Microsoft Dynamics 365 is your solution in using CRM.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a great way to run an organization as an ERP system. It adds a lot of values in connecting all units within the …
Microsoft Dynamics 365Formerly Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Starting at $44 per month
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What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.
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Popular Features
- Customer data management / contact management (68)8.787%
- Custom fields (65)8.383%
- Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail) (65)7.575%
- Workflow management (66)7.272%
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- No setup fee
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- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Starting price (does not include set up fee)
- $44 per month
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- Competitors
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- FAQs
What is Microsoft Dynamics 365?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly called Microsoft Dynamics) CRM is a CRM system providing sales, marketing, and service (help desk) functionality. It is offered in two flavors: Online (competing directly with Salesforce) and on-premise.
The Microsoft Dynamics family of business applications includes other related products for ERP and retail management.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Features
- Supported: Comprehensive Solution for Sales, Service & Marketing
- Supported: Productivity Through Seamless Integration with Office 365
- Supported: Analytics Through Seamless Integration with PowerBI
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Video
Find more opportunities and boost sales with Microsoft Dynamics 365 - Gamification
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Integrations
- Act-On Software
- HubSpot Marketing Hub
- LeadLife
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing
- Adobe Campaign
- Aprimo
- eTrigue DemandCenter
- Astera ReportMiner
- Astera Centerprise
- LiveChat
- SAP CPQ
- SAP CLM, discontinued, duplicate
- SnapEngage
- Boingnet
- Devart Excel Add-ins
- GreenRope
- Cincom CPQ
- Axiom Software by Syntellis Performance Solutions
- ClientPoint
- QuoteWerks
- Oracle Marketing
- Syncfrog (unpubllished)
- Ektron Web Content Management System (Discontinued), part of Episerver
- Interactions Digital Roots
- Office 365
- PowerBI
- Yammer
- Microsoft Social Listening
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Competitors
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone |
| Supported Countries | global |
| Supported Languages | Over 40 languages |
Frequently Asked Questions
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a CRM providing sales, marketing, and service functionality. It is offered as SaaS and on-premise. Dynamics 365 is part of the larger Dynamics suite of business intelligence and ERP products.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 starts at $44.
NetSuite ERP, Sage CRM, and Salesforce Sales Cloud are common alternatives for Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Reviewers rate Forecasting and Pipeline visualization highest, with a score of 9.1.
The most common users of Microsoft Dynamics 365 are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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March 14, 2023
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is your solution in using CRM.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a great way to run an organization as an ERP system. It adds a lot of values in connecting all units within the organization. It keeps record of your transactions and inventories. It provides lots of analysis and it is a very secured system compared to customized applications/platforms.
- Lots of improvement and updates.
- CRM is a great advantage.
- Security is great.
- Customer support requires some support at times as they need some training when dealing with a customer and asking all the questions. The way they handle issues needs attention and they need to be trained.
February 05, 2022
Great CRM tool with a lot of potential
We use this application globally within our company and not only by the sales reps or department but it holds a lot of the essential master data for our products and pricing structure. Our product managers and marketing users use the application to compile information about our sales and send out surveys etc. CRM 2016 enables the company to streamline the process and way of working with a sale from lead to order, and it helps our service technicians to handle RMA's and service cases on a global scale.
- Guides the sales reps through the sales process.
- Enables fairly quick quoting, presenting the customer with a quick quotation.
- We had to rely on some third-party tools like Experlogix and HubSpot, it would be neat if this was unnecessary.
- It's a Microsoft tools, so the number of clicks is still too high.
November 07, 2020
Dynamics gives us a 365 degree view of our customers
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is, at the moment, used as the preferred customer relationship management program in my organization's regional offices where I work. We use it to seamlessly manage customer information and keep track of customers and important sales metrics. It makes it easy for the higher-ups in my organization to measure our sales pipelines and possible sales targets, too.
- Microsoft dynamics 365 does a fantastic job integrating with important third-party applications we currently use in the office such as a MailChimp and OneNote, thus making it easier to share vital insights across applications.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 does a fantastic job of aligning our sales and marketing processes by helping to produce seamless experiences for our customers through shared application data and marketing automations.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 makes it easier for us to focus on the right type of customers by engaging them quickly using insight provided by Microsoft's artificial intelligence backed features.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 can do with improved intuitiveness for users. For instance, data entry is usually a tedious experience for beginner users.
- Its user interface design is not simplified enough for smooth navigation, especially on the report pages.
January 27, 2020
Microsoft is hard to beat
It is being used across our whole organization, and it helps to bridge some communication problems and usually works pretty adequately. It definitely helps us to track leads, but sometimes we have issues with the cloud updating that may not be related to the program and just might be our system.
- Great for tracking metrics.
- Helps people stay organized.
- The interface isn't as friendly when accessed on a Mac, but not bad.
- It has a lot of functionality and sometimes it is difficult to find the exact one you are looking for.
Microsoft Dynamics is mainly used by the Marketing Department of our organization. Its main purpose is to provide the back end for our mobile app and to manage loyalty programs. Also it provides reports and dashboards based on customer transactions. It helped set up our customer relations base and reach our guests.
- It has a solid structure to set up customer and loyalty analytics.
- It provides a good amount of reports that could be customized and extended easily.
- Export of some large reports can be problematic and you may have to divide reports into smaller chunks.
- Navigation in the report pages can be difficult.
December 10, 2019
Dynamics 365 at a glance
Battelle is currently using Microsoft Dynamics 365 as its primary CRM system across the entire organization. We use it to track business opportunities throughout the duration of the sales process, from contact generation to order close. This helps the organization overall keep better track of it's current and potential projects.
- It allows opportunities to be linked directly to specific accounts and contacts.
- It allows users to enter specific details of phone conversations they have with clients or potential clients.
- It could provide a better training program.
- It could have a slightly better user-interface.
December 06, 2019
Clarity and data intelligence with Dynamics 365!
Dynamics 365 is being used in our company to track valuable insights that help our teams monitor their relationships with key customers and ongoing interactions with them. The predictive insights from the tool are used to decide future strategies and support our remote teams in working in a more cohesive, aligned manner.
- The dashboards are truly fantastic. Highly customizable, easy to understand, and quick to gain key insights upon logging into the tool.
- Depth of information available in the tool is necessary for various teams to gain the right level of detail they need.
- Integrations with other applications is helpful for our remote teams. This allows different apps to feed into one another and makes it easier to use overall.
- There are very many subpages in the tool, and this can make it more challenging to onboard new users to the tool. It takes some adjusting to, to feel that the tool is seamless.
- As access to info, or access to particular sections of the tool, can be restricted for some users by the main admins, this can be frustrating as not all team members have access to the same information. This means that admins must build more strategy around how the tool will be used.
December 04, 2019
GFI goes to the cloud with Microsoft Dynamics 365
The platform is being utilized by our real estate brokers as a customer relationship management platform. Additionally, management of those brokers is using the platform to harness data on call volumes opportunities missed and forecasting
- Reporting
- Visualizations
- Mobility
- Better performance.
- Better UI on mobile.
- More security features.
August 30, 2019
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) Is the Hidden Flagship behind the Microsoft Power Platform
Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement (CRM) is used by Sales, Customer Service, Marketing, Purchasing, our Creative Labs, our Quality Control Labs, Shipping, and Regulatory. Besides the out-of-the-box functionality we use, typical customer relationship management, we also have built on top of its custom, line-of-business applications. Traditionally, this was called XRM, but now the proper term would be model-driven PowerApps. Without these tools, we could not function.
- Some useful out-of-the-box features, like mass uploads of Leads from trade shows or when qualifying a Lead, CRM automatically creates the Opportunity, Contact, and Account for you, etc.
- Really powerful customizations through the user interface to improve user experience. Things like Business Rules, for example, if Field A = 1, then Field B = 2 and Field C = 2, if Field A = 2, then Field B and Field C don't apply, so automatically hide them.
- Or other functionality that improves user experience, like Business Process Flows. These walk users step by step through our business process, helping them know when certain actions should take place, and at what point other data is now required. We've used this extensively with our Lead to Opportunity to Quote to Order process, helping users understand the business process each step of the way.
- Customizations built on top of the platform now called model-driven PowerApps. You can have connections to "typical" data, like Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities, for example, but then connect that data to custom entities, records that only apply to your specific business. This is all done through the user interface and allows you to customize and automate specific line-of-business applications for your specific needs.
- Behind the scenes, D365 CE is built on SQL. So the data conforms to industry standards and makes it much easier to interact with. Your developers and IT team will thank you.
- Small learning curve, obviously. You won't figure this out in a day, a week, or even a month. But given time, you can learn to be an expert. Or you can always get a consultant or hire in somebody. But learning the tool isn't out of the questions by any means.
- Licensing can be confusing at times and isn't cheap, but it is cheaper than Salesforce. Plus no additional fees for data calls to better integrate your D365 CE data with other systems.
- The Classic user interface left a bit to be desired, but now with the much-improved Unified Interface, the web client and the mobile client look the same, much more modern, and have more flexibility and power behind them for customizers as well.
July 15, 2019
Dynamics 365 is the way to go
My organization is using Dynamics 365 Online (currently Version 9.1.0.5826 April 2019 release) in three small to mid-size projects delivering professional services for 3 large company clients. We have Customer Engagement licences that include Sales, Customer Service, Project Service, Field Service, Voice of the Customer Surveying, Retail, and a Portal. Along with delivering our professional services to customers on behalf of our clients, we utilize Dynamics 365 as a standalone XRM database to thoroughly and accurately record and house data.
While a spreadsheet can easily house data, the Dynamics 365 platform is streamlining data entry, ensuring projects and other record types move along a rigid process for consistency and predictability, and providing unrivaled data insights to making decision and ultimately serve our client better. We are currently using the Project Service Automation app to manage thousands of construction projects that are applying for grant and incentive money. We easily imported more than a million of the clients customers records from their database to be able to understand the customer base and better serve them for our client.
We will eventually take advantage of the Voice of the Customer Surveying Portal for external partner access, as well Field Service for scheduling field work.
- Provisioning and initial deployment are a breeze and completed within a day or less after receiving the licences.
- Customizations and configuring the database instances is extremely simple as long as changes and enhancements are implemented cautiously and with purpose.
- Integration with other Microsoft applications is one of the top selling points, such as Outlook for tracking email to Dynamics 35, data connections to Excel for refreshing data exports, PowerBI, Flow, & PowerApps
- Advanced Find querying is one of the easiest tools to quickly get and save data accessed regularly.
- The native Microsoft mobile tablet and phone app can be implemented with minimal extra work or configurations.
- Ability to 100% fully implement (and integrate with other Microsoft platforms) with no code whatsoever (100% no code SaaS!) saving time any money for quick deployments.
- The Dynamics 365 community is massive for forum support and user group networks.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 storage & license cost can prohibit some large deployments or even cost-sensitive small projects from using the platform (although I'm certain most deployments would realize a positive ROI if implemented correctly with process automation).
- The cost and licensing document for Dynamics 365 is 61 pages and will take a rocket scientist to understand it. It's better to just have your Microsoft help estimate the cost if they are willing to help you that.
- The documentation on how to first fully understand the Out of the Box default solution and settings is lacking or even non-existing. This has the potential to derail Dynamic 365 launches and implementations from the gitgo. Want to use an out of the box entity?.. well it's probably related to 5 other entities that require configuration and full understanding of it to successful implement. And you ask where is the laymen guide or instructions?... User groups and forums. In Summary, Microsoft can up its game in deployment training and supporting documentation.
- Microsoft needs to incentivize more external platforms to build app connectors for easy integration, such as ZenDesk, Slack, Tableau, etc. Even the current connector apps such as Salesforce, MailChimp, Docusign are useless or don't work at all.
- Several limitations inhibit successful Dynamics 365 deployments such as: limited number of Rollup field calculations (summarizing fields on child/related records), limited number rows that can exported to Excel via advanced find, Dynamics 365 files, log and database storage size limit is extremely small and will always require purchasing additional storage (for Online deployments).
- New user buy-in or acceptance or system platform changes can be difficult if a solid change management plan isn't enacted.
- Don't expect much help from Microsoft on implementation or solutions unless it's a technical flaw with the platform. Microsoft relies on their MVP partner network to consult for implementations at a hefty cost. Hiring a knowledgeable and savvy Dynamics 365 System Administrator can reduce the need for consultant support; of course, this is dependant upon many many variables.
June 18, 2019
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Makes Good Business Sense
We use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online to track customer information, coordinate with our marketing automation systems, use it as a source of inspiration for content creation, and take it on the road with us via its mobile capabilities as marketers and salespeople. It is very effective and functional for our organization and its diverse needs among individuals and teams. Though I've only been using it about 2 years, our organization has thrived with its evolution for over 10.
- Mobile Functionality Provides Modern Efficiencies that Allow us to Thrive
- Multi-Departmental Functionality Improves Process Effectiveness
- It's a natural segment of our business use and product/services models
- As a marketer myself, I think Microsoft Dynamics 365 could do better at providing a Trailhead-style source for users
- Community engagement is lacking - Microsoft could become more socially fluid and fun
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 should extend its marketing team to create a more comprehensive and fun library of resources and tools for users
Dynamics 365 is being used to manage our direct customer base as well as that of our wholesalers and resellers globally. It is what drives sales, service, support, invoicing, and reporting, as well as wholesale/resale web portals and customer web portals. Dynamics 365 is at the center of our business and drives the delivery, management, and support of our product to our customers.
- Works out of the box.
- Supports a wide variety of customization to support any business.
- Easy to customize and integrate.
- Reliable performance that does not require a lot of IT resources even with an on-premise deployment.
- On-premise versus online deployment options.
- Internet-facing deployment is available.
- Strong ecosystem of apps and support.
- Reporting: built-in reports are not user-friendly. We do our reporting from Power BI to give us that flexibility.
- Email: does not thread email conversations.
- Email editors/text editors are weak and don't allow for the rich text editing supported by most email clients.
January 17, 2019
HVAC Migrating to Microsoft Dynamics 365
Currently, the commercial commodity sales, residential commodity, and equipment sales side of our business are using the product. We're using it as two tenants integrating with our backbone ERP for real-time data.
It addresses the sales side of our organization and provides data on opportunities, in addition to prospect and customer communication.
It addresses the sales side of our organization and provides data on opportunities, in addition to prospect and customer communication.
- Opportunity sales funnel view at a glance.
- Task management for appointments, email tracking, and notes.
- Outbound email communication using ClickDimensions and reporting on those pushes.
- Web traffic data reporting.
- User display enhancements. Mainly aesthetics.
- Navigation control by security level.
- Greater control of the iPhone app.
December 28, 2018
My Microsoft Dynamics 365 Review
Microsoft Dynamics 365 is being used across the whole Americas Division in our organization by several departments. It's being used by our customer service, sales, and marketing departments. It addressed the issue we previously had with managing our customer service tickets. Prior to implementing Dynamics in our organization, we weren't able to track our tickets or even know how many tickets each rep dealt with on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
- Dynamics does a really good job integrating with other applications. Exchange for example-- within minutes (an admin account is required) you can integrate Dynamics with Exchange so the application can start sending out emails from any user or service/department mailbox to customers. Once Server Side Sync is set up, Dynamics can also start email ingestion without any issues. Other applications can be integrated into Dynamics this easily as well, Microsoft or not.
- Another thing that Dynamics does very well is case management. You can use Dynamics to manage every aspect of your customer service experience without any issues. Customer service reps can create cases automatically from emails, phone calls, or create them manually and communicate with the customers without leaving the application.
- Managing accounts is yet another thing Dynamics 365 does a really good job with. You can create custom account forms that have all the information you need for your accounts. You can also connect your accounts to contacts and stakeholders so it can be easily determined what account is associated with a specific email address or phone number.
- Dynamics 365 mobile app requires some improvements in my opinion. The overall performance of the app can be at times sluggish (even on Wi-Fi) and the updates that need to be downloaded when the app is opened are too frequent and take too long to download.
- With Dynamics 365 Online the back-end access is limited which makes simple tasks difficult to complete at times. With the online version, admins don’t have access to the SQL databases so finding out things such as storage allocation difficult since it requires creating a Microsoft Premier ticket, which in my opinion has room for improvement.
- The workflows in Dynamics 365 work in a way where only one can be run at a time, so if you have configured several of them to run, say to send out several emails, they will not run in parallel. The second one will have to wait for the first one to finish before it can be executed. I think that needs improvement since the application should be able to run several workflows at the same time.
November 26, 2018
Nothing is Better then Dynamics, total ROI
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We in our organization use Microsoft Dynamics as a primary CRM/ERP across the whole organization for drawing charts for deep data analysis. We use it for decision making. It allows us to access it from the web, PC and mobile devices simultaneously. We use it in our Finance, Field service Client Management and many more across each and every department.
- Everything in one place such as Sales, Marketing, Finance, Field service, Customer Service, Operations and the automation which is not available in other products that are in the market right now.
- Most likable thing is customer support of Dynamics which I didn't see any other ERP or CRM team provide.
- It looks and feels kinda mashup of Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, etc then it's a bit difficult to use it with ease at the start.
- The knowledge curve for the first time Microsoft product user is a little slower and challenging for the first time for the user who is not familiar with other Microsoft products
- Calculated metrics such as Key Performance Indicators, ratios, etc.. are not as simple as I'd like within the tool Can be done. I don't like to use codes and scripts much.
August 24, 2018
Helps me with my sales daily
The department I work with is Geographical Systems, and we produce maps and planning projections for the future. This department uses the software when other firms needs a thematic map or a heat map and we have the opportunity to schedule the work and prepare the product, even program the reviews of the products before I deliver the final result. With this software I could send emails, prepare meetings and add some important notes from calls and communications with the customers. These communications helps me to improve my work every day in order be more efficient on the sales.
- Is very flexible with the use of a very large database.
- Integration with other products of Microsoft.
- I can customize apps from a third party.
- Is a very slow software to work with.
- The learning curve is very steep to learn the software functionality.
- The customize software is very difficult and needs a IT expert to do it.
February 09, 2018
MS Dynamics (online) review
We used MS Dynamics as a customized CRM system on various campaigns depending on client preferences. Only alternative was Salesforce. Dynamics helped us to keep the whole chain of sales executives up to date on what is happening with a specific account, as we are a global organisation, and multiple executives from multiple regions have to work on the same account, additionally the client's team has to have access to the records as well.
- overview of previous outreaches to a specific account
- customization of design and data transfer to the next level of the sales process, making easy for the next person to take over
- clean user interface, not overwhelming amount of information on one page
- quicker and more user friendly than competing products (based on my opinion and xp)
- it can be heavy for older machines, which is problematic for businesses which do not need the latest hardware; running in the background it could slow down other processes
- like every other SaaS solution it crashes from time to time, it has to be more clear why, so people can address the problem to the IT dep responsible for the support
- often there is a redundancy of needed information so many things have to be filled out twice until you cane save the activity
June 26, 2017
Dynamics CRM 2016 - Game Changing
We use Microsoft Dynamics CRM across our entire organisation, from using it to log and manage support cases, time recording for staff and monthly billing, tracking implementation projects, and sales and marketing. It underpins our entire business. The flexible CRM gives us allows us to implement rapid process change should the need arise.
- The ability to customize CRM out of the box without the need for a developer is its biggest strength.
- Powerful and flexible workflow engine.
- Simple and easy to understand security model.
- The Workflow designer has not been updated in 10+ years.
- Business process flows still need some enhancements adding to them to allow for extremely complex processes.
- Dialogs should either be removed or enhanced (Mandatory fields etc).
August 11, 2016
As customisable as you need
We tried various CRM solutions, finally our R&D department selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We had some issues adding Jalali calendar to it, but eventually we did.
Our company made a plan to implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM:
1. Our real process identification
2. Customizing CRM in the marketing department
3. Data migration in marketing department
4. Using CRM in parallel to our previous in-house software
5. Checking the results, and in case of a successful pilot period stoping the previous solution and extending CRM to use in our Project Implementation Department and in our Customer Care and Support Department.
Our company made a plan to implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM:
1. Our real process identification
2. Customizing CRM in the marketing department
3. Data migration in marketing department
4. Using CRM in parallel to our previous in-house software
5. Checking the results, and in case of a successful pilot period stoping the previous solution and extending CRM to use in our Project Implementation Department and in our Customer Care and Support Department.
- It's dynamic and easy to customize
- It integrates with other organizational solutions
- There are free resources to solve issues and problems
- It work on both computers and mobile devices
- Jalali Calendar and support for RTL languages
- Kanban board to visually analyse work
August 02, 2016
MS Dynamics CRM 2011 Review
It is being used almost across the whole organization, but heavily used by Marketing and Sales departments to manage sales opportunities, submitting and managing resource requests, activities and customer accounts. Also used to manage vendors and sub contractors. Marketing uses the application to manage contacts and open leads, run reports against opportunities, leads and activities based on date or customers etc...
- Leads and campaigns management that allows to track lead statuses, methods of contact, roles, company profiles etc.
- Management of activities such as tasks, appointments, text messages, faxes, emails etc.
- Customer accounts and associated opportunities management, with customer information and its open and closed activities, ship to and bill to addresses.
- The fact that I'm using 2011 version. I believe 2013 and 2016 have better features. I would start with Dashboard reporting, currently 2011 doesn't have an interactive dashboard and it's not effective.
- Mobile is a big deal now. Most Sales folks are on the go, and they always like to access their CRM data on mobile. 2011 lacks that, probably 2016 has a better mobile framework.
- Out of the box integration with various ERP and PSA systems, in 2011 version they are absent.
March 09, 2016
Microsoft Dynamics CRM - great to use
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is used by a majority of our organization. Our ticket sales department utilizes it for contact management and pipeline tracking, while our corporate partnerships department uses it primarily for inventory management and contract building.
- Easy to learn and use
- Very searchable, can look for people/companies across many different variables
- No technical issues
- A little more personalization would be nice
- Easier to download reports
- Mobile sign in
October 05, 2015
How we use Microsoft Dynamics CRM
We are using Microsoft Dynamics CRM to manage leads, opportunities and accounts.
- Integrates with Outlook. Therefore we can use Microsoft Dynamics CRM or Outlook to correspond with customers.
- Workflows make automation of tasks possible.
- The online version allows access to data from any browser on any device from anywhere.
- The windows app is very convenient for use on tablets and small devices.
- Certain UX features are lacking, like multi select lists.
We use Microsoft Dynamics CRM across the organization for Sales (opportunity management, inside sales lead gen), Marketing (lead gen, blog maintenance, event registration, outreach), Support and Education (event registration), Delivery/Sonsulting (project and resource management), support (customer portal and case management) It provides a 360 degree view of our clients' interactions with us.
- CRM allows me to track where in the project delivery process we are with our clients. Using business process flow we can understand what deliverables have been met and which remain. I can review how much time has been spent on projects and how much budget remains to proactively manage projects. Consultants track their status reports to CRM from Outlook so everyone on the team is aware of what is happening on the project.
- Marketing uses CRM to manage our corporate blog. Anyone in the organization can submit a blog idea or write a blog. But an approval process in CRM ensures that all blog posts are branded appropriately and are written to be consistent with corporate and marketing guidelines before being published.
- Managing our opportunities in CRM not only helps the sales team manage their pipeline and sales process but it gives our delivery team a heads up for resource planning. Delivery leadership can review pipeline at any time receives notice when deals are about to close so that they can proactively assess consultant skill sets and begin assigning resources.
- Microsoft Dynamics Marketing has some significant deficiencies that make it almost impossible for us to use. The connector integration with CRM doesn't work with our CRM deployment and basic things we'd expect to be able to do with MDM we just can't do. It's just not a good fit with CRM.
- There just isn't enough documentation or training out there related to MOBILITY for CRM. Everything we do with tablet and phone apps we learn by trial and error the hard way. It shouldn't be that hard to extend our CRM to our mobile platforms.
- The integration with Outlook is a HUGE plus in terms of user adoption, and if user adoption is not there, then any expense on a CRM is a waste of money.
- When implemented correctly, I've seen a minimum productivity improvement of 5%, very often much higher than that. This is primarily because it creates significantly streamlined communications, both internal and external to the company. What this means is fewer FTEs needed to do the same job!
- Ease of creating dashboards - A picture is worth a thousand words, and dashboards tell each user how they are performing on a continuous basis. When this clicks, you get a situation of all horses pulling in the same direction, and the results of this are terrific!
- Mid market manufacturing companies have invested heavily in streamlining operations and supply chain to drive down the unit production cost of the widgets they make. Unfortunately, they have not been able to do the same for Sales and Marketing, and Dynamics CRM is a tremendous tool in enforcing good sales process. When you have the discipline of following a good process, and have consistent Sales activity (both measurable from the CRM), you have a situation where the CRM becomes the best Sales Coach the company could ever have and not pay for!!!
- Business owners and managers must understand that it typically takes 6-12 months for the results to flow in. And it is often the case that when the bottlenecks in the Sales and Marketing processes are removed, other issues within the company get highlighted. Companies must be prepared for this, and the corresponding discomfort it creates. But it is all good, since we all want to work as efficiently as possible, and anything that brings inefficiencies to the surface is a good thing.
- Out of the box functionality from smart phones leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately there are affordable third party products that are really great at this.
- Complex marketing campaigns and implementing a digital marketing strategy unfortunately require third party offerings. I'm sure this will be addressed in the future, but for now, this is limited.
- While Microsoft has addressed the issue of access from multiple browsers, the desktop "experience" is really only replicated on the Surface tablet, which is why some people have purchased this tablet (in addition to their iPads) because it just makes sense for them to do so. Others object to having another asset in inventory, but that is what the tablet wars are about anyway.
- Dynamics CRM 2013 has the "Process" interface which has its pros and cons. Right now, the ability for developers to tweak the look and feel is limited, but it is expected that improvements in this aspect (giving developers more control) is imminent.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- CRM gives you access to all the customers throughout the company no matter which part of the world the office is located.
- I like the fact that I can create my own dashboard so I can see all the areas that are of importance to me.
- I also like the fact that you can see all the quotes going on within the company to make sure you are not competing against yourself.
- It is a bit cumbersome when qualifying a customer. Could use a few more selections like qualified but went to a distributor.
- When creating a new customer, the owner is not defaulted to who created it. It uses the default option and then gets emails out and has to be reassigned back to the person who created the customer.
- Creating reports could also be more user friendly.