Dynamics CRM Releases Favor Hosted Customers

New releases of Dynamics CRM improve customer case management, introduce social traffic monitoring, and simplify marketing campaign management. Called Dynamics CRM Online Spring ’14 (Microsoft-hosted) and Dynamics CRM 2013 SP1 (on-premises), the releases should streamline case management workflows and enable organizations to better respond to consumer communications and behaviors affecting their products and brands. The new features may also provide a path to eliminate some third-party add-ons and custom solutions that were required in previous CRM versions. However, most of the improvements are only available through the hosted service and require a subscription for use by on-premises customers.

Customer Care Improvements

The releases address customer care improvements in three key areas: the call center, case management, and customer self-service.

Call center improvements. A new Unified Service Desk enables organizations to create customized user interfaces that consolidate important data from multiple sources for customer service agents. The feature allows agents to handle multiple interactions simultaneously (such as e-mail, voice, social media, and chat) and can display response scripts for the agent to follow to help them respond to customer issues. For example, one part of the agent’s screen can display a consumer’s recent Twitter posts, another can provide a map with store locations near the consumer, and a third can display alternative or add-on products to help the service agent upsell to the consumer. The previous Dynamics CRM solution, Customer Care Accelerator, is less integrated than the Unified Service Desk and will likely receive less attention from Microsoft development in the future.