Exercise 1: Customize the sales process

Scenario: Contoso Home Security

Contoso Home Security is a direct-to-consumer home security equipment and monitoring company. Their products include smart doorbells, smart thermostats, security systems, moisture sensors, and more. Since they are direct to consumer, their products are sold either online or in their retail stores across 11 major US cities. Online customers are assigned an account representative. Their role is to follow up with the customer and attempt to provide them with additional products and services.

The Contoso sales process

Account representatives are assigned to any corporate accounts that are looking for security solutions. Corporate sales generally take longer and include several different stages and tasks.

An example of a sales process might include the following stages:

  • Qualify: This is where the account executive attempts to determine if we would be a good fit for a customer.
  • Develop: This is where the account executive works with other members of the sales team to create a solution that would best suit the customer. During this stage, accounts execs should include relevant products from the Contoso product catalog.
  • Quote: This is where the executive will build out and deliver a quote to the customer. A quote might go through multiple iterations before the customer signs off.
  • Tech Check: This stage only applies to deals that are valued at more than $20,000.00 dollars. The solution needs to be verified by a technical consultant before being closed.
  • Close: This is where the account executive walks through the deal one more time and ensures that the customer is ready to sign off.

Lead nurturing

Contoso also has a lead nurturing program that they use to maximize the possibilities of closing a deal. The lead nurturing program consists of the following:

  1. Introduction Phone Call: The account executive calls the customer to introduce Contoso and the products we sell.
  2. Information Email: One day after the initial phone call the account executive will send the customer an email. The email will include details about Contoso Home Security and the products they sell.
  3. Check-in email: Three days after the Introduction email, another email is sent to the customer to see if they have any questions we can answer.
  4. Schedule Appointment Phone Call: Two days after the check-in email, they should receive another phone call where the account executive attempts to get a meeting with the customer to qualify or disqualify them.

Important details

  • The lead nurturing process should only be applied to customers who are labeled as corporate accounts.
  • Contoso Home Security does not refer to their opportunities as opportunities: they call them Deals.
  • Deals that are worth more than $20,00.00 require tech checks. This step is required, and the deal cannot move forward if this has not been accomplished.
    • The tech check and its details need to be noted and logged with the deal. They need to identify which team member did it, the date it was done, and any other relevant details. If everything checks out, that needs to be noted as well.
  • Not all of Contoso’s sales are logged in their CRM system.
    • Transactions from their retail stores are stored in a separate Point of Sale system.
    • Online Transactions are stored in a separate Ecommerce site.
  • Contoso also has a Loyalty program that customers can enroll in. This information is also stored in a separate site.

Since Contoso has customer information in multiple places, they often struggle to maintain a complete understanding of who the customer is across their entire organizations. They would like a way to consolidate all this data into one singular view.

Data sources can be found in the following CSV file paths:

  • Customers: https://aka.ms/CI-ILT/Contacts
  • POS retail transactions: https://aka.ms/CI-ILT/POSPurchases
  • Online transactions: https://aka.ms/CI-ILT/OnlinePurchases
  • Loyalty Program Customers: https://aka.ms/CI-ILT/LoyaltySchemeCustomers