Transcript of Video
A customer relationship management system needs to be as dynamic as your business. Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps you manage your sales lifecycle and other business processes by enabling you to convert one type of record into another type. By converting records, you quickly transform the status of contacts and accounts as they move through the sales lifecycle, from the first interaction to supporting your products after the sale.
In this video, you'll see how converting records works by starting with an e-mail and following a full sales lifecycle. Keep in mind that the process is similar for converting other types of records in other areas of CRM.
A sales lifecycle might begin with a phone call, campaign response, or, in this case, an e-mail that you're tracking in CRM. This e-mail looks promising, so you decide to convert it to a lead. On the Actions toolbar, click Convert Activity and then click To Lead. Fill in basic information about the sender. Selecting these check boxes opens the new lead right away and closes the e-mail form after you click OK.
Now that the person is being tracked in CRM as a lead, you can add more details including new activities, files, and notes.
When you are closer to making a sale, you can convert the lead to an opportunity. Click Convert Lead. Using guidelines established by your organization, either qualify or disqualify the lead. In this case, you'll qualify the lead, promote the lead to an opportunity, and create new account and contact records for the lead. Then decide whether to open the new records. Click OK. CRM uses the information in the lead to create a new contact, an account, and an opportunity. Later, when it becomes time to provide pricing, click Quotes, and then create a new quote. Microsoft Dynamics CRM then helps you through the process of creating orders and invoices.
After the sale, use the information in CRM to provide customer support. You can convert this phone call activity to a case by clicking Convert Activity and then click To Case. The customer name is automatically copied from the phone call activity. Click the lookup button to browse for and select a subject. Open the new case and change the phone call status to Completed and close the form are already selected. Click OK and a new case is created. To assign it to a customer service rep, click the Owner Look Up button. Click Assign to another user or queue, then click theLookup button and finally select the user.
You've just tracked the lifecycle of a sale from initial e-mail to a support case and Microsoft Dynamics CRM was with you every step of the way.
