How Dynamics 365 customized workflows make you more efficient and profitable

One of the most useful features in Dynamics 365 is the ability to create customized workflows. In fact, customized workflows make you more efficient and profitable. Yet, many users fail to fully utilize this powerful tool.

Let’s look at 3 ways customized workflows make you more efficient and profitable.

No 1: Stay on top of your sales leads

In an ideal world, sales managers would be in constant contact with their reps and everyone would be pulling in the same direction. But, we all know that perfection is rarely met in a busy sales office.

Hundreds of leads are coming in every week. It is nearly impossible to stay fully informed with each one. As a manager you need help and that’s where Dynamics 365 comes in. 

A simple workflow can be set up that triggers an alert to be sent out to a manager or salesperson once a certain criteria is met. That way you know that nothing is getting missed.

Let’s say a lead is qualified in the financial services industry and you have a salesperson on staff who specializes in selling to banks. So long as you have a workflow set-up to alert him or her, then you can be confident that the lead is being followed-up on by the appropriate person. As a manager, you may allow your sales staff autonomy to chase certain opportunities without direction from you. However, you’ll want to be made aware of larger deals that are coming in. Simply design a workflow that triggers an alert to management when deals of a certain value are qualified.

Below is an example of what these workflow might look like in Dynamics 365. First, an industry-specific workflow:

Here is a revenue-based workflow:

So long as it’s an A (the criteria) equals B (the result) scenario, there is no limit to the type of sales workflows you can customize in Dynamics 365.

No 2: Accounts, Memberships and other renewals

The clerical needs of any organization are vital to their success. However, in a time when many companies or organizations cannot afford to hire administrative staff, or are forced to rely on part-time/volunteer staff to handle things like billing and membership renewal, it’s possible that things can fall through the cracks.

This is where workflows can be invaluable.

Using the same A equals B formula explained above, you can trigger alerts to be sent out to the relevant people, when appropriate.

Let’s say you’re running a Membership Association and you rely on dues to fund much of your operation. Obviously, you’ll want to make sure you are getting them paid in a timely matter. You could set up a workflow that would be triggered to send a reminder to your member at 60 days. If the member didn’t respond to that invoice, you could have a second workflow at 30 days. A final workflow could be triggered at 14 days that is sent to a staff member to reach out to the member to see if there is a reason they haven’t yet paid.

Most members will appreciate a gentle reminder that their fees are due and, if there is a problem, having that alert sent to a staff tasked with reaching out can possibly save a relationship that might have otherwise been lost.    

No 3: Keep your customers happy

Workflows don’t have to be restricted to sales and administrative tasks. They can also be used for customer relations. In many ways, this might be the most useful feature as it is well established that maintaining a customer is more important to profitability than finding a new one.

How do you keep your customers happy? One great way is to simply make them feel heard. You can set up a workflow that is triggered to send a customer satisfaction survey out after a payment is recorded. Not only do you then benefit from getting honest feedback, but your customer feels that their concerns are important to you.

This can also benefit you when a customer expresses a concern to you. A workflow can be created that sends an alert to a staff to reach out when an issue is raised.

It could even be as simple as an automatic birthday greeting being triggered – everyone likes to be told Happy Birthday!

Customized workflows can drive your business forward. If you are looking for more information on how you can implement Dynamics365, or add customization to an existing system, why not give our experts a shout.