The new Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 - imagine this together with CRM
Here is a brilliant opportunity to get more out of CRM and at the same time to cut cost on travel, shorten the customer service cycle and bringing colleagues closer together, not meaning geographically but purely process-wise.
OCS empowers collaboration with customized presence states, Group Chat, Live Meeting, sharing desktop and more, even with the customer, is just at your fingertips and all of this goes very nicely hand in hand with the CRM system.
Are you already working with presence states and saving valuable time in calling or chatting with the right person available immediately instead of trying to reach busy colleagues and chasing somebody, who can help? Save a lot of time by knowing on beforehand if he or she is available, and if not, get notified when they become available.
More great possibilities include:
- Audio conference call with customers and colleagues - online, with the click of ONE button, just invite to an appointment in Outlook
- Build it into live business applications and business processes - Microsoft Dynamics CRM for one :-)
- Move conversations between applications and devices - only focusing on the task at hand
- Instant messaging with more than just plain text (namely rich text) and with more than one person, even go to Group Chat
A lot of really nice and business wise features are at the center of the new OCS and I urge you to take a closer look at the material and product. Just think of the added business value and possible developments of the business.
Now, look out for an upcoming blog post on CRM closer together with OCS.
Powerful stuff!
Useful links
Understanding unified communications for the call center
Supported Migration Paths and Coexistence Scenarios
Thank you to Dietmar Dossow for some very useful TechNet-resources.
Enjoy! :-)
Martin Houlberg Jensen
CRM Evangelist
Microsoft Dynamics CRM team