Customer Relationship is the best part of every business because the primary intention of every business is to satisfy their customers and nowadays the trend is like maintaining a good relationship with a customer is equals to generating market, but the question arises how you will keep the best relationship with the customers? which I am going to explain in detail in this article
In recent days there is a lot of conversation about the CRM software in every business platform, but most of the talk is sprinkling around the two major players of the field that is Microsoft dynamic 365 and Salesforce.
Questions to ask yourself before you are going for a CRM Software:
What is CRM:
CRM-“Customer Relationship Management” refers to all methodologies, strategies, techniques, and advancements utilized by enterprises for creating, holding and getting clients. This software guarantees that every step in the process customer cycle will be managed smoothly and productively to build the overall profits.
Why do we need CRM:
This CRM software allows us to gather customer-related data from various channels. Hence CRM software stores detailed information on consumers purchasing behaviour, purchasing history and personal data of the consumer.
CRM software will give an overview of your customer, and it allows you to register your contacts and leads
Differences between Microsoft dynamics 365 vs Salesforce
1)Company Background:
a)Microsoft Dynamics 365:
Microsoft was founded in the year-1975 by Paul Allen and Bill Gates, and it is the best-known company for its Windows operating system and ms-office suite software.
Microsoft has also developed consumer hardware products such as the Xbox and Zune. in the year 2012 LinkedIn is taken over by Microsoft
on June 1 of 2012, Microsoft officially launches its CRM Software called “Microsoft Dynamics 365.”
b) Salesforce:
Salesforce established in the year 1999 by Marc Benioff; former Oracle executive opened up to the world June 2004.Salesforce.com is the first to explore in developing (saas) software as a service. The organization has expressed that it has more than 150,000 CRM clients.
2) Overview of the product:
a) Microsoft Dynamics 365:
Microsoft comes with two types of products, i.e. Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on private cloud or premises) and Microsoft Dynamics 365 (cloud).
i) New features & updates:
Microsoft announced last year that Dynamics 365 users would get the updates twice a year (in October and April).similar to the one that Windows 10 is following. And recently Microsoft released a new feature on April-2019 which is added some new features in its ERP, CRM, power platform and mixed reality
ii) Edition and pricing:
| Edition | Cost /Per User/Per Month |
| Dynamics 365 for Team Member | $10 |
| Dynamics 365 for Sales Professional | $65 |
| Dynamics 365 for Sales Enterprise | $95 |
| Customer Engagement Plan | $115 |
| Microsoft Relationship Sales | $135 |
| Dynamics 365 Plan | $210 |
b) Salesforce:
Salesforce offers its product as a subscription, hosted model and does not provide the product on-premises version. Recently Salesforce has developed a collaboration product which is called Chatter. This chatter is available in all the salesforce editions with no extra cost.
i) New Releases:
Salesforce will develop the new features in their product throughout the year in three times, and the names of that updates depended on the season and the year of release. An example is “monsoon 19”. The brilliant part of this update is that it is very is to customize with the existing product, and the salesforce customers do not want to pay any extra charges for the updates made by Salesforce.
ii) Edition and pricing:
Salesforce’s CRM Cloud is available in 4 different editions
And the minimum contract period is 12 months. the cost will be lesser if we take the long term plans such as 24 or 36 months
| Sales Cloud Edition | Per User /Month |
| Lightning Unlimited | $300 |
| Lightning Enterprise | $150 |
| Lightning Professional | $75 |
| Lightning Essentials (up to 5 users) | $25 |
3) Data Centers:
a) Microsoft Dynamics 365:
Microsoft has trusted data centers for dynamics 365 and other related products
| Region | Data Centers |
| Asia Pacific | South East (Singapore)/East (Hongkong) |
| Australia | South East (victoria) /East (New South Wales) |
| Canada | East (Quebec City)/Central (Toronto) |
| Europe | North (Ireland)/West (Netherlands) |
| India | Central(Pune)/South(Chennai) |
| Japan | West(Osaka)/East(Tokyo) |
| North America | Chicago/San Antonio/Blur Ridge |
| South America | Brazil (Sao Paulo State)1 |
| United Kingdom | South(London)/West(Durham) |
b) Salesforce:
Salesforce does not have its own data centers, but they publish its data center security information on its trust.salesforce.com site.
Recently Salesforce has stated that they continue to work with a variety of technology vendors and partners across its own data centers, as well as new public cloud-based data centers to deliver the best service to its customers. Salesforce doesn’t have a publicly accessible (SLA)Service Level Agreement.
4) Mobile Device Support:
a) Microsoft Dynamics 365:
Microsoft offers both Android and iOS apps; the mobile app will display specific fields, forms, entities including custom entities.
b) Salesforce:
Salesforce mobile app is also available in Android and iOS. Using these salesforce apps can be customized and built according to mobile devices.
Here is the summary of all the features in each application:
| Marketing | Salesforce | Dynamics 365 |
| Email-marketing management | Yes | Yes |
| Workflow automation | Yes | Yes |
| Email auto-responder | Yes | Yes |
| Customization and automation capabilities | Yes | Yes |
| Analytics and dashboards | Yes | Yes |
| Search-based marketing | Yes | No |
| Marketing-campaign planning, automation and management | Yes | Yes |
| Lead and list management | Yes | Yes |
| Sales | Salesforce | Dynamics 365 |
| Territory management | Yes | Yes |
| Sales-literature creation | Yes | Yes |
| Approvals and workflow | Yes | Yes |
| Lead and opportunity management | Yes | Yes |
| Analytics and forecasting | Yes | Yes |
| Product catalogue | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile CRM solutions | Yes | Yes |
| Complex price-quote-generation tool | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Office integration | Yes | Yes |
| Account and contact management | Yes | Yes |
| Direct email marketing | Yes | Yes |
| Documents and contracts management | Yes | Yes |
| Sales-force management | Yes | Yes |
| Sales tracking | No | Yes |
| Customer Support | Salesforce | Dynamics 365 |
| Case and activity management | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic-response email | Yes | Yes |
| Agent console | Yes | Yes |
| Service contracts and scheduling | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile CRM solutions | Yes | Yes |
| Self-service customer portal | Yes | Yes |
| CTI (computer telephony integration) | Yes | Yes |
| Automated routing | No | Yes |
| Resolution and activity analytics | Yes | Yes |
| Searchable knowledge base | Yes | Yes |
| Knowledge management | Yes | Yes |
| Email management | Yes | Yes |
| Call scripting | Yes | Yes |
Conclusion:
As I explained above in this article, there is not much difference between Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce; both are offering the same features and both the software are customized. We can get the add-ons according to the business needs to make CRM more productive for your business.
Author Bio:
Praveen is working as a Senior Content Contributor for KBS Training, one of the world’s leading online learning platforms. With over 5 years of experience in the technology industry, he holds expertise in writing articles on various technologies including AEM, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, Salesforce and Kubernetes.