Cisco, Microsoft Together for SMB CRM

Noting that “seventy percent of all customer interactions take place over the phone,” Peter Alexander, vice president for small and medium business marketing at Cisco Systems (News - Alert), announced the release of Cisco Unified CRM Connector 3.0, a customer relationship management (CRM) application integrated with Microsoft (News - Alert) Dynamics CRM 3.0.

The product is billed by Cisco officials as helping small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) gain access to customer information on inbound and outbound calls, “increasing operational efficiency and providing an improved customer experience.”

In related news today, Cisco announced the introduction of its new FastStart program for Cisco and Microsoft partners, described by company officials as “providing resources to help them sell Cisco Unified Communications and Microsoft Dynamics CRM products.”

In collaboration, the two companies have developed a channel and partner self-service Website to support the delivery of products to small and medium-sized organizations.

The Cisco Unified CRM Connector 3.0 helps to provide a complete view of the customer, including current and past purchases, sales information, order status, account relationships, and billing information, company officials say.

When a call is received by the Cisco Unified CallManager or Cisco Unified CallManager Express, the Cisco Unified CRM Connector 3.0 links to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system and provides onscreen pop-up windows of the customer contact record and phone call activity so that the service agent can track the call. The same information and capabilities are also accessible remotely. New customer data or phone call information is uploaded back into the system, so the next interaction picks up where the last one left off.

Features in the Cisco Unified CRM Connector 3.0 include an Internet Protocol phone service that pushes complete customer information to Cisco Unified IP phones from inbound calls that match a customer record. The IP phone lookup service allows users to view customer contact information from any Cisco XML extensible markup language display-capable Unified IP phone.

Additional features include fast and easy click-to-dial functionality for accessing CRM contact records, call-duration tracking, and detailed call-information capture. Using the technology, Dominic Roberts, vice president of information systems at GreenStone Farm Credit Services says, “by the time our representatives answer the phone and say, ‘Thank you for calling GreenStone,’ they have a complete history of that customer.”

The FastStart Website includes self-service resources such as Cisco Unified CRM Connector 3.0 download, the Cisco and Microsoft partner locator, sales tools and demonstration script, the event-in-a-box and demand-generation campaign kit, end-user content, and a request form to schedule the Microsoft Across America truck for local events.

The Cisco Unified CRM Connector 3.0 is a promotional offer now available to select Cisco and Microsoft specialized partners in the United States and Canada.

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David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.

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