Most companies have two main parts for their customer lifecycle; customer acquisition and service delivery. During the customer acquisition phase, the salesperson is very active in gaining the customer’s trust, after the customer decides to purchase the service/product, it’s your job to provide value, and trust that has been promised to them, this opportunity can be changed to won within your Microsoft Dynamics CRM system; however, if they didn’t follow through with the purchase they became a lost opportunity. During the service delivery phrase, the product/service is being delivered, and then there is no more interaction with the salesperson they trusted, but instead systems, automatic emails, and customer service.

The point here is that after the customer purchased the product/service, the salesperson has an opportunity to nurture their clients and turn them into long-term clients. They didn’t just buy the product or the service; they also bought the trust and bond that that was established through time, and this relationship should not be taken for granted. The moment a customer feels like their trust has been violated they’re going to look elsewhere for their products/services.

In Microsoft Dynamics for Sales once an opportunity has turned into a won-opportunity the company name can be added as an account. The actual client is added as a contact, and future interactions are quick and easy. Sending them personalized emails right from the system to check in on them, make sure the product/service is working out, and how you can help them in the future. When you use Microsoft Dynamics for Sales, there is no reason why any customers, new or old, ever feel like their left in the dark. If you wish to take a test drive of this system, please visit our free CRM demo http://www.websan.com/demo/dynamics-crm and see what this system can do.

Crystal Williams, Web Marketing Assistant, WebSan Solutions Inc.,a 2017 Microsoft Modern Marketing Innovation Award Winner

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If you have a lot of data that doesn’t quite fit into one of Dynamics CRM 2011’s existing entities, you may decide to create your own custom entity and fields to house that data of yours.  If you take this route, don’t waste your time building the entity and creating all of your fields ahead of time!  Instead, you can use CRM 2011’s Import Data Wizard, which allows you to create entities and fields on the fly as you import the data for this new entity.

After selecting the file you want to import in the Import Data Wizard, you will reach the Map Record Types step of the Wizard – here, you can select to “Create New” Dynamics CRM Record Type, which will prompt you for more information to create the new entity within the Wizard.  Next, you’ll reach the Map Fields step – here, you can dynamically create new fields for each column in your import file (or ignore fields that you don’t want to bring into CRM).  While doing so, it even defaults the Field Name to match the column header from your import file, so all you really have to do is select the type of field that it is.  And if that wasn’t enough – if you select “Option Set” as the field type, the Wizard will automatically create values for your option set based on the unique values in that column of your data file!  The only thing left to do at this point is to set any additional options on your new entity as necessary and configure the entity form that will be used to manage the data – both of which can be done through the usual customizations window.

So if you find yourself needing to create a new entity along with having to import your data into this new entity, save yourself some time by combining both steps into one using this helpful trick in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Import Data Wizard.

Rahim Jiwani is an Implementation Lead at WebSan Solutions Inc, a Microsoft Dynamics GP Silver Partner & 2012 Microsoft Impact Awards Finalist. Rahim can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 416-499-1235 ext 217.