Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

Bidvest Bank, a vendor of specialized foreign exchange and banking services in southern Africa, through its retail brand, Rennies Foreign Exchange, has implemented Microsoft’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to improve services to clients.

 

Microsoft Gold Certified partner, IS Partners, was responsible for the implementation. Bidvest Bank officials say the bank is “unique,” in that its “niche success includes foreign exchange, trade finance and related activities.”

 

The CRM product encompasses contact management, sales force automation and basic case management components to address the bank’s key objectives of improving customer retention and profitability, as well as customer growth and efficiencies.

 

“Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 has provided a central repository of client-based information to be used by staff and executive management. Sales and marketing staff, for example, are primarily responsible for capturing client contact and related information into the CRM system,” says Heath Turner, CRM director at IS Partners.

 

Bidvest Bank’s product sales stages include client contact, credit evaluation and facility documentation. The processes involved in the various sales stages have been automated for each product category, such as credit and non-credit, for example.

 

Basic case management has further ensured that any queries and service-related issues can be captured against a client and assigned to the staff member responsible. Excel templates have also been provided for data take-on, and have been populated from the bank’s source systems.

 

“All Bidvest Bank’s transactional data resides in two core systems. These include the treasury, derivatives and capital markets system and the debtors and collections management system,” explains Turner. “The CRM system is fully integrated to ensure new or updated customer information, which resides in the CRM system, can be directly uploaded to the operational systems.”

 

Last week Microsoft Dynamics CRM and CRM4Legal by Client Profiles, Inc., were chosen by Reed Smith LLP, one of the 20 largest law firms in the world, to provide CRM technologies and consultancy services.

 

The technology and services from Microsoft and Client Profiles are designed to “complement and enhance the firm’s ongoing commitment to advancing its reputation as a global leader in client service among law firms,” according to company officials.

 

Reed Smith has more than 1,500 lawyers in 21 offices throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East, with a focus on customer service: In 2007, Reed Smith was once again named to the BTI Client Service A-Team, ranking fourth among law firms in the United States for developing and maintaining superior client relationships, according to company officials.