General CRM service question
I'm currently researching a possible implementation of MS CRM for our
company, and I have a few questions with regard to functionality that
I can't seem to find answers for in the publicly-available
documentation (I don't have a demo copy or MSDN subscription).
Specifically:
1) I would like a client to have the ability to view their previous
case histories with our Tech Support department. Does CRM Service
(standard) allow customers to do this via a web interface?
2) Does CRM Service have the ability to "capture" emails and assign it
to a case associated with a particular customer record in the
database? EX: if custo...@customerdomain.com directly emails one of
our tech support staff at tec...@ourdomain.com, can CRM grab this
email, associate it with a customer record, create a new case and
stick it in the support/case queue?
3) I understand that CRM Sales (standard) allows for sending
mass-emails to leads stored in the database. Does CRM have facilities
for measuring the performance of these emails (i.e. can CRM measure
how many emails were received/viewed, can it track click-throughs,
etc..)? Does it offer facilities for handling "unsubscribes"
automatically (i.e. with no intervention on our staff's part)?
1.The current release does not offer a Customer Portal. You could fairly
easily develop one using the SDK, or you could look at possible ISV
solutions. I have heard that this is something being considered fro future
releases, but no official word on it yet.
2.CRM does not profvide the ability to actually create a case from an email
in an automated fashion. What it can do though, is tie an inbound email
address to a support queue within the product. Then, the support staff can
determine if a new case needs to be opened or not based on the contect.
3.There is no integrated Marketing Campaign management in CRM. Again, this
is something that we should expect in future releases. There are several
ISV solutions for this though that you can add-on to CRM.