For Memphis Grizzlies, Microsoft Dynamics CRM improves customer experience from ticketing to final buzzer

Intent on improving its existing customer management, sales, and marketing practices, the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online to help it better manage customer relationships and other marketing tasks. Working with Green Beacon Solutions of Newton, Mass., the team installed a Sports CRM platform that directly integrates with its TicketMaster ticketing system, which in turn synchronizes customer games, events, and purchase information with CRM.

Richard Smith, Green Beacon's vice president of business solutions architecture, says that the Grizzlies faced a challenge that's common across many sports teams:  while a ticketing system is great at allowing customers to go online and make purchases, it doesn't help much in the way of sales targeting and planning (i.e., who to target, buying habits of those targets, and so forth). "It's really hard to get that information from a ticketing system," says Smith, "and to set up activities and reminders and identify opportunities. Those are the functionalities that Dynamics CRM brings to the table."

Prior to selecting Dynamics CRM, the team was using a ticketing system that included "very rudimentary task management capabilities," according to Smith. He says Microsoft and Salesforce were the two top contenders when shopping around for a solution, and notes that the former won out based on the fact that the Grizzlies were already using Microsoft products for other functions.

"I think the biggest consideration was trying to get something that would work both with the Ticketmaster and Microsoft," Smith explains. "They knew that there'd been a lot of implementations that not only tied both Microsoft and Ticketmaster together, but that ...