CRM from Microsoft for Rand Water Implemented

By David Sims

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

IT services and products seller Datacentrix is in the process of implementing Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamics CRM 4.0 for South Africa's Rand Water's Customer Service and Corporate Communications departments, replacing its legacy system.

 

The initial phase of the project has seen the CRM product rolled out to Rand Water's Customer Service Center as a tool to log calls and assign actions to the relevant people across the organization.

 

According to Phokeng Mohatlane, Account Director at Datacentrix, Rand Water wanted to manage the turnaround time on the calls received to its call center and also the volume of calls processed per agent. "Essentially, Rand Water needed a product that would provide the Customer Service department with the ability to deliver consistent customer experiences," he said, adding that "in terms of the Corporate Communications department, the company's objective was to deliver 'impactful' marketing campaigns, as well as consistent communication and professional events management."

Steven Moodley, Manager IT Applications at Rand Water's IT & KM Division, said the product has "affordable license fees and fewer customizations to be made to the system to fulfill our specific requirements, resulting in future cost savings and effectiveness through replacing the legacy CRM system with MS CRM."

 

David Yack, a technologist and author, has recently published a book targeted to traditional CRM developers and broader use for building a line of business applications.

 

With the newest release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM a "whole new platform emerged for custom software development," Yack says. His 645-page book, CRM as a Rapid Development Platform, includes a large number of samples and step by step instructions on how to implement them to any product.

 

Yack says it's the first book on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 "specifically targeted to developers." Traditionally, CRM has long been used to manage contacts and accounts to manage the sales process, he says, but now "a new trend is coming to the forefront, XRM. XRM is about helping people manage all kinds of connections and relationships of all forms: government to citizen, politician to constituents, and so many more."

 

Published by Colorado Springs-based We Speak You Learn, the book's format is easy to follow either start to finish or one chapter at a time. It's available in both print and e-book formats.

 

Yack is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and a Microsoft Regional Director. He is also the co-author of two other books on Microsoft technologies, including ASP.NET (News - Alert) MVP Hacks, published by Wrox.