The successful operation of any business, no matter its field of expertise, hinges on an exceptional CRM system. Selecting the right software to elevate your sales team to new heights is not a straightforward task. However, this decision can shape the efficiency of your sales processes, the quality of your customer experience, and your company's overall growth trajectory, making it crucial for your company's future.
Microsoft's Dynamics 365 and Salesforce are two leading customer relationship management (CRM) systems proffering a comprehensive suite of work tools. While there are numerous CRM platforms available, these two often appeal to similar businesses. If you are searching for the ideal software for your sales team, understanding the key feature differences between Dynamics 365 and Salesforce is critical. They might appear similar at first glance, but a deeper examination reveals several significant contrasts in their offerings.
Salesforce Features
Salesforce holds a 19% share of the CRM market and is designed for team collaboration and sales processes, automating tasks that could otherwise hinder your company’s growth and sales team efficiency. Here are some of its key features:
-
Manage Contact Data: Salesforce Sales Cloud offers a robust contact management system equipped with tools for team collaboration and social media listening. Team members can effortlessly prepare for customer meetings using the mobile app, whether they're mobile or office-based. However, Salesforce is strictly cloud-based, whereas Dynamics 365 provides deployment both in the cloud and on-site to meet your organization's rules, requirements, and regulations.
-
Quote Tracking: Salesforce includes the Configure Price Quote software capability, enabling your team to promptly follow up on opportunities with accurate and comprehensive quotes. You can also track the customers who use this feature, their given quotes, and their acceptance rates, thus optimizing the sales pipeline.
-
Sales Lead Management: This feature assists in converting leads into opportunities with an activity timeline for assigning leads to the appropriate team members. Insights from specific marketing campaigns can be used for lead generation and tracking campaigns across channels.
Dynamics 365 Features
Dynamics 365 allows you to focus on specific features or bundle add-ons together to expand functionality. Additionally, Microsoft even offers discounts for combining certain products. Here are some of its key features:
-
Integration with Dataverse: Dataverse is a cloud-based storage space that can work in concert with Dynamics 365 applications. Data stored in Dataverse through standard tables can be supplemented with app-specific tables like Opportunity and Leads through Dynamics 365 Sales. The integration of Dataverse and Dynamics 365 apps enables data synchronization both bi-directionally and uni-directionally, in near real-time.
-
Tool Integration: Dynamics 365 can easily connect with other Microsoft products such as Office 365, Outlook, Power BI, and Flow to improve your team's daily tasks and procedures.
-
AI Built into Available Apps: Artificial intelligence (AI) is built directly into Dynamic 365’s features, supporting sales teams in better understanding their customers, monitoring social channels, and knowing the optimal time to send e-mails for maximum engagement.
-
Document Management with SharePoint: An inefficient document management system can significantly impede business operations. SharePoint supports the entire Microsoft Dynamics 365 ecosystem and easily integrates with Teams. You can access the document library through Teams for uploading, downloading, or editing documents in real-time.
-
PowerBI Integration for Reporting: Dynamics 365 smoothly integrates with Power BI, a powerful tool for data reporting. This solution allows you to visualize your data, share metrics across your organization, and even embed insights directly on your website or app.
-
Customer Insights: Dynamics 365 Customer Insights helps unify customer data across multiple sources to gain a singular view of customers. Engagement insights enable a better understanding of how your customers are using your products and services, both individually and via websites, mobile apps, and other connected products.
The ideal CRM largely depends on the needs of your enterprise. Dynamics 365 provides a more extensive toolkit, such as data reporting, built-in AI, and expansive customer insights. Furthermore, since Salesforce is cloud-based, Dynamics 365 is the best choice if you need on-site deployment.
Both options offer free trials, so you can compare the two tools risk-free. Ultimately, understanding what your company needs for growth and which CRM system can get you there is vital.
Aerie can provide expert guidance in implementing the CRM system that best suits your business needs, leveraging our deep industry knowledge and experience.
