Microsoft CRM implementation – Sales & Service Modules for Consulting Business

By Andrew Karasev

Alba Spectrum Technologies

866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Microsoft CRM 1.2 or Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 could be considered as excellent platform for automating consulting business.  In this small article we will give you some directions to automate lead processing, customer contract management (budgeting, time logging & billing) and consultants performance tracking.  We should just let you know that you may deploy MS CRM Outlook client, if you need your consultants to use MS Office / Outlook, with the option of offline work. If you do not need offline work – you can go ahead with MS CRM web client only.

• Lead Processing.  Everything begins with New Lead (which you can do in MS CRM snap-in in Outlook or in the web client), when you have lead entered – you save it and if necessary – email from the lead screen (this email as well as lead reply will be captured and stored in the MS CRM).  Now you can assign or share the lead (with another CRM user or the Team), good practice is to create an appointment or task for sale rep or technician to call lead back.  When you think lead should be considered as opportunity – you convert lead into account, create contact and opportunity (place checkmarks in lead conversion screen).  Very good idea – if you use Microsoft Dynamics GP/Great Plains – deploy MS CRM-Great Plains integration tool to create account in Great Plains automatically
• Opportunity.  When you work with opportunity – you are typically creating sales quote and logging activities against this quote.  You can print quote in ‘Print Quote for Customer’ dialogue (where you use mail-merge MS Word technology to customize the quote).  When quote is approved – you convert it to Order and at this moment you can close opportunity (if the mission of this opportunity was just this single quote).  Order should automatically go to Great Plains (MS CRM-GP integration tool, if needed you can customize it – BizTalk programming)
• Contract.  Create contract for your account/customer, then create contract lines – this is where you budget your contract, then line budget is summarized to the contract budget.  When contract is approved – you create cases against contract lines – you need first to activate contract.  In contract window, select Actions Menu -> Invoice Contract – this will activate the contract
• Case.  Contract case should be visible to your consultant/technician in MS CRM Outlook client.
• Activity.  This is final object: Task or Appointment – these objects could be either assigned to the developer or you can train your consultants to create daily tasks/appointments and have them close these activities daily.  Closed activities have consulting time, counted toward the contract line budget.  We recommend you to create simple MS SQL RS report (or even Crystal report is you are on 1.2) to show consultants hours per day as well as contract status report

Please do not hesitate to call or email us: USA 1-866-528-0577, 1-630-961-5918 help@albaspectrum.com

Andrew Karasev is Chief Technology Officer at Alba Spectrum Technologies ( http://www.albaspectrum.com ) - Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains, Navision, Axapta MS CRM, Oracle Financials and IBM Lotus Domino Partner, serving corporate customers in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Medical & Healthcare, Distribution & Logistics, Hospitality, Banking & Finance, Wholesale & Retail, Chemicals, Oil & Gas, Placement & Recruiting, Advertising & Publishing, Textile, Pharmaceutical, Non-Profit, Beverages, Conglomerates, Apparels, Durables, Manufacturing and having locations in multiple states and internationally.

We are serving USA Nationwide: CA, IL, NY, FL, AZ, CO, TX, WI, WA, MI, MA, MO, LA, NM, MN, Europe: Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Russia, Middle East (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, OAE, Bahrain), Asia: China, Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, South & Central America: Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Chili, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

1. Lead processing.  In MS CRM Outlook, Leads->New Lead:

Enter topic, First Name, Last Name, Company Name, Business Phone, email (all this You MUST request in gentle manner from the prospect, in the case of email – enter available info), web site (get it from google search if needed), click on Details:

Enter Company name in Street 1, enter address including ZIP and Country, industry (if known) and source (external calls – you can check – more likely would be web, if email of help@albaspectrum.com – then also web).  Save the lead

Assign the lead:

Lead->Action->Assign->Assign to another person

If lead requested to call or contact him/her in the specified time, create activity and assign it to the person, who supposed to contact lead:

Enter due date/time and estimated duration

In case if lead needs email right away, email from the lead form, click on Send Email icon:

Follow Up Call.  If you are Sales person, to whom lead is assigned – you will see your new leads in MS CRM Outlook: Leads – if lead has status New – you should call this lead ASAP.  Appointments will be seen in Calendar and Activities (MS CRM in Outlook)

You should contact lead and change the status to contacted, you already have assigned to you activity, related to lead you should process activity and close it

2. Lead->Opportunity.  Actions->Convert Lead

Mark Account, Contact, Opportunity and Open created docs

Share account with territorial and Technical Support teams

If you want other resources work with the opportunity created – share opportunity with them

Closing Opportunity.  Work with opportunity, creating activities, emailing and replying on customer email (do not reply from Inbox – reply from customer historical email)

DO NOT REPLY FROM HERE

INSTEAD REPLY FROM HERE

Quoting.  In parallel with working in Opportunity, you might need to give customer a quote

MS CRM in Outlook, Opportunity, switch to Sales from the left, Quote->New Quote

Enter Name, Price List – Regular, switch to Addresses and enter/check address:

Quote Products: Products on the left, new Quote Product, switch to write in, enter description, Price per unit, Quantity, save – check summary

Save Quote and File -> Print Quote for Customers

Mail Merge->Quote

You will have Quote in Word format – Save it to Customer folder and email from Quote

Save and switch to Attachment

send email with the quote attached.  Attachment should be reasonably small in size (<10mb)

Activate the quote

When quote is approved Create Order

Check Close Opportunity if quote was the only one for this opportunity, otherwise you should close opportunity either separate or with the last quote for the opportunity.

Contract Management

Allotment Type – time – we will be tracking our projects by time

Service Contract Example

1. Enter Contact Name, Customer, Contract Address, Contract Start Date, Contract End Date, Bill to Customer, Bill to Address, Billing Start Date, Billing End Date, Billing Frequency.  Save Contract.
2. Create Contract Line(s)

Enter Title, change start/end date (if required), Total Minutes (contract time is tracked and sold in minutes, multiply number of hours by 60), Total Price.  Save, Return on Contract screen and Recalculate contract.

3. Activate Contract (to begin serving and billing).  In contract window, select Actions Menu -> Invoice Contract.  When contract is active – you can create cases and generate Activities with time allocation against cases, cases are related to Contract lines.
4. In Contract Line witch cases on the left and create new case

Enter Title and Subject (Alba Spectrum Service), save and share with Technical Support team

Let them read, write, append, assign, share

Save case

5. Incur time against Contract/Contract Line/Case.  If you are in Technical Support team (including managers and sales) – you should open contract, contract line and case and create activity – more likely Task or Appointment:

Enter Task: Subject, description, duration, Due date, Action->Assign – assign this task to the technician.  If you are technician – this task will show up in MS CRM Outlook client when you click on MS CRM – activities list. 

In the case of Appointment – change organizer to be servicing technician:

If you are servicing technician appointment will show up in your Outlook calendar

Working with Activities & cases.

6. Fulfilling activity.  In MS CRM outlook

Open Activity, Actions->Completed (or what is appropriate)

Close the Activity.

7. Cases.  If you are manager or responsible technician.  Open case, Actions -> Resolve Case

Select resolution type, write in resolution, specify billable time (this is very important – it will go to billable time for the contract – Manager must agree with billable time entered here)

8. Working around problems.  Placing contract on hold/resuming.  In contract – Actions ->Hold Contract or Resume contract

Security Level

Customer must be shared with territorial team and case should be assigned to Technical Support team

Technician should have Customer Service Representative and (if Sales Engineer/Manager) – CSR Manager and Salesperson roles