Client case studies

Microsoft – Microsoft CRM

How Xpertise developed and delivered bespoke courses for Microsoft and its authorised training partners.

The Challenge

Training and awareness is fundamental to the success of any new software – especially a package as complex as Microsoft CRM, Microsoft’s new customer-relationship management solution. As one of the UK’s leading providers of official Microsoft training, it is perhaps natural that Xpertise was chosen to provide training both to Microsoft’s own employees and to the company’s EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) training partners.

The Solution

The choice proved to be an excellent one. Enthused by the capability and potential of Microsoft CRM, Xpertise’s instructors embraced the product in-depth, and succeeded in becoming recognised Microsoft CRM experts.

Since Microsoft CRM was a new product, in-depth information (such as books and Web sites) was simply not available. Xpertise’s training team decided that they needed greater skills than access to the product and Microsoft’s early training courses could provide – so they opened a dialogue directly with Microsoft.

Microsoft welcomed this enthusiasm and invited Xpertise’s instructors to spend time with its product developers and marketing managers. This enabled Xpertise to understand Microsoft CRM in far greater depth than would otherwise have been possible. As Xpertise’s knowledge grew, its instructors were able to contribute to the development of the courses, by providing feedback and corrections directly to the course developers. The Xpertise instructors quickly became a valued part of the Microsoft course development team – and over a hundred changes were made to the courses as a result of their contributions.

Xpertise delivered the resulting Microsoft CRM courses to over two hundred people from Microsoft and its partners, including ‘train the trainer’ courses for Microsoft Certified Technical Education Centres from Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the UK – and even Iceland.

Microsoft has been delighted with the result – and has measured the success of the training by using learning analytics package, Metrics That Matter, and monitoring the number of Microsoft CRM partners which passed the post-course Microsoft CRM examinations.

Ashley Harrison, Partner Development Manager, Microsoft: “Xpertise has been instrumental in helping Microsoft train its Microsoft CRM partner base. The instructors’ professionalism in the classroom has shone through and the delegates’ feedback has been extremely positive. Xpertise’s proactive approach and feedback has helped us to update and refresh our course materials to ensure that we can provide the highest quality training to our partners and customers.”