It’s no secret to anyone beginning a new CRM evaluation that Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM are two of the most popular products available on the market today. On our own website, our most popular blog posts month after month are comparisons of the two solutions. Our Salesforce & Microsoft CRM comparison report is the most downloaded report we offer by a very wide margin.
With this in mind, and to help further educate prospective CRM buyers, we’ve created a series of videos comparing popular features and functionality of these two systems side-by-side.
For our first video, we’ve compared one of the most basic functions of any CRM system — logging a call and scheduling a follow up. A task that is one of the best benchmarks of system usability for a prospective buyer.
Logging A Call And Scheduling A Follow Up
The most obvious difference is that Salesforce keeps the entire process on one screen, while in the current version of Dynamics, it requires shuffling between multiple tabs. It’s important to note that the impending release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 2013 will introduce a completely new user interface, and they are promising a more simple and streamlined workflow.
Creating A Simple Report
In our next video, we’ve taken a look at another core component of any CRM solution: reporting. Both systems include custom report building tools, a feature that many low and mid-tier CRM programs lack.
Once again, the main difference in execution is Salesforce’s minimal number of screens versus Microsoft’s multiple windows/dialog boxes in the current version of Dynamics.
Completing and scheduling calls, along with generating and viewing custom reports, are critical components for any CRM system’s overall usability. If a given task or activity takes too long, or is confusing, users may end up frustrated and system adoption may suffer after the system has been deployed. How those components are executed in a given platform should be given careful attention in any CRM evaluation and planning process.
