates the your CRM with customer information that’s been filled into a form located on your website. Previously, this was a manual process where the sales director would read the form and type the data into their CRM. Additionally, 3rd party connectors allow for syncing between, for example, Outlook and Salesforce, removing the need for manual migration of contacts. Power Automate allows sellers to spend less time on admin tasks and focus their time on selling.

Dynamics 365 Sales when paired with Power Apps can unlock the selling potential of your team.

Automate Manual Processes: Unlock selling potential and profitability by eliminating admin and focusing on your customers
Common Data Service: One version of the truth across all departments through data integration
Upskill: Low code/no code development empowers non-technical personnel to learn development skills
Innovate: Turn efficiency-driving ideas into real tools with minimal IT involvement

Connect Dynamics 365 Sales to LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Valuable insights from Sales Navigator embedded directly into Dynamics 365 help to connect data and processes between platforms. This vital information allows sellers to identify and connect with their ideal prospects and customers. Sellers can visualize their customer’s organization and keep track of contact information with live organization charts in Dynamics 365 that show job changes posted on LinkedIn.

Evaluating Microsoft Products as Sales Director

Before an software changes are made, a Sales Director must make sure they are aligned with their team and the rest of their organization. You may work closely with a CMO that has overlapping needs that can be met by Microsoft software. Since unifying data for customer-facing aspects of your business is a key value proposition for Microsoft products it is best to include these fellow decision makers in the buying process to maximize product adoption within the company and information sharing. Here are some questions to ask when determining if your business needs to evaluate their software needs:

Are you able to keep pace with changing customer needs?
Can your sales team quickly and securely communicate and collaborate remotely both with customers and internally?
Are there admin processes slowing your team down that can be automated?
Are your sales forecasts accurate or could they be improved using AI?
Is your sales department fully aligned with your marketing team in terms of your lead pipeline and data sharing?