As a small business, you know the importance of maintaining good customer relationships. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software provides an objective view of the inner workings of your business. These days, the CRM field is crowded with options and with teams which support this or that deployment. At present, two competitors dominate the CRM landscape: Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce. Today we’re going to look at the question: Why choose Dynamics CRM over Salesforce? 1. Microsoft-style User Friendly. When selecting a CRM, you are looking to streamline your customer service, and for that you want you want the kind of software you can use out of the box. Both Dynamics and Salesforce provide attractive, user-friendly dashboards which give you the power to monitor sales performance end-to-end. That means you can track how your products, ad campaigns, sales associates, etc. are doing. However, Dynamics is made by Microsoft, who probably also runs your personal computers and your servers, which means you already know how how their user interfaces function. With Microsoft software, you help overcome some of the trickiest usability problems up front because just about everyone knows how to work with Microsoft Windows. When you get Dynamics together with a reliable partner, you’ll have a usable implementation that will serve you well for years to come. 2. The LinkedIn Connection. As you may have read, Microsoft has recently purchased LinkedIn, the social network famous for connecting small business professionals. This purchase will have such a positive effect on Dynamics in particular that Microsoft must and will share that data responsibility with its competitors, including Salesforce. That said, direct access to LinkedIn will almost definitely prove a priceless benefit to Dynamics, and to its users. If you are not on LinkedIn or if you are unfamiliar with its features, and especially if you already are, bear in mind that LinkedIn is the place where professionals put themselves to be seen by other professionals. Via LinkedIn, you can recruit and track new clients, share leads, and even be rated in terms of your abilities. Imagine integrating that data and functionality with your CRM. 3. The Future is AI. On a related note, there is an old saying among software developers: garbage-in, garbage-out. Even the best software design relies on data that is correct, sound, and thorough. The best intentions cannot substitute for facts. In order to have facts, you simply need to have data and the longevity to have studied how that data functions in real time. Salesforce touts Einstein, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) which learns and adapts to suit your implementation. Well, maybe. On the other hand, Microsoft points out that they have been developing AI “over multiple decades,” putting billions of dollars into AI which functions in multiple, actual implementation. Again, Microsoft has the size and breadth of data and user experience which Salesforce lacks in this area. Let’s take a look at AI and how it relates to the ever-changing digital landscape. According to Gartner Research VP Peter Sondergaard, we […]