Workflow

Using “Weighted BANT” Lead Qualification process with Microsoft Dynamics CRM - Story From: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

I found this blog article on Weighted BANT. I wanted to try implementing it with Dynamics CRM. Here’s how it worked out. With zero code, I created this in a few hours using the scoring assumptions below. How are you using BANT or other lead qualification methods with Dynamics CRM?

I started with the scoring assumptions.

Authority (which of the following best describes your influence on the purchase decision)?

0 = I have no authority and no access to the decision maker(s).
1 = I have no authority, but have direct access to the decision maker(s).
2 = I influence the decisions and have access to the decision maker(s).
3 = I am one of several decision makers.
4 = I have complete authority as the sole decision maker.

Need (do you have current business need for xxx solution)?

0 = No.
1 = likely.
2 = I definitely have the need. This product/project has potential to help.
3 = I definitely have the need. This product is one of them that can help.
4 = I definitely have the need. This is one of the very few products I’m looking at and will help.

Budget (Do you have budget allocated for this business need)?

0 = no
1 = likely to have some budget soon
2 = have some budget, but not sufficient
3 = have budget that may be just right
4 = have sufficient budget

Time (what timeframe are you working with to solve this problem)?

0 = No Time Commitment.
1 = 12 months+.
2 = 7-12 Months.
3 = 3-6 months.
4 = 0-3 months.

Then, I created a process flow of what the qualification would look like.

Once that was done, creating the process using Dynamics CRM Dialogs was pretty simple. Here’re the end results of that process. Salesperson wants to qualify a lead. She runs through the 4 steps prompt & response dialog.

Here’re the screenshots of the 4 steps.

1.  2

3  4

In the background, each of these follows weighted scoring to finally calculate total BANT score and take actions called out in the flowchart above.

After trying it out on 5 leads, Activity Feeds shows:

Other salespeople as well as sales manager who follow all team members will now see this activity as well, and collaborate with this sales person if they have any comments, and/or follow these newly created/qualified objects.

Here’s what the actual process looks like. In order to fit it into two screenshots, I have collapsed the other ‘page’ sections, but they are very similar to the Determine Authority one that’s shown here.

This is the prompt and response form for Determine Authority:

Form to set ScoreA after determining authority:

Updating ScoreOverall everytime a step/response is complete:

And finally, a post that shows the creation of opportunity:

I have the solution with me (still working to figure where to post it. If you want it, find me on twitter @manishapowar.

Manisha Powar

Read more...

How to Create a Post with Mentions using Workflow? - Story From: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

 In this blog article, I will walk you through new capabilities introduced in Workflows to support Post creation based off business requirements.

Goals:

-          Create a Post and Mention other records using Workflow

-          Walk through Workflow Designer and Post Url (Dynamic Value) Capability

Pre Requisite

-          Upgrade CRM 2011 Organization to UR5

-          Install Microsoft Dynamics CRM Activity Feeds solution and Configure Lead entity to have Wall

-          Read about How to do Mentions with Activity Feeds

Once Activity Feed Solution is installed, users in CRM can talk about Account, Contact, etc… entities using Posts. You can use Posts to ask questions, announce the updates to an opportunity etc… At the same time others can respond back by commenting. So this is all nice for end users to communicate. Wouldn’t you love having Auto Posts?

CRM does allow ISV’s, Partners, Users extend or tailor the out of the box functionality to your business needs. Once such extensibility is “Creating Post using Workflows!!!”.

Let’s get to the Steps to get the work done.

Scenario: When the Lead rating is changed to Hot, Create a Post on the Lead Record Wall

“<Lead name> is changed to “Hot’ by <UserName>

Steps

-          Navigate to Settings -> Processes and Click New Process

-          Process name =  “Lead Converted to Hot”

-          Entity = Lead,

-          Category = “Workflow”

-          Click ok

-          Now let’s configure the process to trigger on “Lead Update” for “Rating Field” only.

• Un check “Record is Created”

• Check Record Fields Changed. Click Select and Select Rating. Click Ok

-          In the Process, we want to verify if the “Lead.Rating” is Hot and then only create the post.

• Click –Add step -> Check Condition. Click Specify Condition and select Lead, Rating , Equals and Hot as shown below.

-          In the Condition, you would want to Create a Post.

• Click Add Step -> Create Record
• Select Post Entity
• Click “Set Properties”. You will be presented with a form (shown below) to enter Post details

-          Create Post Form .. Let’s talk about what the fields mean

• Text: Data in this field is presented to the end users on the wall
• Source : Manual / Auto
• Manual : Icon of the Post would be User (Intended for users entering manually)
• Auto : Icon of the post would be the Regarding Object of Post (Recommended for Posts created by Workflows)
• They show in corresponding Filters in Personal Wall
• Regarding ObjectId: Entity that Post is About. In our case, it is post on Lead Wall. So it is Lead.

-          Populate Post.Text

• Finally, this is where it gets interesting. Recalling that we want to post something like
• “<Lead name> is changed to “Hot’ by <UserName>
• To get the Lead Name “Mention Tag”, you need to select Post Url(Dynamic) from the Form assistant for Lead entity. (Shown in Picture below)
• Once Slug is inserted , you can type other text and Slug for Rating{Lead} and Modified User Slug (shown in Picture Below)

-          Here is Final screen shot of the Post form

-          Once you save the Process. Click Activate as shown below.

-          Create a New Lead.

-          Update the Lead Rating to “Hot”

-          Wait for Workflow to fire and you would see a Post on the Lead Record Wall…

That’s all. Now users can click on hyperlinks for Modified User & Lead directly from the Post  and they get to be on top of the situation …

Thanks

Ajith Gande  

Read more...

How Hoover’s Users Clean Up Inside-Sales Performance - Story From: CRM Buyer

Companies seeking to steer highly qualified leads to their "closers" are faced today with a combination of competitive threats, information overload and hesitant buyer behavior requiring new strategies and tools to succeed. The never-ending economic pressure for sales organizations to increase productivity, while "doing more with less," often results in organizational emphasis on segregating responsibilities.

Read more...

The Reinvention of the Cloud Computing Reseller - Story From: CRM Buyer

A year ago, I suggested that the Software as a Service and cloud computing industry was entering a new stage in which vendors would begin putting greater emphasis on expanding their sales channels to broaden the addressable market for their solutions. Anyone following the SaaS/cloud computing industry knows that this idea has become a reality.

Read more...

Salesforce.com Cuts Ribbon on Chatter App Exchange - Story From: CRM Buyer

Salesforce.com has launched ChatterExchange, an app marketplace for Chatter, the enterprise collaboration platform it introduced earlier this year. It is built on "Cloud 2" -- the company's name for the next generation of cloud computing: social, collaborative, and capable of delivering real-time access to data and information across new mobile devices.

Read more...

Microsoft CRM Mobile Express and the Blackberry - Story From: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

Today our guest blogger is CRM MVP Joel Lindstrom, a Solutions Consultant for CustomerEffective . After implementing Mobile Express in our Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 environment, we found that some users with Blackberry smartphones could not open the...(read more)

Read more...

Customer Centricity vs. the Front-Office/Back-Office Fallacy - Story From: CRM Buyer

CRM is supposed to give you a 360-degree view of your customers. I debate that -- I think it gives, at best, a couple of overlapping 270-degree views, and 30 degrees will always be hidden. However, my real point is this: Having a 360-degree view of your customers isn't worth a hill of beans unless you can couple that with a 360-degree view of your own organization.

Read more...

When It Comes to Data, Location Matters - Story From: CRM Buyer

Cloud computing and SaaS are on the rise in a big way, but for some companies, there's an issue that is starting to come up in a lot of conversations with their service providers: the geographical location of their data. While it may not seem a big deal to some, conflicts with national privacy laws add one more agenda item you may have to consider before making the move to the cloud.

Read more...

Microsoft rolls out CRM for Nonprofits - Story From: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM team has made a Nonprofit Solution for CRM Online available today. The functionality included in the Solution will allow a Nonprofit/NGO to get up and running with a cloud based solution in a few minutes. The price for this...(read more)

Read more...

The Dynamic Duo: Outlook 2010 beta & CRM for Outlook Client - Story From: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

Guest blogger and CRM MVP Donna Edwards talks about her experience using Microsoft Dynamics CRM with the Microsoft Office 2010 Beta . I recently downloaded Office 2010 Beta and installed it on my CRM Test server. My CRM test environment includes the following:...(read more)

Read more...

Hop On the Social CRM Express - Story From: CRM Buyer

There's a huge discussion raging on the Internet started by a provocative question from Bob Thompson: Can you do social CRM without social media/networks? I find it curious that I am not in agreement with much of the discussion or, more to the point, I might agree with the conclusion but not the underpinnings.

Read more...

What is Social CRM in Bantam Live? - Story From: The Bantam Blog

Tech researchers, analysts, journalists, bloggers and vendors agree that "Social CRM" is a hot sector, and validation of this is that companies are increasingly adopting it to engage and include their customers in business. But few people agree on a precise definition of what social CRM is and the #scrm hashtag on Twitter has frequent links to offerings as this market takes shape. The "Godfather" (or should we say General) of the social-CRM-definition-wars is CRM expert Paul Greenberg whose oft-referenced definition includes the position that social CRM strategies are a "company's response to the customer's ownership of the conversation" out there in social media land. In this we seem to all agree.

Social CRM as it applies to Bantam Live refers to both internal collaboration among a business team and external engagement with the voices of customers, prospects, and partners across the social web. Outside is in, inside is out. We explain...

Let's first start out with the internal social CRM aspects of Bantam Live. At the core of Bantam Live, in the dashboard, is the real-time activity stream, which fuses business data objects and communication among a team, so it can stay in the loop and collaborate. In Bantam Live, everything from status updates and team commenting to workflow activity updates (eg. progress on projects, completed tasks, and modifications to deals that a team is collaborating on) cascade in the stream.

This design is similar to the Facebook news feed and it's becoming all the rage in web-based business software. As Marc Benioff of Salesforce wrote on TechCrunch, it's "The Facebook Imperative" for software companies. As ReadWriteWeb said at our private-beta debut last summer, "Bantam Live is part CRM, part Twitter, and part Facebook for business teams." Even content from the web can be imported by users and displayed in the activity stream of Bantam Live, which leads us to the external part of social CRM.

While team members collaborate internally within the activity stream, they can also search from within their Bantam Live workspace out on social networks like Twitter. For example, if you're selling industrial solar panel technology to commercial office parks, you can search for keywords - say "solar panel recommendations" - and upon discovery import a new contact's full profile and the relevant tweet with one click into Bantam Live. From here, you can initiate workflows with team members to engage this new contact, and converse with the new contact for various CRM purposes, while maintaining all annotations and live feeds of this person from a single contact page in Bantam Live. All of this activity cascades in the real-time stream of the Bantam Live dashboard, where team members can comment and interact. For lead-generation (and soon other CRM features), Bantam Live makes the filtered and captured spontaneous content of Twitter transformative and valuable for sales and biz-dev people. As we've said, Thar's gold in them thar tweets!

Altimeter Group's Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang recently issued a report  that provides a framework and successful use cases of social CRM. In its broad spectrum, we'd say Bantam Live initially falls into the Sales and Collaboration categories of their Social CRM construct, specifically in the SMB space, for now. Interestingly, as we've suggested (see Hunter-Gatherer and Farmer in Social CRM), it's possible that the deeper social "relationships" (in the human bonding sense of the term) between two people will increasingly flourish in small and midsize businesses (without the restrictions of the large enterprise) and, moreover, in the sales and biz-dev end of the social CRM spectrum, more so than in the ephemeral and transactional nature of a customer service relationship with a brand and its on-duty rep. It may turn out that the sales and biz-dev end of the social CRM spectrum is the most richly authentic and social of all. Who knows? As we continue to build Bantam Live in the triad of CRM's domain in sales, marketing, and customer support, we'll find out.

Internal CRM collaboration among the team, external CRM engagement with prospects, partners, and customers, all managed in a social workspace with complimentary productivity and collaboration tools for business teams. That's the social CRM you'll find in Bantam Live. Stay tuned as we broaden our social CRM offerings.

Read more...

Making Sense of the Complex “as a Service” Ecosystem

Here’s a very informative article by Max Coburn and Margaret Dawson of Hubspan which summarizes a presentation that will be given at Cloud Expo later this month, Which “aaS” Is Right for You?. Check out the complete source article for much more, including a brief synopsis of current aaS variants, when you should consider [...]

Read more...

CRM for the Small Business, Part 8: Scaling Up - Story From: CRM Buyer

A good CRM system can prove invaluable to a small business trying to achieve its business goals. Once that growth starts to occur, though, a small business needs to consider how the CRM tool will scale to meet the new demand. A small business is ready to think about scaling up if its processes are becoming more complex.

Read more...

Record Counter For Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 - Story From: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

Today CRM MVP Andriy Butenko talks about a solution he created using the plug-in technology. Andriy blogs regularly here . When you open Microsoft Dynamics CRM and select a view that contains more records than can be shown on one page, you don’t know...(read more)

Read more...

CRM for Telecoms, Part 1: Getting More Strategic - Story From: CRM Buyer

Most of today's telecom customers -- who use their phone apps to check the menu at a local eatery or text a friend -- are clueless about the origins of electronic media. Only those holding a Medicare card, perhaps, appreciate that in the early days of phone service, the telephone company's CRM only involved the employment of a local switchboard operator.

Read more...

Microsoft Partner Network Launches New Site - Story From: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Team Blog

Microsoft has asked various communities for input on a new site they have recently launched.  It is the Microsoft Partner Network Community   site and it was launched by the Microsoft Worldwide Partner team a few months ago. I wanted to go over...(read more)

Read more...

Second Site: Online Accessibility for the Visually Impaired - Story From: CRM Buyer

As the population ages, financial institutions and other service providers will have to learn to adapt their marketing approaches to appeal to a sector that has high disposable income and substantial spending power. In some cases, they will also have physical limitations that will impede online activities, including vision loss.

Read more...

New Tech Tools for Thrifty Travelers - Story From: CRM Buyer

Many college students have been spending the week on the beaches of Padre Island and other balmy locales, soaking up equal parts sun and alcohol. Meanwhile, the families of America are starting to think about where they'd like to dig their toes in the sand for summer vacations -- if they're not already picturing themselves joining the long, sweaty lines at the nation's major theme parks.

Read more...

AppExchange App of the Week: DocuSign for salesforce.com - Story From: Recent Ideas

This week’s app of the week – DocuSign for Salesforce brings you one step closer to the paperless office.  No more running down the paper trail trying to find out where those time sensitive documents are stalled.  DocuSign lets you electronica...

Read more...