Selecting a CRM
Dan GunnThere are many Customer Relationship Management tools and programs available.
Please share your experiences.
Which one do you use and why?
Do you recommend it, why or why not?
What ones have you tried before and why did you stop using them?
- Login to post comments
I have implemented a number of CRM systems (Microsoft CRM, Oracle, SAP, Sage, PeopleSoft, Sugar CRM, Maximizer, RightNow and Salesforce.com) for various organization in Victoria and Vancouver. Salesforce.com is hands down the best CRM for features, integration and setup. I disagree with Adam’s comment about the price, as $1,000 USD per seat/per year for an Enterprise license is well worth the money since there isn’t any infrastructure costs.
What impresses me most about Salesforce.com is the number of application available through the AppExchange. Think of the AppExchange like an iPhone…if you can think of the need, there is most likely an app for it. I have found many useful applications to integrate into my current install of Salesforce.com.
For someone looking to get started, Salesforce.com provides an environment that is already setup the moment your site is live. This default setup will work for most people without the need for customization.
However, the best feature of Salesforce.com is the SaaS model. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to access information via my phone, on the road or a computer kiosk in a hotel. Most of the other systems are client server based and provide a very limited web client.
- Login to post comments
To follow on the comments by Chris.
VIATeC uses Salesforce as well. We do not have a high end package so pay quite a bit less per seat.
Our staff are huge fans of Salesforce. This new web site gives us quite a bit more member management capability so we may end up rounding out some functionality and working exclusively in that environment for all member/customer records.
I have heard that Salesforce has a very open API (Application program interface) which may allow us to build a bridge between the two systems…that decision will come to a good old fashion cost benefits analysis.
- Login to post comments
Smart Dolphins had an internally developed solution for a long while, but on May 1st we transitioned to TigerPaw. This is an industry specific solution and so it won't work for everyone. Obviously, we are in the very early stages of using it so I can't speak too loudly about it, but so far the experience is positive.
We did look at ConnectWise, but for a few reasons decided against it:
1. Didn't address all our needs.
2. Operationally VERY different than how we have done things.
3. Relatively expensive.
- Login to post comments
I have experienced a lot of different CRM’s over the years and they all had their advantages and disadvantages. The important thing is finding one that best meets your organization's needs -which is invariably harder to achieve than it sounds.
We are currently using Microsoft Dynamics CRM internally (very happy with it) and it is probably the one we recommend to our customers more than any other (I repeat - recommend - not sell ;-). There are a bunch of reasons for this but the top few are:
-it is unbelievably easy to use (you can actually use all its functionality from inside Outlook if you choose to do so)
-it ties in easily with a company’s other systems (sharing data across an organization)
-excellent built in reporting capabilities
-extremely customizable (so you can tailor it to match your needs exactly), and the customization is so easy a monkey could do it (think click and drag - not coding). The customization also gives you the added advantage that you can use Dynamics CRM for managing a lot of other aspects of your business than just sales.
Perhaps the best thing about the product though is that fact that you have the choice of having it hosted on premise, hosted online by Microsoft, or even hosted by a third party provider (or any hybrid combination of the three) and you can switch the way it is deployed at any time.
As far as the mobility issue goes for Dynamics CRM, regardless of how it is deployed, SaaS or on-prem, it runs as a web application so mobility isn’t an issue - it’s easily as good as anything else out there in that respect - and it also has an off-line mode so you can continue working with it when you don’t have a connection. Good Lord, I’m starting to sound as if I work for Microsoft.
No question that it does have some warts but not many. Not sure why that it isn’t more popular than it is except perhaps for the belief that it is really expensive (when in fact it is one of the least costly) and the fact that some of the early versions kind of sucked (sometimes hard to shake a crappy reputation). One instance where it doesn’t make a lot of sense is if less than five people in your organization are going to use it as MS licensing model starts making it less attractive below this number of users.
If anyone is interested in seeing what it can (and can't do) I would be happy to give a brief demo.
- Login to post comments
In our business, we work within our clients CRM sytems. We have seen them all from the big name ones like ConnectWise, to the open source ones, to the home grown ones.
I personally use Sales Force when it comes to sales, but from a support standpoint, i'd pick ConnectWise.
Pros of salesforce - Customizable, fast, interoperability with other CRM platforms, marketplace is really nice.
Cons of salesforce - Price ($$$), 6+ hours of downtime every quarter for maintenance, the packages are difficult to wrap your head around
ConnectWise is a great system, but it lacks cross browser compatibility (the ones we run at least) and can sometimes be clunky and difficult to use. Its not uncommon to get ugly .net errors thrown up, however you don't see that in Sales Force.
I did a trial of maximizer, but nuked it before my free trial ended - nuff said.
When it comes to CRM, thin client is the way to go - web based 'cloud' model like salesforce. It's one less thing you have to worry about hosting, and allows you to customize it to your liking.
Thats my 2cents - I'd be happy to provide more detail if people need some more in depth understanding of the products as we use them on a daily basis.