Microsoft Makes Social Productivity Integral to CRM

By Linda Dobel, TMCnet Contributor

Social CRM is the talk of the town these days — at least among tech giants like Oracle (News - Alert), Salesforce.com and now Microsoft.

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM November 2011 service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, which the company announced last week, is drawing attention because of the social collaboration capabilities it provides. Not only that, but it reportedly now offers customers a Unified Microsoft (News - Alert) Office 365 experience as well as Microsoft Dynamics CRM in the cloud enhancements. The company said these updates are in keeping with its promise to make professionals who work in sales, service and marketing capacities more productive.

“Social productivity” should get a significant boost from the five new capabilities Microsoft has integrated into Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. “Across Microsoft, we deliver social capabilities that help customers and businesses build more productive relationships,” said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Product Management Group. “By bringing together new social collaboration capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM with familiar collaboration technologies such as Office, SharePoint and Lync, businesses will be able to expand their relationships with customers and gain even deeper insight and understanding.”

 One of the new capabilities is configurable activity feeds which are real-time notifications of business or relationship developments or events. Another is micro-blogging, which David F. Carr in Information Week said, lets users “post status updates and carry on conversations.” Elaborating on micro-blogging capabilities and another capability, conversations, Barry Levine, posting on newsfactor, wrote, “Micro-blogging provides notifications to users through simple updates, and conversations allow users to collaborate among themselves to get feedback from others or to locate information.” 

Another social productivity capability of the updated Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is automated activity updates, which are based on configurable events rules — an example given is when a sales opportunity is closed — that people can subscribe to or follow. There is also now a mobile activity feeds app for Windows Phone (News - Alert) 7.

Microsoft quoted Jim Steger, co-founder and principal at Sonoma Partners, as saying, “To be effective, social tools need to be easily accessed and usable, they need to be searchable allowing you to filter information, and they need to be a holistic part of the CRM solution. Microsoft’s approach to social productivity uniquely meets those criteria.”

Social tools as part of the CRM solution appears to be a trend. Barry Levine thinks so and wrote in his article that the Microsoft November 2011 update to Microsoft Dynamics CRM is part of a noticeable trend, citing the Oracle’s purchase of RightNow Technologies (News - Alert), a leading cloud-based CRM provider announced last week (see TMCnet.com and Salesforce.com’s (News - Alert) purchase of “socially-based customer service provider Assistly in September).

Levine noted that “Salesforce.com has been the leader in this move toward the use of social media in customer service,” so it will be interesting to see how Microsoft’s new capabilities will affect that position.

In other news, TMCnet reported, “Atidan officials said that they are proud to announce that their company has achieved a total of four Gold Competencies in the Microsoft Partner Network for showcasing their ability to meet Microsoft customers' evolving needs in today's dynamic business environment.”  

(source: http://call-center-software.tmcnet.com/topics/call-center-software/articles/235899-microsoft-makes-social-productivity-integral-crm.htm)