Microsoft Business Solutions and Network Associatestoday announced a relationship, based on a letter of agreement, to provide innovative solutions for customer relationship management (CRM) and help desk customers at Convergence, Microsoft Business Solutions" customer conference in Orlando, Fla. Network Associates will provide a new help desk offering that integrates the company"s Magic Solutions HelpDesk IQ product, also announced today, with the Microsoft® Business Solutions CRM (Microsoft CRM) platform. The combined solution is designed to provide additional help desk functionality for businesses, which are experiencing an increasing demand from customers and business partners to conduct more business processes electronically.
"Advanced help desk and CRM solutions will enable businesses to increase their level of customer service while enabling them to support the company"s overall business strategy and operational efficiency," said Karen Smith, research director, customer relationship management, at Aberdeen Group. "In the past, help desk integration has been one of the missing components in many CRM strategies. Today, Aberdeen sees growing interest in new, integrated approaches -- that are easier to implement and maintain -- to help companies automate and improve many business and support processes."
Integrating Magic"s best-of-breed help desk functionality into Microsoft CRM Customer Service Professional Edition, Network Associates" offering will provide the tools needed to increase customer satisfaction levels through greater visibility into the productivity of processes, people and services. By allowing IT and help desk information to be instantly available via the self-service portal, help desk administrators can easily and quickly reduce problem resolution times, facilitating increased productivity and lower cost of ownership.