Manufacturers need Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to centralise essential customer data and make it easier for your team to access what they need, when they need it. That could be data to tailor individual customer experiences or built-in analytics to improve decision making.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is often a clear choice for manufacturers. Here’s why the Customer Engagement (CE) suite is the best CRM for manufacturing businesses:
- A complete view of customers
- Ability to anticipate changing trends
- Improved selling
- Deeper customer relationships
- Improved team productivity
A complete view of customers
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As mentioned earlier, a CRM system stores your customer information in one place, making it far easier to find what you need. Thanks to this, you now have a 360-degree view of your customers and can:
- Interact with them using the channel they prefer
- Quickly find answers to customer questions and resolve problems more swiftly which improves customer experience and reduces customer churn
- Ensure every customer receives a consistent, unified experience even if their query/case is passed between different teams/agents
Ability to anticipate changing trends
When customer information is stored in one place, it’s not only easier for you to quickly find the required answers and resolve customer cases, but it’s also easier to monitor market trends.
For example, customer needs are constantly changing. A great manufacturing CRM system, like Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE, can help you predict how they might change.
Then, there are IoT diagnostics and device update features which will help you transition from a break/fix service model into a proactive and predictive one. This can help you stay competitive and ensure you’re consistently exceeding customer expectations.
Improved selling
Thanks to centralised information, your customer-facing teams have everything they need to stay focused and productive, regardless of their location. This is particularly important for sales teams.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE gives your salespeople clear and achievable tasks. And with AI and predictive scoring, they’ll be prioritised so your sales team know what to focus on.
As for your marketing team, they can take advantage of built-in A/B testing features to ensure their campaigns are performing as effectively as they should. Then, they can use lead scoring models and sales readiness grades to identify the best leads and pass them over to sales.
Deeper customer relationships
Modern day customers have higher expectations than ever before. For example, they want answers to their queries and problems instantly. Dynamics 365 CE gives your customers access to knowledge resources and AI-powered virtual agents (e.g. chatbots) to quickly resolve popular issues.
This saves time for your customers and customer service team who can now focus on more complex customer issues.
In addition to quick case resolution, Dynamics 365 CE offers powerful AI features to help you have more meaningful conversations and develop deeper connections with customers.
For example, conversation intelligence detects customer emotions so your sales team can respond in the right way. There’s also the LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration, which gives you:
- Access to related leads
- Recommendations on how to secure a warm introduction
- Relationship health notifications so you can ensure your customer relationships stay on track
Improved internal productivity
When information is stored in one place, this allows your teams to spend less time searching and more time on their other vital tasks. But that’s not the only way Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement boosts productivity.
The suite also:
- Allows for cross-team collaboration e.g. integrations with Microsoft 365 mean multiple teams can work on the same version of one document in real-time and communicate via Microsoft Teams
- Dynamics 365 Customer Voice collects survey results which you can use to complete your customer profiles and continuously improve customer service
- Routes customer cases by topic or channel, matching them to the employee best equipped to handle them - which improves time to resolution and customer satisfaction, as well as productivity as your teams gain time back
- Recommends the most relevant content and training material to your teams e.g. sales playbooks for your sales team so they can spend less time searching for answers and more time closing deals
The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement suite could be the one
Finding the right CRM software for any business is complicated. For the manufacturing industry, it can be even more complicated - with advances in technology, competitors moving at a fast pace and market demands constantly growing. The right CRM can help manufacturers better manage their customer needs and automate key sales processes to improve efficiency.
If you’d like to learn more about the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement apps, click the button below to download our ultimate solutions pack.
Want to learn more about enhancing customer engagement in manufacturing?
Manufacturers have long prioritised waste reduction and improving efficiency. While these do impact customer experience (e.g. reducing lead times), it’s time to look further afield.
In our guide, we cover how manufacturers such as yourself can improve your customer engagement strategy to enhance your overall CX. You’ll also learn how you can use Industry 4.0 to transform CX - for the better.
