Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I've been looking for a simple, fast and cost effective Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) for my business.   I am looking into a couple of different options and want to see if anyone has had any first hand experience with these brands?

www.Highrisehq.com

www.bigcontacts.com

www.oprius.com

www.timetonote.com

The sales team is currently just me but I am preparing to add additional staff in the immediate future.  I really want something that is fast, simple and effective for a small team.

Note - I've tried salesforce.com and it was too complicated and slow for my tastes.  I am also only interested in web based tools.

Any opinions and feedback are appreciated.

Of the ones in your list I'd say highrisehq.com is the most rated.

If you're interested in reviewing another, www.simplesalestracking.com was built specifically to be simpler to use than salesforce.

There's a free version (not a trial) as well as a $15 /per user/month option.

Good luck on your search.

ps.  I work over at Simple Sales Tracking, so my opinion is biased. :-)

The answer to your questions is not easy or straight-forward.

You are asking for 2 completely different things. Do you want sales tracking software or a CRM software? They are used for different purposes.

Before selecting ANY software, you need to define what your use is and what you want the software to do for you. What is your strategy, objective, and actions? Those will be the drivers for the software you want, not the other way around.

Almost every failed CRM implementation we have seen, over our 15 years doing this kind of consulting and implementations, are the direct result of the path you are going down. Companies think they can select a certain software and "eureka" they have CRM.

CRM is NOT software, it is the result of the way every company manages their relationships with prospects, customers, and employees. The software used is the tool that provides a way of doing what you want, when you want, and with the method you want.

With that said, then I would ask why you want to use only web-based systems?
While the initial cost can be lower than an installed system the break point for most are at about 12-18 months (for the low cost systems). After that, it starts to cost considerably more to use the on-line systems than a hosted on. As well, most low cost web-based systems do not allow for customization to suit your needs specifically. They are "here is what we offer, use this" types of systems.

They would work well for you if your strategy, objectives, and actions match what they offer. If not, then you will find frustration and lack of effective use to be the norm. When you need to have some modifications or expansion of these systems; they will be either not able to or be cost prohibitive.

More importantly, we have used some online systems and one of the websites failed. We could not get to our data for almost 2 full days. No access, no work done! Then we went with another choice and one day we came in and the company had went out of business, website was shut down and we lost all our data. Never going to happen again. Our data stays on systems we control, in a location we know will be here, and the cost to set it up, once, does not increase when we add additional users.

Also, you want to ask these questions of yourself, before selecting a solution:

1. Do I need, or want, to know what marketing actions are effective in getting leads into my company?
2. What marketing action, or vehicle, leads to the highest closure rate, with the most profitable customers?
   
3. What is the quality of the lead(s) we are getting?
4. Where are they in the "buying decision" process?
   
5. Do I want to know the status of the lead in the system?
6. Do I want to know how many actions we need to do, or have done, to close the sale?
7. What information do we supply, or need to supply, that will trigger the decision process to buy in our favor?
8. What methods do we use to followup and/or educate our prospects to facilitate the decision to buy from us?
9. What do we do with the leads that are not ready to buy now, but need nurturing further?

These are but a few of the things that you need to address, BEFORE making a software purchasing decision. To not answer these, you are leaving a lot of potential sales in your wake and losing a lot of money.

Most of these questions are part of a business management system or software and not part of most CRM software packages. If the systems you are looking at do not include these items, then we should talk. The system I use does, and it is not web-based. I can make it as simple as I need now, and increase the functionality when I am ready.

Not only does it provide the things listed above, it also does marketing automation, campaign management, lead tracking, quoting and proposal generation, help desk and ticketing support, RMA tracking, surveys, project and contract management, reporting and analysis, all the standard CRM stuff that is standard, links to my QuickBooks system for automated inporting, and more. All of this for about $500.

I am not going to provide the name here because you want it to be web-based, but if what I said changes your mind and there is interest, send me a message, I will be happy to provide the software name to you.

Best of luck with your selection, what ever it is.

David

A lot of great answers here for client acquisition. I have just started using oprius myself and am learning more and more on a daily basis.

My question is what are you doing once you have gotten your clients to keep them and to cultivate them as a referral source? I call it Appreciation Marketing and I use SendOutCards to do it. (I became a distributor after seeing how good it was for my practice) It helped me grow my QuickBooks practice and I saw the benefit almost immediately in the way clients acted and reacted to my calls. If you're interested give me a call at 352-854-8943 and I will be happy to give you a gift account to try with no obligation.

Mike

Thanks fo

StreetSmart CRM....

Yes, this is a shameless plug :)  But StreetSmart is a different tasting CRM soup altogether.  Email is integrated, along with scheduling, doc management, workflow.., archiving, audit trails..., all from the contact record.  It's really an Enterprise App but priced for small startups or anyone with 1 to 20 employees.

HTH