Enabling Commerce and Order Entry Integrated with Dynamics CRM 2011 for your Sales and Customer Service teams
If you are using or planning to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Sales Force Automation, you are making a great first step for your organization because:
- Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables your sales and customer service team to have an intelligent dialog whenever they interact with your customers. Sales or Customer Service Representatives have visibility to activity history so they know what the last few contacts with the customers were & what occurred at those touch points.
- Sales, marketing & customer service teams begin to see the business as it should be seen – from the eyes of the customer.
- You can connect with customers like never before via Social Capabilities of Microsoft Dynamics CRM and understand their likes, dislikes & get deeper insight into their behaviour.
Ignify’s flagship Product – eCommerce for Dynamics has been offering eCommerce Solution integrated with Dynamics ERP for a number of years. Enabling commerce for Sales Force & Customer Service Organizations using Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a natural extension of eCommerce for Dynamics. In early 2011 we released the Order Entry and Ignify ecommerce solutions integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Since then we’ve made two releases of the software and have multiple customers now using Ignify ecommerce and Order Entry integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM to gain significant productivity benefits.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM can greatly benefit with enhancements that Ignify ecommerce brings for complex commerce scenarios. I’ve listed some examples below
- As a Quote or Order Entry system:
- Ignify Order Entry can significantly reduce the number of clicks on for entering a Quote or Order thus improving user adoption within your team.
- Providing key commerce-related web services such as address validation, sales tax/ GST, shipping calculation and online payments services
- Provide a sophisticated pricing engine with the integration with Dynamics ERP
- Provide a self-service web interface for your customers so that they can view and approve Sales Quotes or directly placing Orders.
- Provide product configurator functionality: If you have a complex product or service that customer would rather configure & send to you before discussing their need with you. This improves customer satisfaction and can reduce the sales close cycle time.
We took the concept of Commerce enablement for Microsoft Dynamics CRM one step further to ensure that we enable it in as seamless manner as possible. This is done via two key concepts – an integrated user interface & a Single Sign On facility for Microsoft Dynamics CRM users.
Single User Interface for your Sales Force & Customer Service Teams – “Read” Zero additional learning or Training
Microsoft Dynamics CRM has an awesome user interface that packs a lot of functionality in a Microsoft Office like manner ensuring a high level of user adoption & productivity. Ignify eCommerce plugs into that functionality seamlessly requiring zero learning or training. Given below is the screenshot of the Ribbon on the Customers Form in Microsoft Dynamics CRM as an example. The buttons highlighted in green launch Ignify Order Entry forms and are fully integrated within Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Figure 1 – Dynamics CRM Accounts Grid with eCommerce Enabled
These additional ribbon options on the Customer form allow you to:
- Enter a New Quote or New Order for a Customer (Account) right from the ribbon.
- Create a Quick Order List –a list of Item Code & Quantity – that you can use for repeat orders. These are usually targeted bundles that are offered during campaigns.
- Configure the Customer Loyalty / Reward Program, Pricing & various other Customer account related services such as Address Validation Service.
The same design continues when a sales rep is working on a Customer. The customer account screen shot below again shows the Ignify Order Entry buttons integrated on the account form.
Figure 2 – Dynamics CRM Account Entity Ribbon with eCommerce Enabled
This concept is used across the board in various Microsoft Dynamics CRM Ribbons & Sitemaps. This makes eCommerce features added to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, feel like a natural extension of native MS Dynamics CRM capabilities.
Single Sign On – Simple yet Powerful experience
In the unified CRM user interface explained above – clicking on a New Order button on the Account Grid or Entity Ribbon launches the window shown below which is just one click away from creating a Sales Order. The system would be able to identify the logged in Sales Rep & automatically login to Ignify eCommerce Manager Panel using Dynamics CRM credentials via Single Sign On.
Figure 3 – Single Sign on with Dynamics CRM makes using eCommerce Facilities a Breeze
Commerce Transactions on your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Solution
Ignify eCommerce as an offering has a fully integrated product catalog into Microsoft Dynamics CRM as well as various web services required to enable commerce.
Pricing Services
Ignify eCommerce has always been able to offer the same pricing that is configured in your Dynamics ERP. This allows for complex pricing rules that are setup in one place to be extended to Sales & Service organization using Dynamics CRM without the need to use another system. Ignify eCommerce also has inbuilt pricing rules that can be used in case you are not maintaining prices in your Dynamics ERP or not using Dynamics ERP. System calculated prices can be overridden by the Sales Rep using the system with appropriate security permissions. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Approval workflows can be used for Quote Approvals to ensure that while your Sales Force has the visibility to organization wide pricing information, you still retain the control on what level of discounting can be done by different levels within your organization.
Figure 4 – eCommerce Pricing Services on eCommerce enabled Dynamics CRM. Prices can be overridden.
Tax Services
You can import your taxes from Microsoft Dynamics ERP (if you are using Dynamics ERP) or use third party tax engines such as Avalara. Both are pre-integrated with Ignify eCommerce. These taxes are automatically calculated during Quote or Sales Order entry ensuring that your tax compliance is fully automated & does not burden your sales force.
Figure 5 – Tax Services on eCommerce enabled Dynamics CRM
Shipping Services
Ignify eCommerce integrates with small parcel carriers like UPS, FedEx & USPS. It also integrates with LTL carriers such as Yellow, Conway & Estes. All shipping methods offered by these carriers are available with real time quotes during Quote & Order entry to give an accurate quote to the Sales Rep. Sales Rep can obviously override these rates by offering additional discounts or by simply overriding the rate. Ignify eCommerce Shipping Quote engine has in built restrictions and other rules that can be exposed to sales and customer service representatives for ease of Quote/Order Entry.
Figure 6 – Shipping Quotation Services on eCommerce Enabled Dynamics CRM
Online Payment Services
Integration with more than 15 payment providers offers rich choices for choosing your online payment provider. All transactions including Authorization, Capture, Direct Charge & Refund are available to offer your Sales Organization facility to take instant decisions & execute transactions when they are on field in front of the customer.
Figure 7 – Online Payment Services on eCommerce Enabled Dynamics CRM
Minimal Click Experience for Quote or Order Entry for higher User Adoption
I had earlier blogged about how many clicks does it take to enter a Quote or Order Transaction. This can also take as little as two clicks, if you are working from a pre-configured list of items or if you are ordering from Customer’s purchase history. An excel like grid for entering lines does make entering a large quote or order much easier saving your Sales Force critical time.
Figure 8 – Excel line Quote/Order Line Entry with Auto Fill
A self-service 24 x 7 eCommerce Store Front for your Customers
Ignify eCommerce offers a robust & scalable eCommerce storefront for your customers to self-service themselves. Given below is an example of a grouped offering that can be used by your customers to directly place orders on your eCommerce Store Front. These orders would show up in Dynamics CRM against the Customer Account giving your sales rep visibility around eCommerce Transactions executed by the Customer and help Customer Service respond more effectively to any customer call.
Figure 9 – Self Service eCommerce Storefront powered by Ignify eCommerce
Creating Complex Product Offerings or Business Rules
Ignify eCommerce provides a rich, search engine optimized catalog with various facilities for offering Complex Products. These Products can be configured & used by your customers via a self-service eCommerce Portal. These can also be used by your Sales Reps using the inbuilt Quote and Order Entry mechanisms.
These complex relationships are reflected in Order Lines. Given below is an example of a California Waste Recycling Fee getting added on Sale of a Lenovo Laptop. A business rule that your Sales Reps do not have to worry about since it would get automatically added.
Figure 10 – California ewaste Recycling Fee Business Rule on eCommerce enabled Dynamics CRM
Pankaj Kumar is the Chief Technology Officer of Ignify. Ignify is a technology provider of eCommerce, Order Entry, ERP, and CRM software solutions to businesses and public sector organizations. Ignify eCommerce is the only PCI certified eCommerce solution in the market that integrates with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions. Ignify has been included as the fastest growing business in North America for 5 years in a row by Deloitte, Inc Magazine and Entrepreneur Magazine. Ignify is winner in the Red Herring Global 100 in 2010 and 2011 – this list represents the top businesses in North America with disruptive and innovative technology. Ignify is winner of the Microsoft Partner of the Year award in 2012 and 2011.
