CRM 2016 is focused on customer service

Not even a year has passed and we have the successor of Microsoft CRM 2015. You may be asking why so soon and what's new with the transition to Microsoft CRM solution 2016 you will get. I will try to answer you in this short article.

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Focused on customer service

The new Microsoft CRM 2016 is the right step for your company. It will allow you to better target your customers' needs and keep in touch with them thanks to new features. At the same time, the new version will make resource planning clearer and easier for your customer support team.

The biggest change from CRM 2015 is the addition of a new service interface. The whole new service interface looks like a separate web application and works on a different URL than the CRM itself. The goal is to allow better segregation of customer support from the actual business and not burden customer support staff with information that is not important to them.

Service HUB

Gradual blurring of differences between online and on-premise versions.

For those of you who don't know the difference between the online version and the on-premise version, here is a brief summary. Please note that the goal is not to analyze the pros and cons.

CRM online
- Service provided to customers
- You don't need any servers or infrastructure, everything runs in the Cloud
CRM on-premise
- Classic version of MS CRM
- The application runs on your infrastructure and you have complete control over it

Microsoft heard the voices of customers and their surprise that in the previous the on-premise version of CRM lacks some interesting features from the online version. It's just a shame that these improvements were added to the 2016 version and not retroactively via an update to 2015.

Here's a list of them:
- Improved menu navigation to allow faster transitions between modules
- History of last opened records
- Possibility to use graphic schemes for styling your CRM

Improved menu and history (at the top, next to the search box)

Schedule the work of your team.

Microsoft's recent acquisition of Field One has added their flagship product to Microsoft CRM 2016, allowing you to plan the work of your team in detail.
The aim is to make planning the resources and knowledge needed to deliver the service easier and clearer.

How does it all work?

Imagine you have a team of gardeners in the field equipped with smartphones. Each team member has certain skills and capabilities. Someone knows how to use a mower, another knows how to trim trees.

With CRM, you can plan their capacity and tasks and get feedback from your team and the status of performance via their mobile device directly from the field. Yes I've simplified it a bit, FieldOne obviously does more than that.

There is no reason to be afraid of switching to Microsoft CRM 2016. Those of you already using CRM 2013 or CRM 2015 will feel right at home and will be delighted with the suite of enhancements and new features.

Service calendar

Ask your customers for their opinions and get more information about them.

What you may have known for some time from modules supplied to Microsoft CRM by third parties, for example, the Click Dimensions marketing module, is gradually appearing in the basic version from Microsoft. Of course, not in such a sophisticated form.

From CRM 2016 On-line you have the possibility to create questionnaires that are sent to your customers. This is actually an opportunity to get feedback from your customers.

I will give a short example here:

Your customer has ordered goods on your online shop. The goods have been delivered and the CRM, integrated with logistics, has become aware of this fact. The automated process sends your customer a prepared questionnaire asking him about his satisfaction with his purchase on the online store. This can be followed by your employee processing the collected data or by an automated process that alerts your customer contact center about the dissatisfied customer.

The goal is to get information from your customers, know more about their needs and how they feel, and use that information to retain your customers and target their needs.

On this point, I should point out that in order for this to work, you must have an Azure license from Microsoft, where the questionnaires are physically hosted.

Finally, for those of you who are interested in a more sophisticated solution, here is at least a link to Click Dimensions.

CRM Mobile and offline version, Outlook and new templates for Excel and Word

CRM 2016 has a new version of the mobile app and if you have a CRM Online version with a minimum of 30 users or a PRO license, you can use the hybrid mode where you don't necessarily have to be online and the data is synchronized later.

Users of the CRM online version can also use a new lightweight CRM application integrated into different versions of Outlook. You can see this beautifully in the Office 365 web interface where you can work with your CRM. This is a really useful feature for those of you who are used to using the Outlook web interface.

Templates

Microsoft has also added new templates and their management directly in CRM. This makes working with and creating templates much easier. In my opinion, this is a useful tool that allows you to create reports and reports and share them with others in the familiar Office environment.