Salesforce vs Microsoft Dynamics 365: in-depth comparison & selection tips

• Customer Insights Data

is a data platform providing a holistic view of your clients. The solution integrates transactional, behavioral, and demographic data from selected sources into unified customer profiles, groups clients into segments based on their attributes, and provides insights and forecasts, including customer sentiment and customer lifetime value.

• Customer Insights Journeys

previously known as Dynamics 365 Marketing, includes advanced capabilities powered by Copilot, Microsoft’s integrated AI assistant, to adjust customer journeys in real time based on customer data, engaging each client with tailored content, messages, and recommendations through the most suitable channel (email, push notifications, etc.).

• Sales

enables your agents to track sales tasks and customer activities, define sequences of sales actions for their team, prioritize leads and opportunities based on AI-powered scoring models, and monitor KPIs via charts and dashboards. Additionally, the product features sales forecasting capabilities to predict revenue and track performance against set goals.

• Copilot for Sales

provides extensive AI-based functionality to generate content like opportunity summaries, email drafts, or meeting preparation notes, get recommendations on the best sales actions and answers to customers' questions, and analyze customer conversations, sales KPIs, and competitors. Copilot can also assist sales teams to update customer and opportunity records and sync data between deal rooms in Teams and your CRM.

• Sales Insights

is an add-on offering data analytics capabilities like conversation intelligence, predictive lead and opportunity scoring, and future revenue prediction, along with the identification of colleagues who can introduce your sales reps to leads or contacts.

• Microsoft Relationship Sales

combines Dynamics 365 Sales with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. This solution helps you identify potential customers on LinkedIn and mutual connections that can introduce you, understand customers’ interests based on viewing behavior to deliver personalized content, and define the next best sales action to engage them.

• Customer Service

relies on Copilot’s case management capabilities to route cases to the best-suited agents and provide the latter with AI-generated customer response drafts or knowledge article recommendations. The product also includes automation and self-service features like customer support chatbots, interactive voice responses, prebuilt flows, and community portals to assist customers while minimizing manual workloads. Furthermore, your service agents can access advanced analytics capabilities to monitor KPIs, identify emerging case trends, predict case volumes, and assess customer sentiment and engagement.

• Field Service

streamlines on-site processes via automated service notifications and self-service appointment scheduling for customers. At the same time, your technicians can access work orders and other relevant information via the mobile app or generate work orders and customer email responses with AI.

• Remote Assist

enables your service agents to provide customers and partners with real-time assistance through mixed-reality video calls, access service-related documentation, record call details for future reference, and monitor asset condition via photos and videos.

• Commerce Cloud

provides organizations with specialized tools to support their online business. They can use this product to create digital storefronts via built-in templates, enhance your online store with AI to deliver a personalized customer experience, automate order management tasks like order summary creation, and monitor sales performance via analytical dashboards.

• Industry-oriented Clouds

extend the functionality of generic Salesforce products like Sales Cloud with industry-specific capabilities. For instance, Manufacturing Cloud adds sales contract management and warranty lifecycle management features, while Financial Services Cloud includes tools to streamline insurance policy administration and lending operations.

• Community Cloud

helps companies create online communities and portals that enable customers to access information or services, ensure effective coordination and data sharing with business partners, and facilitate collaboration among employees.

• Commerce

offers a comprehensive set of features to enhance ecommerce operations. Businesses can build digital storefronts via drag-and-drop content authoring and equip them with AI-powered features like product recommendation engines and context-aware search to personalize each buying experience, or embed advanced chatbots to answer customer questions 24/7.