Solar Company in Canada Upgrade NAV 2018 to Business Central with CRM

A leading solar solutions provider in North America was losing deals to slow sales cycles, disconnected tools, and manual processes. They are based in Brampton, Ontario and reached Dynamics Square Canada to centralize leads, automate proposals, and enhance support service by implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales & Business Central and integrating intended solutions. Dynamics Square Canada is a leading Microsoft Dynamics Partner in Ontario with 14+ years of experience.

Client Overview

The company is a leading provider of solar energy solutions in North America and a supplier of solar panels, energy storage, and other related services. Renowned for its innovative offerings and dedication to sustainable energy, the company serves both residential and commercial customers while providing a total, integrated energy solution.

What Were the Business Challenges and Solutions?

The company had several operational challenges inhibiting growth and efficiency in its sales, marketing and support functions. The following were the challenges that were addressed:

Disconnected Sales, Marketing, and Support Processes

The Challenge:

The sales, marketing, and customer support teams operated independently of one another. There was no single platform for lead tracking, opportunity management, or post-sales support. This led to lost opportunities, inconsistent follow-ups, and an inefficient opportunity-to-proposal cycle.

The Solution:

Lead Management & Opportunity Management: Microsoft Dynamics CRM provided them with a single platform to track leads and opportunities which gave them a linear process (contact with lead to opportunity to proposal/contract) to manage their sales process.

Call for Proposal Tracking: Right from the start, the customizable features allowed them to effectively track proposal requests, and it also made it easy to ask team members to file the follow-up on a timely matter and attach accurate documentation.

Automatic Lead Assignment: With automation, leads were instantly routed to the respective sales representatives, minimizing any delays in follow-ups.

Quotation & Proposal Management: Proposals and quotations were allowed to be customized and seamlessly integrated from Opportunity so that pricing remained accurate and avoidable manual errors were reduced.

The Results:

The sales and marketing departments are now operating on a single platform causing an increase in the lead-conversion rate and time for sending a proposal has been drastically reduced. The automatic lead assignment allows every sales rep to ensure that they are getting leads promptly to follow up with.

Inefficient Marketing Execution

The Problem:

The marketing department could not coordinate due to silos. The tools available at the time hindered segmentation specific to campaigns and the ability to measure results. The company lost opportunities for engagement with customers and prospects.

Solution:

Marketing Lists and Email Campaigns: A CRM system like Dynamics 365 enables the company to segment its contacts by many different criteria, which enables them to create targeted and personalized email campaigns that are more effective.

The Ability to Setup a Specific Mailbox for Email campaigns: Using a mailbox configured to send email campaigns alleviates the inefficiencies of sending manual emails.

Goal Setup: The ability to set marketing goals, ongoing tracking, and measure campaigns using Dynamics 365 enables the marketing team to achieve the selling organization's objectives.

Result:

The marketing team now executes personalized, automated campaigns that target the right audience at the right time, which means their engagement rates and the effectiveness of campaigns have improved noticeably.

Unstructured Support Process for Post Sales

The Problem:

The organization did not have a structured process for issuing post-sales support, which disappointed customers and delayed issue resolutions. Email was used to deal with support queries, which resulted in inconsistent support service levels.

The Solution:

Post-Sales Case Management: The Post-Sales team can now track and manage customer cases from post-sale onboarding through to when the case is resolved using a fully structured process in Dynamics 365 CRM.

SLAs & Entitlements: The company put SLAs in place for the first response and resolution. Through SLAs, the company could ensure a consistent level of service to ensure support was timely. The company could also track entitlements, so support was on par with customer needs based on their service agreements.

Knowledge Articles: The Customer Support teams had access to a knowledge base of articles and solutions related to common customer needs and issues, allowing them to quickly find solutions for customers.

Email-to-Case Automatic Suggestions: For every email that comes into the Customer Support email address, we would automatically suggest a converted case, so no support requests would be missed.

The Result:

Customer Satisfaction improved as we followed these cases from start to finish ensuring we managed them properly. All SLAs had to be complied with ensuring support was timely; the knowledge base ensured issues were resolved quicker based on historical issues and avoidance of repeat Customer queries.

Manual Data Entry + Separate Systems

The Problem:

This company had duplicated data and manual entry errors corresponding with the use of multiple systems and different platforms. They would enter the same information into multiple platforms which took time and created discrepancies.

Solution:

Dynamics CRM + Outlook: This integration allowed the company to track emails, appointments, and action items directly within their CRM, allowing them to eliminate manual entry and ensure that all customer interactions were current.

SharePoint: The company stored contracts, proposals and invoices so they could work on or access documents in SharePoint from within the CRM to improve collaboration.

DocuSign: The use of DocuSign allowed the company to track contract signing processes that had agreements and signatures inside of CRM and created an automated process.

Business Central: The financial and order data synced between CRM and Business Central for accurate and current financial reporting. 

Result:

Now, the company has an integrated system which reduces their manual data entry errors and provides a more efficient process; the data is now synced in real-time across the systems so teams can always work with current information.

Fragmented Reporting and Lack of Actionable Insights

Solution:

Real-time Dashboards: Fully functional dashboards provided real-time visibility of key metrics including sales pipeline, case resolution times, and marketing campaign performance.

Custom Reporting: Dynamics 365 allowed the company to customize reports and drill into specific areas of its business for deeper analysis.

Goal Tracking: Sales goals were tracked in real-time, allowing for better tracking of performance.

Result:

Leadership had full visibility across all operations. Real-time dashboards and customized reports informed the decision-making process and strategy, leading to increased organizational performance. 

Why Dynamics Square was the Right Partner?

Partnering with Dynamics Square, a trusted Microsoft Solutions Partner, was critical to the successful implementation of Dynamics 365 CRM solution and Business Central. With demonstrated industry knowledge and experience deploying Microsoft business applications, Dynamics Square provided: 

• Customized consultation and strategic planning that aligned with the solar energy business model of the company.

• Fast and seamless implementation and system integration that required little adjustment for the client’s employees.

• Ongoing support and ensuring the company could implement further optimization services as the business grew and made changes. 

Dynamics Square not only advised the company on new technology but also transformed the way the company did business, setting the stage for future growth and operational excellence.

Conclusion

By using Dynamics 365 CRM in conjunction with Business Central, the company has successfully improved their business operations, expanded its customer service capabilities, and gathered important business intelligence. The integrated system allows the company to track leads, proposals, and post-sales support, resulting in a more synchronized entire organization on the same page, working together toward the same common business objectives.

Key benefits achieved included:

• Faster, more efficient sales and marketing and support calls.

• Overall better customer service, faster response and tracking, and proactive support.

• On-demand dashboards and reports improved visibility to make better data-driven decisions.

• Significantly improved operations through system integrations, reducing manual typing entry and duplication.