What Makes Microsoft Dynamics CRM a Leading Customer Service Contact Center?

Monday, April 19, 2010 by Julie Stankey

Gartner’s annual Magic Quadrant for Customer Service Contact Centers compares the customer service interaction capabilities of a number of CRM solutions and rank them as leaders, challengers, niche players, or visionaries based on the completeness of their vision and their ability to execute that vision.

According to Gartner, “Leaders demonstrate market-defining vision and the ability to execute against that vision through products, services, demonstrable sales figures, and solid new references for multiple geographies and vertical industries. Clients report that the vendors deliver a high level of value and return on their commitment. The development team has a clear vision of the implications of business rules, and the impact of social networking on customer service requirements. A characteristic of a leader is that clients look to the vendor for clues as to how to innovate in customer service.”

Once again, Microsoft Dynamics CRM has made it into the leaders quadrant with other top names in the industry, including salesforce.com, Oracle (Siebel), RightNow, and Pegasystems.  But what sets Dynamics CRM and these other solutions apart from their competition as industry leaders in customer service?

Gartner research indicates that:

Through 2011, 30% of organizations moving to a new platform will select a software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment for customer service functions. 

Through 2013, customer service strategies will be directed by the following four initiatives:

• Tying all service interaction channels together
• Integrating social CRM capabilities (by 2013, at least 35% of customer service centers will integrate some form of community/social capabilities as a part of the contact center solution)
• Analysis of the customer experience
• Business rules and knowledge will be applied in real time

Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the other CRM solutions in the leaders quadrant have strategies in place to address each of these initiatives and serve clients looking for a SaaS deployment for their customer service software: 

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is the full-featured SaaS alternative to Microsoft’s on-premise CRM solution.  Both Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on-premise) leverage “Accelerators” to extend the core product’s functionality at no additional cost to users. 

Read about the Social Networking Accelerator for Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Last week, Microsoft announced the upcoming release of the Customer Care Accelerator for Dynamics CRM. This new accelerator helps provide a consistent customer service experience by combining data elements from disparate applications such as mainframes, databases or Web sites for display in a single user interface. Gain quick and easy access to information, empower your agents to provide more efficient service, and improve overall customer satisfaction.