Microsoft is launching Viva Sales, which the Redmond, Wash. IT giant calls a new seller tool that combines any customer relationship management (CRM) technology, Microsoft 365 and Teams to provide a streamlined and intelligence selling experience.
Microsoft bills the new offering as a way to keep hybrid and remote salespeople productive while navigating between CRMs, videoconferences, chats, email and documents to connect with customers and close deals.
Calling Viva Sales a “smart CRM companion in a blog, Microsoft says the app helps connect customer and deal insights that are already in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Office apps.
Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft, writes in an announcement blog that Viva Sales enhances the CRM system with data from Microsoft apps to help sellers be more connected with customers and provide a more personalized customer experience.
Althoff says this happens through a simple customer tagging feature, automating the data capture to save the salesperson time and provide their organization with a more complete picture of deal and customer status.
“With AI embedded throughout, Viva Sales is like a sales coach to move deals along with recommendations and reminders,” Althoff writes. “This intelligence layer provides sellers the information they need to help them be more productive.”
According to Microsoft, Viva Sales recommends next steps to progress a customer through the sales funnel and prioritizes work and next steps to help sellers close deals and enhance customer engagement.
Microsoft did not detail exactly which CRMs the tool works with, instead saying Viva Sales can help enrich “any” CRM system, in addition to the company’s own Dynamics 365 Sales app.
Viva Sales builds on Microsoft Viva, the company’s new employee experience and engagement tool that was launched last year.
“The future of selling isn’t a new system. It’s bringing the information sellers need at the right time, with the right context, into the tools they know, so their work experience can be streamlined,” Althoff says. “Empowering sellers to spend more time with their customers has been our goal — and we’ve done that by reimagining the selling experience with Viva Sales.”
This article originally appeared on Commercial Integrator’s sister-site MyTechDecisions.com.
