Inefficient work processes are a real drag for your business. They can jeopardize customer satisfaction, customer engagement, employee morale and productivity. These kinds of consequences can lead to serious financial losses. In fact, a recent report from Formstack and Mantis Research shows inefficiency costs organizations, on average, over $1 million per year. That’s unsustainable in an industry as competitive as yours.

Fortunately, there are a variety of technological solutions that can help you turn things around. Chief among them is Microsoft Dynamics 365’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Service and Marketing CRM solutions are a suite of enterprise applications that are cloud-based and designed to help businesses, like yours, seamlessly manage their ongoing interactions with customers, clients as well as their sales prospects and leads. Composed of three applications — Customer Service, Sales and Marketing — the high-powered Dynamics 365 CRM Online bundle provides small- and midsize organizations with a wide range of features and tools that businesses (primarily in product-based industries) can leverage to manage customer data, track sales, manage marketing campaigns, schedule service calls, generate reports, automate work processes and much more.

Securing Dynamics CRM solutions is an investment in success. But as with any investment, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Sales, Service and Marketing solutions cost money. Here, we will explore some of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 pricing options that are available. We are supremely confident that a CRM implementation is something you can’t afford to pass up.

How much does Dynamics 365 CRM cost?

From Outlook to Internet Explorer to Power BI, Microsoft specializes in providing each user with several productivity enhancing options as they pertain to their business needs. Microsoft applies the same approach to its pricing. Dynamics CRM Sales, Service & Marketing comes in multiple editions, such as:

Dynamics 365 Sales
– Professional (sales automation for organizations without complex sales processes)
– Enterprise (sales automaton for organizations with complex sales processes)
– Premium (includes more prebuilt and embedded business insights)
– Microsoft Relationship Sales (Enterprise and LinkedIn Sales Navigator Advanced Plus)

Dynamics 365 Customer Service
– Professional
– Enterprise (expanded functionality including dispatching and managing resources)

Dynamics 365 Field Service
– Field Service User
– Field Service Device
– Team Member (lower cost for field technicians)
– Field Service Resource Schedule Optimization

Dynamics 365 Marketing
– Licensed per tenant
– Pricing starts for 10K Marketing Contacts and 100K Marketing Interactions
– Contacts not marketed to using Dynamics 365 Marketing do not count towards limit

A la Carte

The CRM components are offered in an a la carte fashion where organizations only license what they need. Currently, Professional users are about $65/month, Enterprise users are about $95/month, Team Users are about $10/month and there are also attach SKUs for about $20/month that allow you to add CRM applications like Sales, Customer Service or Field Service for users that need access two several suites. There are even attach licenses available for users of Business Central to add Sales Professional or Field Service Professional at the discounted price of $20/month/user. By the way, the Accounting/ERP solution Business Central users are currently $70/month for Professional and $100 for Premium. Business Central Premium adds more manufacturing and service order management capabilities.  Pricing can be extremely confusing and you should work with a partner like The TM Group (TMG) to understand the costs.

A word on licenses

In the context of software, user licenses serve as agreements in which vendors give individuals (or, in this case, business owners) the right (i.e. license) to use their software, so long as it is within the terms and conditions established by the vendor. These licenses also specify how many users are permitted to access the software and what they’re capable of doing. Without getting too into the weeds, there are also different types of user licenses. For example, if you wanted to assign a specific individual as a user, you’d go with a named user license. If you wanted a multiple users to access the software at different times using the same device, those are called device user licenses.

Enterprise and Professional, meanwhile, are more souped up iterations of the Dynamics CRM solutions. This means that in addition to the base capabilities of the sales or service applications, they also come with other optimizations and enhancements. There is often some confusion between the Customer Service and Field Service solutions. If you are involved in an industry in which your employees are deployed to various locations to provide services, Field Service is a module that was made with your business in mind. With features such as inventory management, work order management and service scheduling dispatching that can arrange for the deployment of field service technicians based on certain variables (e.g. skill set, availability, location, etc.), Field Service is designed to help organizations provide superior customer service when they’re out in the field. It also includes the Customer Service capabilities, so you don’t have to license both.

Now that you know a little bit more about the pricing, let’s dive into the CRM modules themselves.

Customer Service

Regardless of your industry, the satisfaction of your customers is pivotal to your success. Much like the lifecycle of a product, customer experience takes place on a continuum: before, during and after the initial point of service. Customer Service in the Dynamics CRM bundle helps organizations manage customer interactions at every stage of the customer lifecycle (e.g. acquisition, conversion, retention, loyalty). It includes tools for creating and managing service cases, tracking customer interactions and managing service level agreements. It also boasts enhanced features, such as knowledge management, self-service portals and customer sentiment analysis. Through these capabilities, organizations that leverage Customer Service are in a better position to improve customer satisfaction, reduce response times and streamline customer support processes that transpire along the customer lifecycle.

Sales

While your interaction with the customer is important, the relationship revolves around the sale, whether you’re attempting to get to that desired destination or it’s already taken place. Dynamics 365 Sales helps a sales professional or other relevant stakeholders manage those stages, from lead generation to closing deals. Replete with tools for managing contacts and accounts, tracking sales activities and managing quotes, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales ensures that you or your users are fully in control of the sales process. Enhanced with calendar integration, mobile access and analytics, the application is designed to help businesses boost sales volume, improve sales quality, better understand customer needs and make data-driven sales decisions. Similar to Customer Service, this module can operate on its own or be integrated with its CRM siblings, providing a more comprehensive, 360 degree view of the customer.

Marketing

Whether you grow oranges or manufacture hockey pucks, you can’t sell to your customers if they don’t know that your products are out there or why yours are better than the rest. And, much like the other applications referenced, marketing comes in several stages, from preparation to presentation and more. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing helps you nail them all. From lead management to email campaigns to event management, this application uses a combination of automation and AI to streamline these processes and advertising channels. It also has analytics capabilities, which provide greater understanding of customer behavior. These insights can help you adjust your marketing strategy so they resonate best with the clients you’re trying to reach. Some marketing capabilities are included with Sales, so licensing Marketing isn’t always needed unless you need its enhanced capabilities. A partner such as TMG can help you figure out if it is needed.

This application stands on its own as well, but is best utilized in tandem with Customer Service and Sales, providing your business with unparalleled efficiency that allows you to get more out of each module than when they’re used in isolation.

Need More, Get More with Business Central

Since any organization that uses a CRM application will obviously need an accounting or ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central is the perfect all-in-one solution for small to midsize businesses that can complement the customer relationship management applications. Also cloud-based, Dynamics ERP Business Central helps to centralize (hence the name) core business processes through a single, unified operations solution, increasing visibility and ease of access for each authorized user. Ideal for small and midsize businesses, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central automates supply chain, inventory and purchasing responsibilities of your organization and can be paired with other Microsoft products, like Power BI and Microsoft Office 365. Power BI is part of the Microsoft Power platform, which also includes Power App and Power Automate.

As far as pricing is concerned, Business Central comes in two configurations, which affect how much you can expect to spend:

– Essentials
– Premium

The Essentials package sells for $70 per user per month and can access tools like Accounting, Distribution, Assemblies and Project Management. With Premium, the cost is $100 per user per month. In addition to the Essential modules, the Premium package also has Service Orders and Manufacturing.

Let The TM Group Handle Your Implementation

You may have options when it comes to your Microsoft solutions, but when it comes to the best integration provider, there’s only one: The TM Group. TMG has helped hundreds of organizations build a better business with a comprehensive Dynamics 365 plan that enhances workplace efficiency and productivity. We also provide comprehensive training so each user knows how the systems work and which application does what. Contact us today to learn more.