CRM Systems

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Permalink Reply by Sheldon Nesdale on December 20, 2009 at 7:27pm

I've heard InfusionSoft is pretty awesome, but maybe too high powered and expensive for your requirements. ACT has a very good track record - been around for years, and they work hard to upgrade it every year.

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Permalink Reply by Clint McGuire on December 22, 2009 at 5:17pm

Salesforce.com is a popular web based CRM software.

http://www.salesforce.com/

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Permalink Reply by Mike Voseipka on December 23, 2009 at 3:41pm

Salesforce.com is a great one, but might be too much for what you need now. Another one that I have used and is really flexible and inexpensive is Filemaker.

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Permalink Reply by Sau Ching on December 24, 2009 at 12:31am

Hi Mike, I'm currently managing a CRM project, implementing Salesforce across Asia. Salesforce is great, however it is more suitable for enterprise level as licensing is expensive.

You can try exploring SugarCRM (http://www.sugarcrm.com), which has a free Community Edition and upgrade to Professional or Enterprise Edition according to your needs. Have not tried it personally, though I read good reviews about it.

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Permalink Reply by hotdog on December 24, 2009 at 9:11am

If you are looking to start low cost (i.e. free) and like the concept of salesforce.com look at Zoho.com and their CRM product among other products they have (similar to google docs). It doesn't have all the plugins and api flexibility of salesforce.com but is very much like salesforce otherwise. My colleague used to use salesforce a lot and seemed to think so at least - though I know salesforce has been developing its product quite a bit the last few years. I have used Sugar, Netsuite, Salesforce, Zoho, CiviCRM (also free opensource but tricky to setup if you aren't good with SQL) & ACT personally.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Laniak on December 27, 2009 at 6:19pm

Thank you all so much for the input. I like saleforce.com, they seem to have some really resonable monthly rates for small business packages and the capabilities of the application is pretty neat for helping communicate better with customers.

On the other hand, I really like SugarCRM and its open source opportunities with the add-on's.

I have been looking at Microsofts Outlook Contact Manager and liked that I could possibly integrate that with their accounting software. Sucks that they are now bundling all that into one pricey package for small businesses and pricing it in the thousands.

Well, my project this week is to hopefully pick one and stick with it. Thanks all and merry x-mas as well as happy holidays.

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Permalink Reply by Yamini Kagal on December 27, 2009 at 8:50pm

I'm a little late to the discussion, but this topic was covered on The New York Times "You're the Boss" blog a few days ago, and I thought it might provide some insight. http://is.gd/5DND8

I've used Salesforce.com for several years, and while it's very stable and feature rich, it does get expensive fast. If you're looking primarily for contact management though, their $5/month Contact Manager package might be just right. Zoho CRM's basic offering looks comparable, although I have never used it. I personally like the simplicity and user-friendliness of Highrise http://highrisehq.com. They all have free plans, so the best way to figure out which you prefer might be to test drive them all.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

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Permalink Reply by Michael Laniak on December 28, 2009 at 12:03am

Wow, thank you Yamini!

That article was truly helpful. Its got me swayed to SalesForce.com and after watching the video demos on their site I really love it. We have over 250 contacts so the free HighriseHQ wont work for what we want to do. The $5 a month SalesForce.com "contact manager" seems like the route we might go and add some of those appexchange add ons as well.

One bummer is that I would like to mass email some of our contacts through it but you cannot unless you purchase the $65 a month professional package. I like how it can track your email campaigns, which is something we need to get in touch with.

~Much Appreciated & a Happy New Year to you too!

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Permalink Reply by Damon De La Pena on January 1, 2010 at 11:13pm

Michael,

I am currently using highrise by 37 signals as a way to capture my CRM needs at a low costs.

http://highrisehq.com/?source=vector&gclid=COPFhJ3rhJ8CFRAeDQod...

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Permalink Reply by Jim McKay on January 23, 2010 at 3:04pm

I was just doing research on CRM as well. I chose FreeCRM as it had the most features that I needed and low cost upgrade paths. Definitely worth a look.

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Permalink Reply by Josh Letourneau on February 6, 2010 at 5:16pm

Michael, if you're a small business, I imagine you're not as concerned about integrating with the 'back-end'? If so, I would also recommend looking outside of enterprise CRM tools, such as Salesforce.com.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd go more "social" . . . however I don't have too much knowledge of the size of your company.

Have you looked into Socialtext? It's free up to 50 users (and one 'workspace'/wiki) and can help you leverage real-time intel and collaboration. Personally, it's redefined what I believe to be a "lead" today.

P.S. Socialtext is pitched as a "Collaboration Platform", but it serves CRM capabilities as well.

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