This article explains how you can use Power Platform to build custom apps that extend the functionality of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement to empower employees and give them the information they need to perform their jobs more effectively.
Originally published in H1 2019 CRMUG Magazine
Over the last five years or so, Microsoft has brought paradigm shifts to the whole concept of customer relationship management (CRM). Yes, the foundation of CRM is still the same—customers—but the way businesses interact with their customers has seen significant changes. Customers have several options now, and it is very easy for them to switch to a competitor if they see lack of interest or service from the business they were originally interested in.
For that reason (and many others), businesses depend on a solution like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement for automating sales (tracking revenue, activities, etc.), marketing (nurturing prospects and customers, tracking web traffic), and customer service (providing support, answering questions, fixing issues at customer locations). All of that works very well for the most part, but depending on who your customers are, sometimes things fall apart in the last mile.
What Does “Last Mile” Mean?
“Last mile” is a major buzzword right now, especially as it relates to Microsoft Power Apps. To understand the concept behind the buzz, let’s consider a company that spends millions of dollars on CRM and other software to help induce customers to buy their product. Perhaps the various parts of said product are created in multiple countries, shipped to the U.S., and driven across the country to stores or warehouses to facilitate a customer’s purchase, all of which is nicely tracked in the CRM solution. Then, after all that complexity, the sale falls apart in the “last mile,” which is the seemingly simple act of delivering said product to the customer’s house.*
In a B2B scenario, we can extend the last mile concept to our traditional traveling salesperson who is on the road quite frequently to meet customers and prospects. For traveling salespeople, there are certain things that are extremely important to make them as efficient and productive as possible. They certainly want the ability to not only quickly see where they are going next, but also want driving directions to the customer location from their current location. In addition, they would like to see who they can meet within a certain distance from their current location. As they go from one customer location to another, they want the ability to quickly enter notes in CRM to update everyone on how the meeting went.
Some salespeople meet prospects very often, which means they exchange business cards with them. The consensus around business cards is that they want to scan them! Take a quick photo of the card, and that information gets entered into CRM. Done!
This is just the beginning of a very common list of requirements. In other scenarios, agents or technicians who visit customers’ houses to fix or install equipment need the ability to not only take photos, but also draw on them before saving. You can see how anyone who is customer-facing has different needs based on the activities they are performing. If your business uses Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement, you probably know that these features are not available in the free, out-of-the-box mobile app.
Traditionally, providing these functions to traveling Users has been possible but not in a cost-effective manner. Businesses either have to build custom mobile apps for their employees, which is very time-consuming and expensive, or buy an off-the-shelf app which would cost, let’s say, $10 per user per month (that’s a conservative estimate) and probably provide some of the functions but not all. If they want everything, they must buy multiple apps.
Over a period of time, these costs add up. Did we mention many businesses don’t have this kind of budget to begin with?
Eventually, the fancy CRM that the business implemented takes a hit from a User adoption perspective because the employees who should be using it in the “last mile” refuse to use it because it doesn’t give them what they really need.
Power Platform
So, what do businesses do in this case? How would they empower their employees and give them what they really need without breaking the bank? This is where Power Platform comes in. Power Platform consists of Power Apps, Power BI, and Flow. Power Apps is the platform that allows businesses to create really amazing apps with minimal effort. What’s incredible is that it comes with more than 200 connectors, one of which happens to be Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement. So, you create a blank app, connect it to your instance, write some formulas and functions, and boom! You have a fully functioning app ready immediately!
Let’s come back to the example we shared above. For a traveling salesperson, you can build a “Sales Toolbelt” app in Power Apps that has everything a salesperson needs while on the road meeting with customers. The home screen gives them access to everything that they are interested in: opportunities, accounts, appointments, leads, contacts, and more (Figure 1).
Going into Appointments, for example, brings up a screen that shows Users not only appointment details, but also gives them the ability to call and email the customer as well as get driving directions to the appointment from the current location, all with a single click. In addition, they can speak into the app to update appointment notes (Figure 2).
At the bottom center, you can add a map icon that shows all appointments (or accounts, contacts, leads, anything else) in a five- to 50-mile radius (Figure 3).
Leads and contacts, in addition to showing related information, can provide the ability to scan business cards to make adding lead or contact information a complete breeze (Figure 4).
You can also add a chat bot on each screen that can answer questions for the salesperson:
“What PowerPoint template do I use for my presentation?”
“How do I get technical sales involved for a demo?”
“Who do I get involved for manufacturing opportunities?”
These are the kinds of questions the chat bot can easily answer within a matter of seconds, thus allowing the salespeople to be most efficient with their time.
Whew! We can go on and on about other things an app like Sales Toolbelt can do! But as you can see, this app fills many gaps that the out-of-the-box Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Customer Engagement app doesn’t have. Moreover, you have full control over the User interface, the look and feel of the app. Additionally, you can add enhanced features like business card scanning and voice-to-text with some simple Azure functions.
But why only create apps for the traveling salespeople? Power Platform gives us the flexibility to create apps for just about everyone in the organization. At PowerObjects, we have created some really cool apps used by our employees that can help reset their Windows passwords and BitLocker key for their laptops if they ever get locked out. Just like salespeople, our consultants travel a fair bit to customer sites, and in case they are locked out of their computers while in transit, we want them to fully support them and take care of their issues without them having to panic and frantically call our support team! Speaking of support teams: We also created an app that allows us to create User and computer accounts globally in a very secure fashion without needing VPN lines or remote desktop!
We encourage you to explore Power Platform to see how you can find quick, cost-effective solutions to address some pressing pain points or to automate several manual tasks your organization may have!
*Read more at https://www.powerobjects.com/2018/10/24/fill-last-mile-gaps-powerapps/.