Microsoft Dynamics Alternative | Why Freshsales CRM is the better CRM

Why simple CRM is better than bloated, overly complex solutions

The core objective of using CRM is straightforward—build and improve relationships with customers. For businesses to accomplish this, CRM must enable sales reps to free up time, automate tasks, and improve productivity. And, Microsoft Dynamics—an archaic CRM accompanied by a bloated cost structure—is far from “gets the job done.”

If you’re looking for a Microsoft Dynamics CRM alternative, invest in a modern, simple, and powerful CRM software like Freshsales.

CRITERIA
Lowest-priced plan / user / month (billed monthly)	$9	$65
Highest-priced plan / user / month (billed monthly)	$59	$130
Lowest-priced plan / user / month (billed annually)	$18	$65
Highest-priced plan / user / month (billed annually)	$83	$130
Freemium option	Yes	No
Email integration via IMAP	Yes	No
Phone	Yes Powered by Freshcaller	No

CRITERIA

Lowest-priced plan / user / month (billed monthly)

$65

Highest-priced plan / user / month (billed monthly)

$59

$130

Lowest-priced plan / user / month (billed annually)

$18

$65

Highest-priced plan / user / month (billed annually)

$83

$130

Freemium option

Yes

Email integration via IMAP

Yes

Phone

Yes

User experience that wows

Freshsales was awarded the Great User Experience Award by Finances Online in the CRM software category. The clean, simple, and intuitive UI contributes significantly to the quality of user experience. Bloated CRM software like Microsoft Dynamics can be obtuse when it comes to performing simple tasks like opening records and apps. A new window or tab opens for every click action forcing you to go back and forth breaking the user experience. One of the top challenges for CRM users is insufficient training on the system. Microsoft Dynamics has a steep learning curve that requires extensive training. With Freshsales CRM, your sales team need little to no training to get started. The aesthetically designed and pleasing interface on every screen and the workflow simplicity of each feature offers a seamless experience for sales teams to adopt and consistently use the CRM.

One hassle-free package

More is not better; more is just more. When it comes to CRM systems, less is more. An ideal CRM solution comes with basic and must-have sales features needed by businesses of all sizes already built-in, so users don’t have to look for third-party applications. Then there are others that are chock-full of features that bloat the product, get in the way, and deter your team from using it altogether. Which is why Freshsales CRM is an all-in-one SaaS CRM that comes with the features you need. This gives sales teams leverage to improve performance and reach full business potential. Unlike Microsoft Dynamics, Freshsales CRM comes built-in with—email, phone, user behavior analytics, sales reporting and analytics, sales campaigns, workflows, and other holistic features so you don’t have to go out and buy separate solutions.

Greater optimization and visibility

To improve customer relationships, businesses must focus on delivering a consistent experience through every phase of their journey. One of the main purposes of a CRM system is to provide visibility into customer touchpoints, conversations, and opportunities so you can monitor and take actions. . Freshsales CRM presents a 360-degree view into each of your customers to understand how they are engaging with your business. The visual sales pipeline in the CRM paints a full picture of your sales opportunities across stages allowing you to track the progress of each deal, filter and sort deals, perform sales activities, and forecast your sales. Microsoft Dynamics lacks this capability to guide decisions about your open opportunities in a single view. There’s nothing like having a snapshot of all your deals to quickly know where each deal is in your sales process. Freshsales CRM fulfills this need for sales managers to visualize and manage deals in multiple sales pipelines.

Fair and reasonable pricing

It’s important to factor in cost to choose the right CRM for your business. According to a 2018 Forrester study, Riding the next wave in SaaS CRM, the top three challenges CRM buyers listed were related to total cost of ownership— upfront, incremental and hidden costs, and half of the buyers stated cost as the key driver for replacing their CRM. With Microsoft Dynamics, you’re looking at exorbitant costs just for implementation, not included in the plan. This will start at $10,000 and can exceed $250,000 for mid-size companies. As for Freshsales CRM, the cost of the CRM solution is fair and square—there are no hidden costs. You have four pricing plans to choose from, aside from a freemium CRM. Each plan is configured with features to suit teams and businesses of varying sizes at affordable subscription costs. So, as your business scales, our plans scale with your needs.

How Freshsales stacks up against Microsoft Dynamics

Record Management

When it comes to managing your leads, contacts, accounts, and deals, both Freshsales and Microsoft Dynamics hit the mark. But, Freshsales has a leg up by giving you the flexibility to customize your module by renaming them to suit your business specific terminology. This feature removes confusion among sales teams and helps you work more efficiently. It also allows you to customize the contact and accounts details page, giving you the flexibility to highlight and summarize the fields that are important for your business.

Freshsales also automates the enrichment of customer profiles by gathering public information such as social media profiles, photos, and company details, which saves you the manual work of discovery. This advanced feature supports efficient online lead generation by automatically assigning leads to sales reps based on predefined rules. Microsoft Dynamics, which lacks these built-in automation features and often requires third-party tools, whereas Freshsales excels with advanced CRM features that enhance automation, streamline workflows, and provide comprehensive customer insights for efficient sales operations.

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COMPARISON	Freshsales
Manage leads, contacts, accounts and deals
Filters and custom views
Renaming modules
Automatically enrich lead profiles		Available through 3rd-party integrations.

Email Management

Freshsales has a robust email management system. It allows you to integrate any email provider (Gmail, Outlook, and other) with the CRM system so you can access your emails without having to switch applications. When you connect your mailbox, emails are synced to your Freshsales inbox and automatically linked to relevant records. In Microsoft Dynamics, the native email integration is with Outlook. Unless you’re an Outlook user, integrating your email is available only through server-side synchronization. Besides, you can’t sync contacts, tasks and appointments. Whereas with Freshsales, you get seamless sync with G Suite at zero cost. You can also track and schedule emails, use a team inbox, auto-forward emails, and set up sales sequences using the CRM.

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COMPARISON	Freshsales
Email integration via IMAP
2-way email sync for any email client		Available through 3rd-party integrations.
Email scheduling		Only for Outlook users.
Email tracking		Only for Outlook users.
Sales campaigns

Pipeline Management

Creating a visual sales pipeline with all your opportunities spread across by stages is a built-in feature in Freshsales; whereas, in Microsoft Dynamics, you have to scout for third-party integrations to enjoy this benefit. The pipeline view in Freshsales provides a summary of your opportunities with quick actions like call or email contact, create a task, view extended deal information, etc. without having to leave the pipeline view. Create multiple custom pipelines to suit your sales processes.

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COMPARISON	Freshsales
A visual sales pipeline by stages for all opportunities		Available through 3rd-party integrations.
Multiple sales pipelines

Built-in Phone

Hands down, Freshsales beats Microsoft Dynamics. One-click to call, auto-log, record, transfer and mask calls, buy toll-free numbers, set welcome and voicemail messages, and add call notes are the advantageous capabilities of the Freshsales built-in phone. With Microsoft Dynamics, phone-related functions are available only via Skype or other third-party tools. This means switching between your CRM and another application.

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COMPARISON	Freshsales
Phone system		Available through 3rd-party integrations.
Auto call log
Call recording		Available through 3rd-party integrations.

Contact Scoring

This feature is available in Microsoft Dynamics 365 as an add-on in Sales Professional Plan. But in Freshsales, it’s a built-in feature at no extra cost. What's better? It is all done by Freddy AI, built into Freshsales. You can customize your contact scoring model to categorize your leads into hot, warm and cold. Freddy AI computes lead score and provide ranking to contacts and accounts based on Freddy's predictions and engagement levels. Give your sales reps the means to focus their time and effort to pursue the right leads using contact scoring in Freshsales.

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COMPARISON	Freshsales
Score by lead property		Only with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for marketing.
Score by website, in-app and email behavior		Only with Microsoft Dynamics 365 for marketing.

Automation

Automation is a time saver and makes lives easier. It eliminates the need for manual work and improves the team's efficiency. In Freshsales, creating workflow automation is as easy as its function. Simply define rules and triggers and let them run like clockwork. Freshsales offers intelligent workflows to automate sending emails, follow-up on tasks, generate invoices, automatically qualify leads in your funnel, and more. Microsoft Dynamics also offers automation, but it makes configuring them a complex task for sales reps. And, if you want real-time workflows, you need to learn to code.

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