Microsoft Introduces Viva Sales

Microsoft today introduced Microsoft Viva Sales, which enriches any CRM system with customer engagement data from Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams and leverages artificial intelligence to provide personalized recommendations and insights for sellers.

Viva Sales enables sellers to capture insights from across Microsoft 365 and Teams, eliminate manual data entry, and receive AI-driven recommendations and reminders.

"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," said Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Microsoft, in a statement. "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."

Viva Sales builds on Microsoft Viva, which was launched last year. Viva provides an integrated employee experience platform that brings together communications, knowledge, learning, goals, and insights.

Viva Sales delivers the first role-based Viva application designed specifically for sellers. As sellers are working, they can tag customers in Outlook, Teams, or Office applications like Excel, and Viva Sales will automatically capture it as a customer record, layered with all relevant data about the customer. This data can be shared with team members while collaborating in Office and Teams without retyping or looking it up in a CRM.

Powered by data and AI, Viva Sales recommends next steps to progress customers through the sales funnel, prioritizes work and next steps, and enables sellers to access full history and customer interaction materials. Real-time customer insights provide a deeper understanding of where each customer is in the purchase journey and how to guide the relationship.

Viva Sales also provides AI-driven recommendations for follow-through with next best steps, actionable reminders, and recommendations to accelerate and close more sales.? Viva Sales is using Context IQ, announced last fall, to ensure relevant content is connected across Microsoft apps and services, like Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365.

"Sellers rely on digital collaboration and productivity tools to connect with customers and close deals, but a lot of the insights they uncover with these tools don't make it into the CRM," said Paul Greenberg, founder and managing principal of The 56 Group. "Microsoft is taking on this challenge by offering a solution that complements the CRM. Viva Sales automates the busy work, captures critical information about the customer, and helps sellers get the job done."