The application of AI technology across CRM has completely transformed the market landscape, just as in other software application categories. This means that those working with CRM can effortlessly enhance customer experiences, streamline sales and marketing processes, and drive business growth.
Having access to an intelligent and efficient system that automates routine tasks such as data entry and customer segmentation frees up time for more strategic work. Additionally, AI tools help professionals optimise sales funnels, prioritise sales activity and provide deeper insights into customer sentiment and preferences. Essentially, AI has made CRM systems more valuable and impactful, leading to better decision-making, improved performance and efficiency for sales and marketing professionals.
With businesses increasingly adopting AI-powered CRM, the bar has most definitely been raised, and its adoption is accelerating at a rapid pace. A McKinsey and Company report suggests that over the next three years, 92% of companies plan to increase their AI investments. That’s a significant increase across a small time frame. The message is clear: get with the programme and embrace AI CRM tools if you want to stay competitive.
This abundance of CRM solutions on the market all championing their AI capabilities is great in one sense as users face a wealth of options. However the flip side is that it can appear as a slightly homogenised market making it difficult for CRM hunters to weigh up their options and determine the best solution for them.
To help with this decision making we explore Microsoft’s AI offering Copilot which can be activated within the Dynamics 365 CRM suite, including the sales marketing and customer service modules.
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Like many AI tools applied to CRM, Copilot uses advanced language models to assist users by automating tasks offering content suggestions summarising information and providing intelligent suggestions. Let us explain exactly how this could impact some typical scenarios for a salesperson. Does any of this sound familiar….
How Copilot help sales teams
Monday morning coffee in hand you log onto your laptop only to see that oh so familiar backlog of unread emails. Usually you’d block out several hours to wade through these messages sorting, deleting and replying to the most urgent. That was standard practice in the past. But that same daily task is now made far less arduous and thanks to Copilot you’ll fly through that unread list in no time. Copilot displays a summary of the essential parts of the email making it easier and quicker for you to draft a reply, or you can ask Copilot to write the reply and even come up with an attention grabbing subject line for you. Suddenly the time taken to wade through those emails is halved.
In another scenario you’ve been asked to deliver a sales forecast report to the VP of sales. The traditional manual way of undertaking this task can be time consuming and prone to error either because of human error or unreliable siloed data. Unreliable and inaccurate sales forecasts become a thing of the past with Copilot which can dive into your data on the unified Microsoft database for example Microsoft Office Suite, Teams, PowerBI and Dynamics 365 and analyse historical data and current trends to give you an accurate and clear picture of future pipeline and revenue. Confident sales forecasting makes for confident decision making and if you’re delivering that confidence to others in your organisation your stock will inevitably rise. And success will follow for you and your company.
Let’s look at another scenario to illustrate the cleverness of Copilot for the typical salesperson on a typical day… You’ve got your weekly team huddle where you need to update on pipeline and include granular details on your key leads and prospects. You’ve been backed up with meetings and tasks and have just 20 minutes to prepare. Wipe those sweat beads away! Copilot can help you prepare in literally minutes by summarising the relevant information from your opportunities or lead records.
As we have illustrated Copilot works like a digital PA boosting your efficiency and productivity. It seamlessly integrates with your other Microsoft tools making you more productive and freeing up time for you to focus your attention elsewhere. More brain space means more time for creative thinking strategic decision making and focusing on activities that actually move the needle. This boost in efficiency and productivity is a win for you and your organisation.
How much is Copilot?
The big question on everyone’s lips is is it worth the investment? And does it live up to the hype?
Sadly, Copilot is not a free tool and there is no ‘freemium product’ to try before you buy and there is a cost associated with using Copilot with Dynamics 365. Licensing is tiered so what you pay depends on your existing Dynamics licensing and the AI tools you can access become more sophisticated the more extensive your Dynamics 365 licenses are.
Basic requirements are that you need a license for Microsoft Dynamics 365 sales and Microsoft 365 If you already have a Copilot license for Microsoft 365 you can purchase Copilot for Sales for an addon cost of $20 per user, per month- At the time of publishing this is £15.45 in the UK.
As you’ll already have Dynamics 365 Sales you can activate Copilot for Sales for an addon cost Dynamics 365 Sales Premium customers can activate Copilot for Sales for $52 per user per month And that equates to £40 as of March 2025. These costs are per user, per month.
Is Copilot worth the investment?
So do the numbers stack up? In a word yes AI is simply changing the way we sell. The use cases speak for themselves – the AI tool makes sales teams slicker quicker and nimbler. Plus, better and quicker decision-making will only grow and accelerate the pipeline positively affecting the bottom line.
If productivity improvement figures are to be believed sales rep productivity can increase by 30-50% as their attention can be switched to value added activities instead of repetitive tasks
Even the more conservative reports still report impressive productivity increases. For example Goldman Sachs suggests “The average increase in productivity is about 25% Case studies of companies that have adopted AI imply similarly large efficiency gains.”
The research out there suggest that it’s not simply clever marketing or spin.
To determine whether AI CRM tools will deliver results to your organisation consider the impact they can have on your sales team and what that means in terms of sales pipeline growth and conversions.
Lets look at a hypothetical scenario of a large SME that employs 10 sales team members who each have a bolt on license for Copilot for Sales at £40 per month, that’s a total of £400 per month. For the entire team that costs around £4,800 for the full year. Say your average annual contract value is £12,000 per new customer and you’ve been winning new customers at a rate of 50 per year. Even a 10 increase in pipeline growth courtesy of Copilot would see an additional 5 new clients in one year bringing in an additional £60,000 in ACV And that’s not accounting for improved sales conversions either.
Suddenly that £4,800 investment seems like spare change given the sizeable impact on ACV.
The best thing to do would be to run those numbers for your business and see what it looks like. But the real question is with such a high adoption rate can you afford not to? In reality those who don’t adapt to this AI era will not be able to maintain a competitive edge and achieve sustainable growth in line with competition.
If you’re interested in learning more about Copilot for Dynamics 365 contact us to arrange a quick demo or to simply ask for advice.
Book a free 30 -minute consultation, or call us on 08081674255.
ABOUT ROCKET CRM
Rocket CRM is a Microsoft Dynamics 365, and a platinum Click accredited partner, helping small to medium-sized businesses and charities harness the power of scalable CRM technology. Our mission is to make powerful CRM software simple with custom-built, user-focused solutions.
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Sources:
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