Microsoft unveils new marketing, customer care and social listening capabilities

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq "MSFT") on Tuesday unveiled a comprehensive set of new Microsoft Dynamics CRM capabilities to help organizations match their customers to the right products and services, engage with them in the right way at the right time, and nurture their relationships. The new release is expected in the second quarter of 2014.

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Delivering on its promise of rapid innovation, the release adds new functionality to help marketers be smarter, enabling them to efficiently drive and manage their marketing campaigns; help businesses engage with and care for customers in a personalized manner on virtually any device, anywhere; and enhance capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 to help businesses sell more effectively. Breaking from typical industry practice, the update also brings social listening capabilities to every sales, service and marketing professional within an organization to empower more employees with deeper insights.

"Businesses want solutions that give them market insights and the ability to deliver amazing customer experiences," said Bob Stutz, corporate vice president, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "The new Microsoft Dynamics CRM update democratizes social listening, adds new marketing capabilities for more impact and enables businesses to deliver outstanding customer service. With this new release, we are essentially changing the CRM game."

Smarter marketing                                                                                  

Chief marketing officers (CMOs) want a marketing solution that helps them plan and execute great marketing campaigns, gives them insights into the impact of their marketing activities, and provides them with the ability to optimize marketing mix to deliver the most impact to their business.

Microsoft Dynamics Marketing (formerly MarketingPilot) delivers these capabilities by adding marketing automation functionality to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, delivering insights that will help marketers be smarter and more effectively engage with their customers. The new release builds on its marketing planning core and adds new features that include a visual campaign designer that allows marketers to design powerful marketing campaigns more intuitively and easier than ever. This enables CMOs to reach their customers more effectively across multiple channels. It also gives them new lead management and scoring capabilities, scalable email marketing that can deliver millions of messages per day, and deep marketing analytics so they can measure and improve the return on their marketing investments. These new capabilities will be offered in 35 markets in 10 languages.

Personalized customer care

Customer care, an organization's ability to support, engage and respond to the needs of customers, is an increasingly strategic part of any business. Successful organizations understand and have insight into customer needs across every channel, including the Web, social and mobile, to deliver the best customer care possible.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM enhances core case management capabilities and introduces a new Unified Service Desk, a powerful application designed for call centers that allows agents to handle multiple interactions simultaneously, increasing efficiency by automating repetitive tasks and displaying scripts to help agents provide a more personalized and effective service.

Alongside the capabilities gained in the recent acquisition of Parature, which closed Jan. 31, Microsoft Dynamics CRM now offers customers choice in deploying customer service capabilities ranging from self-service via support portals, Facebook and Twitter to Web chat and video capabilities, all leveraging a shared knowledge base to ensure the right answer can be delivered consistently on the right channel at the right time.

This new customer care solution ensures that all organizations can effectively handle interactions in the way each customer prefers and quickly respond to that person's needs, resulting in a smooth and more personalized experience for the customer each and every time.

Social for everyone

The secret to any great relationship starts with the ability to listen. To help sales, marketing and customer care professionals listen, gain insights and more effectively engage with customers across social channels, Microsoft has unveiled Microsoft Social Listening. This new service adds the capabilities for people to analyze and act on market intelligence from social conversations, including measuring sentiment across a wide array of social channels. It also allows users to track product, brand, competitor and campaigns globally and in real time to gain true understanding of their customers and their business across the social Web.

Breaking from industry norms, Microsoft believes that social capabilities are core to customer relationship management, so they should not be limited to an elite few at high costs. Enabling every employee within an organization, Microsoft Social Listening will be offered as part of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online professional licenses at no additional charge; on-premises customers can get Microsoft Social Listening for an incremental cost.

More information about this upcoming release is detailed in a blog post by Bob Stutz, at https://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmconnection/default.aspx. Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers and prospects can learn more about Microsoft Dynamics CRM at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/crm-vision.aspx. In addition, they can follow and engage with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM community @MSDynamicsCRM at http://www.twitter.com/msdynamicscrm.

About Microsoft Dynamics

At the heart of every successful business are the people who make things happen. Microsoft Dynamics designs modern business solutions that empower individuals with intuitive tools that allow them to do their best work. Our proactive, easy-to-use business applications adapt to the way people and systems work, enabling businesses to rapidly deploy and be forward-looking in an ever-changing world.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.