5 Elements of Great Customer Support

 

In this era of digitization one of the best ways you can win people's hearts is through not-so-common human touch. With so many options for the same products or services, it becomes even more challenging for businesses to make profits and build better and huge customer bases. In an era like this having a competitive edge over competitors has become essential. It is now required more than ever for businesses to have efficient and productive customer support services. Providing good quality customer support services normally gives businesses a competitive edge but also helps them increase their profitability and customer satisfaction levels. 

Here are 5 principles of quality customer service -

Being available 

Customers don't like to wait. When customer sources are limited to specific hours it can cause a hindrance in help desk ticket registration. It is essential for businesses to be open round the clock for customer service purposes. 24/7 availability helps businesses register more tickets and cater to customer needs at any point of the day. Being available round the clock not only gives businesses a competitive edge but also improves customer satisfaction levels.

Reaching out on all touchpoints 

Having an omnichannel strategy is one of the best ways to ensure there is good quality customer service being provided to customers. An omnichannel strategy helps businesses to get in touch with their customers through various touchpoints that are preferred by the customer itself. It helps them reach out to customers via multiple platforms of the customers choosing which not only shows that they really care about customers were also helps in increasing their customer base.

Contextual responses

For efficient and effective customer service to take place, contextual responses are necessary. Contextual responses show that you are well aware of the customers’ situation and history and that you are capable of giving them the most appropriate advice or situation based on their profile. Context is always necessary as it provides a better understanding of the customer service ticket. Not wearing a contact cell response might reflect poorly on the business itself.

Feedback 

It is necessary for businesses to collect feedback from their customers and use that information to better enhance business operations. After collecting feedback from customers businesses should make sure that the feedback is used to gain insights on various things like customer trends, etc. This not only gives a better idea of how sales strategies and marketing strategies should be structured but also helps businesses better understand what exactly the customer is thinking or how they feel about their services or products.

Personalization 

Adding a hint of personalization always helps. When customer service agents personalize their interactions with customers it helps create a bond. Personalization of interactions can happen through little things like their preferences, likes, and dislikes, etc. This makes customers feel special and cared for which in turn increases the customer satisfaction levels. Efficient customer relationship management tools like Kapture CRM help customer service teams collect customer data which can then be used for personalized marketing.

Providing great customer service can become very challenging if your business doesn’t have the right tools for it. With the right and intelligent technology like Kapture, your business can not only provide better customer support service but also optimize business performance. To know more about customer service management tools click here for a demo. 

The Utmost Importance of CRM Analytics

 

Customer connections are the core of each business. It doesn't make any difference what size or sort of organization you own, there is no substitute for making enduring and solid customer connections. 

It is not, at this point, about making a deal on the grounds that a distant memory are the days when customers obliged to straightforward item commercials and deals indexes. Pitching an item straightforwardly to customers doesn't work any longer, basically in light of the fact that they have developed. 

To such an extent that, customers nowadays, are significantly more mindful of their necessities and careful about promoting tricks, which necessitates that organizations be more open and straightforward with their methodologies. 

Particularly with the blast of web-based media all in all, thinking of new highlights each day through which customers can reach out straightforwardly with brands, they anticipate more customized and custom-made administrations. 

For a similar explanation, the idea of personalization has likewise changed. It goes far past tending to customers by their first names in an email or sending them some nonexclusive offers and arrangements. It is more about investigating and understanding customers profoundly and proactively tending to their necessities. Besides, it is about immediately reacting to their correspondence endeavors and charming them inside and out. As such, it is tied in with drawing near with them and being a companion for them, as opposed to simply a brand. 

What is CRM analytics? 

CRM investigation, otherwise called customer examination is a sweeping term that is utilized to depict advances and cycles pointed toward catching, gathering and dissecting a wide range of customer related information, and introducing them in a simple and easy to understand interface. The ultimate objective of customer investigation is to furnish advertisers with the fundamental data to comprehend their customers and settle on information driven choices to give the best customer experience. Particularly for B2B where the worth of every deal is high and where there is more in question, CRM examination fills the main need of giving the perfect information at the perfect occasions in the business pipe. As the purchasing cycles are longer in B2B, with more than one individual associated with the dynamic interaction, it is critical to achieve applicable conduct investigation identified with their advancement and strike when it's the ideal time.

Along these lines, CRM investigation successfully helps fill the hole between plain numbers and customers, giving an enormous open door for organizations to acquire the cutthroat edge. By utilizing the gathered information sagaciously, you can undoubtedly stretch out beyond your opposition to serve your customers. It furnishes a more profound degree of knowledge with which to acquire a particularly driving benefit.And this is facilitated by an efficient CRM analytics software solution.

Lithe CRM is one such element-stuffed CRM arrangement that accompanies a rich CRM investigation apparatus. It gives significant experiences into prospect conduct and movement occurring on your site and portable application. It permits you to catch and break down customer interests just as commitment levels viewing your site just as your online media across the board place. That, however, gives adroit action reports, timetables and continuous cautions with which you can settle on constant choices to initiate activity. Similarly, it assists you with watching out for customer purchasing behaviors and permits you to take the correct actions to impact good activity. In the master plan, it gives you access to customer action on the entirety of your computerized stages consistently.

The need for a data-drive approach

Once upon a time, before the coming of trend setting innovations, organizations regularly used to depend on incorrect presumptions and mystery for personalization and for other advertising programs. In any case, mystery is a long way from success today. 

customers' requirements must be tended to proactively, and not responsively any longer. Really at that time you can stay in front of contenders. 

Organizations are progressively utilizing savvy CRM frameworks to get leads, create and support their advantage and transform them into paying customers. This implies that the rivalry also is getting harder continuously.

On top of everything, it is also quite difficult to grab the attention of an increasingly digital savvy generation of customers. Guesswork is simply not good enough to produce proactive and relevant content or products.

It is accurate and insightful numbers that help get a clearer picture. Analytics give direction and purpose to the entire marketing team and help businesses figure out exactly what they need to do to stay ahead and establish better customer relationships.

And this is why you need CRM analytics – to make better, more informed data-driven decisions to surge ahead of competition.

Importance of CRM analytics 

CRM investigation helps organizations from multiple points of view. It gives a specific incredible perceivability that reaches out past the numbers. It successfully goes about as the Seeing Eye Dog to a generally visually impaired and mystery situated methodology. 

 

Here are a couple of things that make the CRM investigation inescapable for business.

Effective segmentation

CRM examination gives itemized data about customer socioeconomics and conduct in regards to various computerized channels, which permits advertisers to assemble customers with basic variables. By adequately portioning customers dependent on various standards like age or purchasing conduct, advertisers can create important showcasing efforts to target explicit gatherings and get more transformations.

Benefit examination 

CRM examination helps see which gatherings or kinds of clients are getting the most ROI. Because of division, it is simpler for advertisers to decide clients with basic qualities and thusly decide the most beneficial gathering. With time measurements like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) can be set up to quantify benefit, all of which permits advertisers to predict the measure of income that a client is probably going to get for the organization. This further permits organizations to choose the amount to put resources into client maintenance too. 

Proactive client assistance and experience 

CRM investigation helps see in front of client needs and issues. This offers an advantage for organizations in changing those issues, and building up trust and believability. It permits organizations to be more proactive with content just as with items and administrations and gives a benefit to organizations offered by no other channel. 

Mission streamlining 

CRM examination offers point by point and clever reports on how extraordinary promoting efforts fared. Regardless of whether it is your email advertising efforts or your web-based media crusades, investigation gives you within information on things like how well your missions were gotten by clients, which of your missions got the most commitment, which of your missions created the most transformations and so on This permits you to choose which of your missions to put further in, which channels to use for future missions and so forth 

ID of market holes and new deal openings 

CRM examination offers the remarkable and amazing component of social tuning in. It dissects discussions and patterns inside your informal community and your industry, and it permits you to recognize market holes. It additionally permits you to perceive how your rivals are getting along. With this data, you can create proactive substance and address client gives that are not addressed to you. You can likewise make or update items and administrations to more readily serve clients. 

Prescient demonstrating 

CRM examination helps in prescient display too. Point by point information driven expectations on income, item insights and client concerns permit you to demonstrate better than ever items and administrations progressively. Set up with precise social tuning in, you can accomplish market initiative by making items well in front of your rivals.

Progressed personalization 

CRM investigation gives a huge load of valuable data identified with client interests and inclinations. It likewise permits you to perceive what could be keeping them away from making a buy. This sort of information assists you with creating and utilizing progressed personalization strategies to command client notice and build up better client connections. It indeed gives you the fundamental information to sort out what sort of substance would actuate the choice to purchase in your client. By utilizing personalization strategies, you can likewise cause a client to feel esteemed and tuned in, which further improves trust and steadfastness.

 

Most CRM examination arrangements offer all encompassing and itemized bits of knowledge identified with and large clients conduct all through advanced channels. It doesn't restrict its range to simply promoting channels or simply the site. For instance, it gives applicable examination to a client who is now a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and who is now in the business channel. By utilizing the correct data, examination permits advertisers to successfully consolidate showcasing and deals endeavors to give a bound together awesome client experience. 

 

Far reaching approach 

CRM investigation helps receive a more complete methodology towards client support also – an encounter that reaches out past tending to client questions and objections on schedule. It receives an Omnichannel complete way to deal with giving an upgraded and all unavoidable client experience.

The Importance of Customer Product Training

 

What is customer product training? 

Did you know that according to a report by Brandon hall Group Extended Enterprise about 55% of businesses improved their customer relations by providing customer product training? 

The number of new products or services or versions of the same products or services coming out in the market is always on a rise. During situations like these it becomes essential for businesses to provide training tools to customers to better help them understand what exactly the product or service can do for them or how exactly it can be used. 

By using customer-facing knowledge bases or on-demand training materials businesses help their customers better understand their products and services. Online training programs that are self paced are one of the best ways to provide customer product training to customers. By providing customer product training businesses are helping customers receive all the information and materials that they need in order to use this service or product in the most efficient and satisfying way. 

Reasons to incorporate product customer training -

• With customers already having information on the tip of their fingers they no longer feel the need to raise customer service tickets for information related issues this not only brings down the overall number of tickets being raised but also decreases the workload of customer care service teams.

• With a significant decrease in customer service tickets being raised, businesses no longer have to employ extra customer service reps. Not having to employ extra customer service reps helps businesses cut down on huge costs on salaries and infrastructural facilities.

• Consumer product training helps customers understand what exactly the product can do for them and this leads to an increase in sales. It helps brands in business and increase their profitability.

• Product training also helps customers understand how the product works or how the product or service can be used to achieve ultimate success. This helps businesses increase customer satisfaction levels which ultimately increases profitability. 

• Information on how exactly the product or service can be used to help customers use the products or services in the way it is meant to be used. The right customer product training makes sure of the most efficient use of the service of the product being offered. 

How to create an amazing customer training program -

• Make use of an efficient knowledge management system like Kapture that will help resource persons and trainers store and organise customer training modules that require a lot of space. Knowledge management systems like capture not only make sure that the training models are organised but it also so helps

• Take feedback seriously. While creating customer product training modules it is essential for businesses to understand and identify issues through feedback. A proper analysis of existing feedback can help businesses identify where exactly customers are facing difficulty. This not only helps them build better products and services but also helps them build better product training modules.

• While creating customer product training modules it is also important to gather and identify gaps in the current modules. Keeping a regular check on any gaps or challenges in existing models not only helps businesses stay on top of the game but also helps them build a better customer base that is more aware.

• Even before implementing customer product training programs it is essential for businesses to gather from the users or consumers itself. This not only helps businesses for resource persons better understand the needs of your customers but also helps them create a fruitful customer product training experience. 

• Another important aspect of creating a good and comprehensible customer product training module or product training content is by taking insights and inputs from all the departments like product development teams, human resources, etc. This helps learners gain a better understanding of the product or service itself.

Know more about how you increase profitability through building a better and a more aware customer base click here for a demo.

Automated Help Desk: 7 Ideas for Ticket Management

Regardless of what ticketing system we use and how we operate, we end up ensuring that it's helping, not hamper our customer service team. Thus, we support customers in a fast, effective and professional manner. So if you ever had issues with the company's website or the product you have probably interacted with help desk software without even realizing it. As a customer, raising a helpdesk ticket provides a quick way for you to flag an issue with the company and hopefully receiving a response which is suitable for both the ends. 

As a managed service provider (MSP), help desk software provides you the ability to see the unseen benefits of making customers queries and lives easier.

What is help desk software?

A help desk or a service desk is one of the one-point place contacts that provides focus information and supports management service to handle the company's internal and external queries. A help desk automated software helps the company to resolve customers' outrage faster and efficiently by simply automating the complaint resolution process with the ticket management system.

What are the advantages of automated customer service?

Automated customer service is a great advantage that can help you improve the efficiency of your MSP and pass benefits back to your customer. Here are some important advantages.

• Reduce human error

• Reduce the wait time for customer, which will help the customer satisfaction

• Minimal supervision necessary 

• Reduce the need to hire more employees as you scale up

How do you automate help desk?

The following seven optimization techniques/ideas can help to improve their help desk operations, making them more efficient and less resource consuming. Doing this helps both the parties of the help desk.

1. Ensure you give proper agent training :

The effectiveness of your ticket management system largely depends on how well your agents are able to manage the tool and how well they can communicate with different scenarios. If you are just starting out with ticketing software, proper onboarding and training so that communication both ways get easier. Why? To ensure agents can effectively grip the tool and all of its features easily. Thus, being able to provide a seamless service experience to customers.

2. Decide which tickets to be prioritize :

Depending on the size and complexity of your business you can choose the priority of the tickets based either on the order they arrive or urgency or how many times they have called. The first come first serve method is generally used or preferred in most support teams. It can help the workflow and provide faster response time and prevent clotting of ticketing. However, it lacks the flexibility of the ‘pick and choose’ approach. This approach will allow agents to give more attention to customers with more tough and urgent problems with easy solutions.

3. Make sure you are using right use of ticket tagging :

Another main function of ticketing is tagging. However, often this feature is being underutilized by support teams. Tags are extremely important and helpful in adding more factors to tickets and can easily assist agents. They also help in managing and customizing the workflows of the agents. To get maximum outcome from tagging, it's important to keep tags clear, accurate, consistent and well-structured.

4. Monitoring and setting the status of tickets :

Any ticket management software allows you the tracking progress of tickets and viewing the updates on the dashboard. Make sure the ticket you are assigned to has the right status. For example tickets are unanswered, priorities aren’t set properly, requests are not answering or getting ignored or agents duplicating behavior that can be frustrating for the customers.

5. Creating templates for better communication :

Messaging each common question is time consuming and impractical. Creating a catalog template for common queries and situations. It will increase your team efficiency and save time on both the ends. Thus, responses should be used wisely and according to the customers' needs. 

6. Keep records of each customers past tickets :

Having past records can show that you do care about your customers and their problems. Keeping records is easier for the agents to dig into what the issue the customer is facing currently. A lot of times agents receive tickets which have already been solved in the past. Thus, being able to refer to the cases from where they left is a lot easier to solve the queries.

7. Track and record how agents are communicating with customers :

Ticket management system provides you with a wide range of reporting and analytical tools. It helps in tracking various metrics such as blockage tickets, number of new tickets, pending tickets, answered tickets etc. Thus, whoever is performing well, you can reward them accordingly and whoever needs more training you can train them and give them a chance to perform.

Top 4 Must-Have Qualities Of A Skilled Customer Support Agent

 Who is a Customer Support Agent? And What does a Customer Support Agent Do?

One of the most efficient ways through which businesses can keep increasing profitability is by making sure that their customers are happy and satisfied. Happy and satisfied customers equal an increase in sales, which means there will be an increase in profits. One of the best ways businesses can keep their customers happy is by providing the best customer care support assistance that they can.

Customer care support agents or help desk support agents are representatives who help businesses provide customer care assistance to their customers. They make sure that the customers are satisfied with the products and services provided by the company.   Customer care support agents help provide support and assistance to existing as well as prospective customers. The answer customer questions reply to their emails regarding the services or products being offered by the company. 

Top 4 Qualities of a Customer Support Agent 

Tech-Savvy

A good customer service agent is tech-savvy and is always adapting to new and advanced technological changes. They know their way around efficient customer relationship management systems like Kapture CRM. They make use of all the features and facilities of the customer management tool in order to provide customers the best help desk support service that there is. When they are tech-savvy they are capable of using up all facilities like redirecting customers to self-service portals, making use of Omnichannel support, etc. It helps them serve customers and resolve their tickets in a much more efficient manner. 

Good Listener 

Another most important skill that a customer support agent must have is good listening skills. The best way businesses show their customers that they really care about them is through good agents who are great listeners. Helpdesk support agents need to have an incredible amount of patience when they are trying to attend or resolve a ticket. Customer care agents have to be extremely involved and focused on hearing what exactly the customer is trying to express. This not only helps them better understand what exactly the customer is experiencing with respect to the ticket raised but also helps them show that they really care for the customer's well-being.

Efficient Time Management

With the influx of customer service tickets, most of the time properly managing time becomes crucial for customer service agents. When help desk agents are trained to manage time in an efficient manner it not only improves that time management skills but also improves the overall productivity of the business itself. Being tech-savvy here also plays a huge role. When agents are tech-savvy it helps them utilize the necessary and available tools in order to save and manage time. Failing to manage time not only reflects poorly on the company's customer care services but also brings down customer satisfaction levels.

Communication Skills

Being tech-savvy and having great time management skills are of no use when the customer care agent has poor communication skills. Help desk agents should be able to communicate efficiently to customers. Being able to convey what exactly the problem is can be extremely important and poor communication skills not only put a halt to ticket remediation but also builds on a negative brand image. Great communication skills are a must-have for customer care agents. It not only helps them create a good impression on the customer itself but also helps them increase customer satisfaction levels. 

What Makes a Good Customer Support Agent? 

• They use the right technology like efficient customer relationship management tools to cater to help desk tickets which helps decrease wait time. 

• They tend to spend time analyzing the ticket efficiently in order to provide contextual responses.

• They add a hint of personalization and should possess the ability to step into customer’s shoes and show empathy. 

Making sure customers are given enough care and assistance can be challenging. It is essential for businesses to make sure that they provide customer service agents with the right tools that will help them provide the best customer care experience possible. To know more about efficient customer management tools click here for a demo.

How Customer Personas are Helping Businesses

 What is a Customer Persona? 

With the ever-changing needs and wants of consumers, it becomes difficult to keep up with the changing consumer trends and user needs and this is exactly where customer personas pop up. For businesses to stay on top of their A-game it is essential to keep up with such ever-changing consumer trends and user needs. Keeping up with such changes not only e helps businesses adjust to the new trends but also helps them increase their overall profitability in the long run.

Customer personas are fictional and imaginative characters that help represent a particular demographic of customers. There are two types of customer personas firstly the buyer Persona and second - the user persona. The Buyer Persona describes ideal target customers for buyers who are responsible for purchase decisions. Whereas a User persona helps businesses better customize their products and services according to the needs of users. For businesses to thrive and create better products or services, creating fictional representations (digital personas) of ideal customers has become absolutely essential.

 

How Social Media Personas Help Businesses- 

They help businesses improve their target strategies. Businesses employ social media personas on various social media platforms to help them by bringing in valuable audiences in huge numbers. Your day work towards creating a small community for a customer base that is interested in the very product itself. This also helps businesses sell their services to a target audience who already have an interest in the product being sold. This normally helps businesses their services to a target audience but also helps them increase brand awareness on search social media platforms.

Creating social media personas helps businesses better understand their customers and prospects. Manufacturing a product or providing a service that sells and is able to generate profits is a tedious job. Manufacturing a product or providing a service takes a lot of time and involves a lot of effort to understand what exactly the customer needs. Sentences create social media personas there are able to put themselves in the shoes of their customers and understand what exact preferences their customers expect from them. Creating such personas not only helps businesses create needed or expected products and services but also help them connect more effectively with their customers. 

When businesses create customer personas it helps them gain valuable and new insights on customer preferences and customer trends. They tend to gain a better understanding of what is the need of the hour. This helps them structure their marketing strategies and sales strategies according to these valuable insights. Social media personas helps businesses track various trends that are popular in a certain demographic. Businesses reverie a better understanding of how a certain demographic views their services or products. It helps them analyze behavior trends which can later be used for creating more demographic-centric marketing. This not only personalizes the experience being provided but also creates a positive image. 

Various advantages businesses gain when they make use of customer personas -

• Customer personas help businesses improve and increase their conversion rates. 

• Having a proper customer Persona helps businesses better understand their customers. 

• It helps marketing teams understand what specific issues they have to address in their content. 

• User personas help manufacturing teams to design products and services according to customer needs and expectations. 

• Social media personas increase brand awareness and customer engagement levels.

• They help service desk teams provide better customer care services.

• The businesses target interested individuals which increase sales rates. 

To learn more about how you can improve your marketing and sales strategies with the help of customer personas click here for a demo.

Essential security features of an efficient CRM tool

 

WHAT IS CRM?

CRM means a combination of business strategies, software and processes that help build long-lasting relationships between companies and customers.

And refers to all strategies, techniques, tools, and technologies used by enterprises for developing, retaining and acquiring customers.

This software ensures that every step of the interaction with consumers goes smoothly and efficiently in order to increase the overall profits. The software gathers customer data from multiple channels. Hence, CRM stores detailed information on overall purchase history, personal info, and even purchasing behavior patterns.

Who can benefit from CRM

CRM software allows businesses to focus on their company’s relationships with customers, colleagues, suppliers, etc. With a professional CRM in place, it becomes much easier to find new customers, win their trust, provide qualified support, and provide additional services throughout the relationship.

The best part about a CRM system is that almost any organization unit can benefit from it- from sales and marketing and business development. Good CRM software gives a better way to manage external relationships.

Storing all customer information in one place, recording service issues, identifying sales opportunities, managing marketing campaigns - these are just a few of the capabilities that CRM features.

Since CRM provides easy access to data, it also becomes much easier for the users to collaborate within different departments and increase productivity. Another strong argument in favor of CRM is that it is suitable for business of any size.

 

 

 

HOW DOES CRM WORK?

CRM solution includes functionality that allows users to track customer and company interaction through various available channels. These channels include contact forms, emails, phone calls and more.

CRM software provides sales and marketing teams with a set of tools to manage the entire sale and marketing funnel, from leading qualification to opportunity management, forecasting and deal closure. It enables customer service terms to manage customer requests and automate service operations by following predefined processes for customer care excellence.

CRM systems are packed with tracking features that record numerous customer interactions online. In addition, CRM automates routine processes and provides managers with tools that allow for the tracking and measuring of the company's performance and productivity for example, CRM software can remind you of tasks that you need to complete the given time you can make it perform pre-scheduled activities like sending emails and initiating phone calls. Everything done with the CRM is recorded, giving you enough time to make better actions plans to close any potential sale. Some CRMs also offer analytics capabilities, allowing users to track the efficiency of various marketing efforts to generate leads and conversions. Take a look at the key benefits of Creatio CRM products to get a better understanding of how CRMs work.

CRM security management

CRM security management is critical to creating and maintaining an effective CRM system. Any CRM system worth the name will offer you powerful tools to control access and privileges within your records, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales is no exception.

In this article, I will introduce the core concepts behind the Microsoft Dynamics CRM security management model.

This is by no means an exhaustive guide. Were I to write an exhaustive guide to security in one post, it would be exhausting for all of us!

Instead, this article focuses on the basics, and offers a jumping-off point from which you can take deeper dives into specific aspects of Dynamics 365 CRM security management.

To that end, I’ve divided this article into three parts: 1.) defining your organization in CRM, 2.) understanding access rights and privileges, and 3.) the three most common layers of Dynamics CRM security.

Part 1: Organization

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM divides your organization into business units, teams, and individual users, much like most businesses do for their day-to-day operations.

When you create an organization in CRM, Dynamics automatically sets up a root business unit: this is your organization as a whole, and it cannot be deleted or disabled (though you can rename it).

Once you have your root business unit, you can create other business units, teams, and user roles to mirror your organizational divisions and hierarchies.

These organizational elements are the building blocks of your CRM security settings.

Business Units

Beneath your root business unit, you can create additional business units to represent the important divisions and departments within your business.

For example, you can create business units for your sales, marketing, customer service, and accounting departments. If your company is organized by region or specific location, you can break those business units down further.

When you create a new business unit, you must specify the parent unit. Your highest level will be your root business unit, but you can create multiple child business units beneath it, and then multiple child business units beneath those, and so on. Essentially, you can re-create your org chart in Dynamics 365 for Sales.

Your teams and users will be associated with one business unit each, so build your business units with that in mind!

You can also set some of your security parameters by business unit if you so choose.

Teams

Owner teams and access teams allow you to share and collaborate on records across business units. Unlike business units, a user can be assigned to as many teams as you wish. A user and their teams do not all need to be assigned to the same business unit.

You will need to set permissions and access levels (see Part 2) for each of your teams. Keep in mind that users gain all the rights granted to them by all the teams they are assigned to.

When you create a business unit, Dynamics will automatically create a default team for that unit. But just like with business units, you can add additional teams to your organization.

For example, you can create sales or service teams within larger business units, or teams dedicated to specific tasks or events.

Users

Users represent the members of your organization in CRM. Each user must be assigned to a single business unit, but can also be assigned to one or more teams.

Each user must be assigned a role, which is important for role-based security (more on that in Part 3).

Part 2: Access

Once you have built your organization in Dynamics 365, you can use that structure to add rights and restrictions at the unit, team, and user levels.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales uses privileges and permission levels to set those rights and restrictions.

Basically, a privilege represents something a user can (or cannot) do with a record. An access level represents which and how many records that user can exercise those privileges on.

Privileges

Dynamics 365 uses 8 basic record-level privileges:

1.) Create enables a user to make a new record.

2.) Read enables a user to open and view a record.

3.) Write enables a user to make changes to a record.

4.) Delete enables a user to permanently erase a record.

5.) Append enables a user to associate another record to the current record.

6.) Append enables a user to associate the current record to another record.

7.) Assign enables a user to give ownership of a record to another user.

8.) Share enables a user to grant access to a record to another user.

 

Access levels

Dynamics 365 uses 5 access levels:

• Global allows access to all of an organization’s records.

• Deep allows access to all records in their business unit and in subordinate units.

• Local allows access to all records in their business unit.

• Basic allows access to records they own or that are shared with them or their teams.

• None allows no access to records.

• Microsoft recommends a few basic best practices for Dynamics CRM access levels:

Part 3: Security

Microsoft Dynamics CRM security management can appear quite complicated at first. But it’s useful to break it down into three parts: role-based security, record-based security, and field-level security:

Role-based security controls access by entity type.

Record-based security controls access to individual records.

Field-level security controls access to specific fields.

 

Role-based security

Role-based security enables you to restrict or allow access to record types by entity.

When you use role-based security in Dynamics 365, you create roles with specific privileges and access levels, then assign those roles to your users and/or teams.

You can also use default security roles provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales comes with 14 pre-built roles:

1.) CEO-Business Manager

2.) CSR Manager

3.) Customer Service Representative (CSR)

4.) Delegate

5.) Marketing Manager

6.) Marketing Professional

7.) Sales Manager

8.) Salesperson

9.) Schedule Manager

10.) Scheduler

11.) Support User

12.) System Administrator

13.) System Customizer

14.) Vice President of Marketing

15.) Vice President of Sales

You can customize existing roles or create new roles, but we strongly recommend you avoid changing the out-of-the-box security roles.

Instead, we recommend you copy an existing security role and modify it to fit your needs.

 

Record-based security

You can also set security for individual records by business unit, team, or role. This enables you to restrict or allow access to individual records in ways not covered by (or contrary to) your role-based rules.

For example, if your salespeople would normally only see lead records they own, but you want your sales team to be able to work on some leads together, your sales manager could use record-based security to give users access to those lead records.

Keep in mind, though, that record-level access rights apply after privileges. So if you share read access to a record with a user who does not have any read privileges for that record type, the user will still be unable to read the record.

 

Field-level security

Even more granular than record-based security, field-level security enables you to restrict or allow access to specific fields within your records.

This is extremely useful in ensuring data integrity for records used by multiple business units.

For example, if you have a credit approval field in your account records, you probably want to restrict write access to members of your accounting department. Field-level security allows you to do so.

 

Ways to Secure Your CRM and Avoid Security Risks

One security breach can cause irreparable damage to your brand image. Data breaches hurt your internal and external relationships, and, ultimately, your ability to generate revenue.

Hackers can even engage in competitive espionage by stealing financial information, and details about planned projects.

The bottom line? When hackers maliciously hack into your system, your company pays the price.

If you’re looking to be more proactive and less reactive, start with an inspection of your Customer Relationship Management System (CRM). This is where the majority of your private data lives.

How To Prevent A CRM Data Breach 

The burden of responsibility for securing the sensitive data in the CRM belongs solely to the companies who requested, or accepted, this personal data.

When the request for data is made, there is a reasonable expectation that data will be kept under lock and key. 

Here are a few tips to help prevent a data breach by securing your CRM.  

1. Secure Your Servers 

If you have physical servers at your office location, make sure your servers have secure points of entry, and your routers and local networks are secure as well. This can be accomplished many ways; here are a few best practices:

This can be accomplished many ways; here are a few best practices:

• Lock down the SSID of your router. Don’t use easy-to-guess names that a hacker could easily figure out.

• Disable your router’s SSID broadcast. Prevent unwanted visitors from finding you by turning off this broadcast.

• Create and continuously update your administrative login credentials, for any application where data is stored or accessed. Set a calendar to change the password regularly, use a strong password, and keep a log of who has credentials. 

• Eliminate or limit remote access to your server. It might be inconvenient, but doing so can help to strengthen your wall of security and prevent outsiders from accessing your server remotely. 

• Ensure your browsers are updated to support the latest security updates.

• Enable firewalls for all computers on your network. 

• Ensure your cloud storage provider follows strict data storage, encryption, and security measures like redundancy.

2. Ensure CRM Administrators Follow Best Security Practices

Managing internal administrators can be one of the biggest challenges to implementing CRM security. 

1. Staff members want to feel they can be trusted, but you have to manage access and access-levels to your CRM – even if that means limiting admin access. 

2. Ensure employees are using their own individual accounts to login, instead of share logins. Additionally, when an employee leaves the company, make sure their login is expired or restricted. 

3. A commonly overlooked CRM security risk is the ability to download information. While many employees need access to reporting to do their jobs, broad access can pose risks to the precious data that lives inside your CRM. Limit the number of individuals who can download data, and make sure everyone knows your company’s  policy on how to properly handle the information.

3. Stay Up-to-Date

One of the biggest security missteps? Not staying up-to-date on the latest versions of your CRM software! With each update, you’ll gain deeper protection from data breaches and risk of vulnerability of your system to hackers, viruses, or bad actors of any kind. 

CRM security risks are real and could threaten the very lifeline of your business, not to mention leave your business exposed to legal threats if negligence exists. In lesser scenarios, it can damage your brand, hurt your bottom line, and impact your internal culture – all things that can take years to rebuild.

Be proactive and empower your employees to support your CRM security goals to help you succeed in this area.