Author : Keith Overa, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Business Applications

It is exciting to see partners starting to use Microsoft Copilot in practical ways so customers can achieve new levels of efficiency and better business outcomes. A great example of this is CongruentX, who is implementing Microsoft Copilot for Sales to help clients get more value out of their customer relationship management (CRM) investments. 

Dynamics 365 and Power Platform already were helping CongruentX drive a successful business strategy centered around smaller projects that deliver immediate business value. Now that Copilot has been added to the equation, the company sees significant opportunity to create an even bigger impact. 

“The way we see it is people have bought half a trillion dollars work of CRM technology over the last five years, and yet large numbers of customers are still seeing win rates, quota attainment, and the number of meaningful activities fall,” said Chuck Ingram, CEO of CongruentX. “AI is absolutely the technology we need to take a company’s revenue engine and put it in overdrive, and Copilot for Sales and Dynamics 365 will help us get there.”

 

Why Copilot for Sales is a critical tool for improving CRM success

When Microsoft Copilot for Sales was released, CongruentX immediately saw the potential for helping its customers improve revenue generation outcomes because it removes the friction of collecting data for sales organizations. “One of the biggest hurdles to CRM success is adoption within sales teams,” said Ingram. “Using AI conversational intelligence and enterprise data, we can win over the sales teams because the system not only helps them remove manual data recording tasks, but give sellers AI-infused insights to be more successful in their work.” 

For example, Copilot for Sales provides the ability to automate the creation of meeting summaries, which CongruentX has shown saves sellers an average of six to seven hours a week—almost a full workday. In addition, the CongruentX team has collected data that indicates sellers who send a summary and next steps to customers within three hours of a meeting increase the probability of closing the deal by 67 percent. Copilot for Sales makes this fast follow-up possible, meaning it not only saves time, but also directly improves seller results—positively reinforcing CRM usage practices. “That’s real money, real metrics, real benefits the sellers are seeing,” said Chris Cognetta, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at CongruentX. “And with AI, it’s really only the tip of the iceberg of what can be achieved.”

 

SRB Capital improves sales team onboarding with Copilot for Sales

One company that has seen the value of Copilot for Sales is SRB Capital Management, a financial services firm that specializes in helping qualified, eligible businesses receive accurate wage reimbursement through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act Employee Retention Credit. To address the complex documentation needed to correctly apply for the refunds offered through this tax incentive program, SRB Capital developed sophisticated algorithms that comb through payroll “micro” details to ensure the employer meets all Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules. This not only accelerates processing of applications and ensures prompt payment, but also prevents future claw backs for these reimbursements. 

To meet the dramatic growth in demand for its services, SRB has had to add dozens of sales team members over the past three years. The financial services company needed a way to quickly onboard these new sellers and coach them to have the appropriate conversations to convert opportunities. Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales as its single point of truth for client data, SRB saw Copilot for Sales as a way to integrate data from client communications across Outlook and Teams, giving its new team members all the information required to rapidly close business. 

Copilot for Sales was configured and actively used across the sales team within three weeks, surfacing CRM insights in Outlook to enable faster preparation for calls. By summarizing calls and providing recommendations on how to improve client conversations using AI capabilities, Copilot also helped sellers improve productivity and performance. CongruentX deployed its DialoguePrime IP solution, offering additional AI-fueled conversational intelligence capabilities that integrate with Copilot for Sales to help sales managers ensure call quality and effectiveness. 

“CongruentX has helped fuel our rapid business growth,” said Rob Lucente, Chief Strategy Officer at SRB Capital. “Deploying Copilot for Sales and DialoguePrime was a no-brainer for us.”

 

Continuing to build AI momentum

The CongruentX team has also been busy sharing its AI expertise with other partners, conducting dozens of partner-to-partner trainings and joint customer presentations over the last six months. 

“There are a lot of folks who are looking at Copilot as just another gadget that isn’t really going to move the needle,” said Cognetta. “I can tell you that in our conversations, no matter what role we’re talking to, no matter what industry they are in, when we explain what Copilot for Sales can do, they are blown away.” 

“We think that with Copilot for Sales, Microsoft has a unique opportunity to make a massive step forward and get CRM right,” concluded Ingram. “It is becoming the tip of the spear for us in all of our engagements.” 

Learn more about how CongruentX is helping customers like SRB Capital use Microsoft Copilot for Sales to expand the value of their CRM investments – read the full case study.