Best practices for activities

1. Add an activity for every customer interaction. Make sure a customer's history includes a record of every communication you have with them.

2. Add activities for yourself, too. You can keep track of your own assignments and events without associating these activities with a customer. Just choose the Track button instead of the Set Regarding button.

   To find these activities in a list, sort on the Regarding column. If the data for the Regarding column is blank, the activity isn't associated with a customer record.

   If you want to create an activity that isn't recorded in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, don't track it at all.

3. Keep in mind that activities “roll up” under their associated records. Let's say you want to remind yourself to follow up with Chris Preston, a contact who's associated with the account, Imported Sports. It's best to track the task activity to the contact record for Chris, not the account record for Imported Sports.

   The contact record is associated with the account record, so if you track the task to the contact record, your task will “roll up” under the account automatically, and you and the people on your team will see the task when they're looking at the contact, and when they're looking at the account record for Imported Sports.

Next section: Nurture leads through the sales process

Email, appointments, tasks, and other assorted CRM activities

CRM for Outlook Basics