Socket Mobile enhances user experience with Dynamics 365

Socket Mobile had been using Microsoft Dynamics 365 for three years, but its external support resource wasn’t providing the accessibility or coverage that it needed as Anna Buckman, Global Sales Systems Manager at Socket Mobile explains: “We were reliant on one person to support our global Dynamics 365 deployment, but they had less capacity to help us. Increasingly, we were waiting longer for support and resolutions for routine requests would often take several weeks, so these delays were beginning to hold us back. My role had changed to manage all of the systems used in our sales processes, including responsibility for leading our Dynamics project. As I am based in the UK, we sought a larger provider closer to my time zone that would be responsive.” 

Anna highlights some of the improvements that Socket Mobile made to its Dynamics 365 configuration through managed service during the last 12 months: “Preact made us aware of the new unified interface and we’ve now completed our migration which has proved timely. We weren’t looking to be early adopters, but we did want to avoid remaining on an older interface that Microsoft had stopped developing. From our research and testing we saw that the unified interface offered some new features that could improve the experience for our users. We’d also identified some gaps, so we arranged a day with Preact to work through these and adapt the new UI before deploying it to our team. 

 This involved a significant change in the handling of some processes, so I created new user documentation including ‘how to’ guides which covered the main changes and explained how the new interface works. During our transition to the unified interface, they made further changes in response to user requests so that after a couple of weeks we were able to switch off the old interface and we’ve seen positive feedback since everyone moved across.” 

For another project, Socket Mobile used its managed service to improve the segmentation and analysis of its sales data: “We work with diverse organisations including distributors, resellers and directly with end-users. Through an account categorisation process that Preact has implemented, we’ve been able to build a better understanding of each account that includes primary and sub-categories. This is giving us a clearer understanding of the opportunities in the channel and provides a good steer on important focus areas. Each opportunity that our team is working on is also categorised and they helped us adapt this process to better understand all aspects of each potential deal. This includes being able to rank opportunities, which is supported by a confidence score that represents the likelihood of a deal being won.”