In all the years we have been installing Microsoft CRM, Bristol businesses have taught us a thing or two about how they like to use CRM.

The first article in our series talked about how some businesses use their CRM software to keep track of commercial activity only, rather than general relationships.

There's another tier of what Microsoft CRM can do for companies such as these, and the more profit-driven the enterprise, the more keen it might be to explore the possibilities.

Making use of customer metadata 

CRM systems that are properly integrated with other systems (accounts, for example) aggregate a lot of customer data: sales, average spend, average gap between orders, which products or services they use most, which they have never tried, even how quickly they settle invoices.

That data is accessible and contains key business intelligence. There is considerable analytical power in the Microsoft Dynamics application of CRM.

As a first step, this data can be used to provide management information: sales forecasting, for reports, and for trend analysis to build up a picture of how customer accounts and purchasing preferences are changing over time.

But there is more you can do with this information than simply increase your knowledge base-specifically when you put it into action.

Taking this further: identifying sales opportunities with Microsoft CRM

Combine this business intelligence and trends analysis with the capability of scheduling and prompting marketing activity and you have a dynamic means of identifying opportunities for customer growth. 

It's dynamic because as the picture changes, so can your marketing team decide which communications are necessary. CRM not only tracks but can be used to trigger dedicated contact with the customer, for example at small interval before their usual purchase frequency, or to alert them to new products or changes in their area of interest. Periodical e-mails, calls or postal communication can be scheduled to let them know about products they have not yet tried.

Because CRM lets you annotate each instance of customer contact, a carefully managed CRM deployment will help you gather further insight as this activity goes on, revealing which forms of customer communication are well received and have the desired effect on orders-all at a per-customer as well as a per-campaign basis.