One After Sales Platform for Three Design Brands

The Challenge

Our Client is an international group that brings together three icons of Italian design manufacturing, each reaching the market in a different way: one through a worldwide network of retail dealers, another through direct-to-consumer and dealer channels supported by its own web platform, and the third through contract and hospitality projects.

Each brand had developed its own way of handling customer claims and after sales requests. The first brand was still running its after sales process on a Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation dating back to 2011. Tickets were opened manually by regional commercial correspondents receiving phone calls, faxes, letters, and emails, while warranty, order, and client information had to be looked up manually in the underlying AS/400 system. Transport disputes with the Group’s logistics partner followed a separate process based on letters and email chains rather than structured cases.

The other two brands had no comparable system. One relied on an Excel claim form circulated by email, while the other depended on ad hoc contact between dealers and headquarters.

The challenge was not simply to replace an old system, but to design a single after sales model flexible enough to serve three brands, three sales channels, and three different ERP environments — including AS/400, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations, and Microsoft Dynamics NAV — without forcing the brands into a one-size-fits-all process.

The Solution: Microsoft Dynamics 365

Dynamics People built the Group’s after sales management on Microsoft Dynamics 365, starting with the first brand. Its 2011 process was replicated and modernized into two dedicated model-driven apps: one for product claims and another for transport-related disputes, both running on the same underlying case model in Dataverse.

When the Group decided to extend after sales management to the second and third brands, Dynamics People did not rebuild the model from zero. It reused the same case, activity, and queue-based routing structure, giving each brand its own dedicated app and its own connection to its ERP while maintaining one consistent case lifecycle across the Group.

Cases can be opened manually by the customer service team or automatically from a web form, placed in a brand-specific queue, validated against order and product data in the relevant ERP, checked for warranty coverage, routed to the appropriate resolution action, and closed using a consistent set of customer communications.

The Role of Dynamics People

In a multi-brand after sales transformation, technology creates value only when a shared foundation can respect the way each brand serves its customers and can be used naturally by the teams managing cases every day.

The three brands serve different customer relationships — from retail dealer networks and direct web-based claims to contract and hospitality projects. Forcing them onto an identical process would have ignored the operational differences that shape each brand’s after sales service.

Dynamics People translated the needs of customer service, quality, sales, and logistics teams into one shared foundation that a single customer service organization can operate day to day, brand by brand, without having to relearn the tool whenever a case arrives from a different queue.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides the platform. Dynamics People turns it into one after sales language that three different brands, three different sales channels, and three different ERP environments can all actually use.

A Foundation Built to Extend

Every case in the Group, regardless of the brand, follows the same core journey: opening, picking from a brand-specific queue, data entry and client verification, warranty assessment, action definition, processing, and closure.

This shared backbone allowed Dynamics People to migrate the first brand’s integration from AS/400 to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations without disrupting the case model already used by the customer service team.

It also allowed the logistics team to continue managing transport disputes and insurance claims involving the Group’s carrier through a distinct workflow, separate from product claims but built on the same platform.

From a Web Form to a Resolved Claim

For the second brand, Dynamics People replaced a claim process built around an Excel form with a structured digital journey. Dealers and clients now submit claims through a form on the brand’s website, providing order and invoice numbers, product details, and photographs of the defect.

The system searches the relevant ERP automatically to match the claim to the original order, tagging each case as validated or in need of manual review by the customer service team.

The Quality department then classifies the defect and responsible service, and the case is routed to the appropriate resolution: answering the client directly, issuing a credit note, starting a substitution with a tracked production order, or requesting supervised destruction when a product cannot be returned or repaired. This controlled process protects the Group against the risk of a defective item being resold to a third party. Nine dedicated communication templates keep the client informed at every step, from case opening to final resolution.

Extending the Model to the Third Brand

The third brand was connected to Microsoft Dynamics NAV rather than AS/400 or Finance and Operations. Dynamics People delivered a dedicated app integrated with the Group’s shared CRM logic, allowing each case to retrieve order, shipment, and serial number information from NAV in the same way that cases for the other brands retrieve data from their respective ERP systems.

Alongside this rollout, the Group began extending its existing Power BI reporting across the whole after sales operation, covering case volumes, handling time by phase, claim types, and resolution actions across all three brands. This turns after sales from a series of separate brand-by-brand processes into a single, measurable operation.

Key Benefits

• One shared case model across three brands — All three brands run after sales on the same Dynamics 365 foundation, each through its own dedicated app.
• Faster, more accurate claim intake — Web-based claim forms automatically match orders and products against each brand’s ERP, reducing manual data entry and lookup errors.
• Consistent quality and logistics control — Defect and service codes, substitution and credit-note workflows, and production-order tracking provide end-to-end traceability.
• Reduced fraud exposure — Controlled and documented destruction and return processes reduce the risk of defective products being resold.
• Built to extend — The original single-brand model has already been extended to two additional brands on the same core foundation.
• Group-wide visibility — Power BI reporting is being extended to provide management with a consolidated view of after sales performance.

The Result

What used to be three separate stories — an ageing ticketing system, an Excel-based claim form, and ad hoc communication between dealers and headquarters — is becoming one after sales operation on Microsoft Dynamics 365, brand by brand.

The Group now has a proven pattern for bringing additional brands onto the same foundation without rebuilding the solution from the ground up, turning what began as a single-brand replacement project into a scalable, Group-wide way of managing the relationship with customers after the sale.

Dynamics People × Microsoft Dynamics 365 | Design Manufacturing