Recommend a CRM Solution

Ryphka
Member

Posted 31-May-2005 03:15 PM
Mr. Price,

I work in sales for a small software development company. We have 28 employees, of which 5 of us make up sales, marketing, finance and executive. We are about to launch several new products and will also be adding new channel partners.

I am trying to encourage my boss to implement a CRM solution now before we have a big mess on our hands. We are a secure facility, as we do some work for the military, so many of these on line ASP type CRM solutions are not going to work for us, unless they have military security clearence (my boss is really paronoid)

That said, can you recommend a few on-site solutions that will allow us to grow. Sieble is very expensive for the implementation and the sales person admits it does not scale down efficiently for a small group of users. I also am looking at CustomerFirst/SalesFirst from RTI. I used that before and I think it is robust enough.

We currently use ACT and it is too limiting for our needs. I was wondering what your professional considerations are. We would be using the CRM software to track incidents, create a knowledge base, use for sales and marketing and hopefully also bill out of the software as well.

Any good leads will be considered. Thank you for your attention to this matter and for any assistance you can pass on.

Rebecca Holman
Visual Learning Systems
www.featureanalyst.com

Gwynne Young
Managing Editor, CustomerThink
Member

Posted 01-Jun-2005 11:06 AM
[Posted for Bill Price]

Rebecca,

I would suggest talking with two CRM vendors that can handle smaller applications, RightNow and Talisma. While both offer hosted ASP solutions, too, their licensed apps ought to do the trick.

Bill Price
President, Driva Solutions

Posted 06-Aug-2005 08:17 AM
OK.. i have a simple issue.

my website, evdo wireless internet, generates contacts and quote requests. these requests get sent to my email box. what i want to do is track all contacts and quotes so that i can see a conversion ratio.

BUT... its suuuper time consuming to enter all my emails in column order into excell Red Face)

ALSO... i want to be able to track how long it takes for a client to respond to my replys. so... if a potential client DOES NOT reply to my email in 3 hours, i get a short list of folks to call on the phone. If they dont respond in 2 days, they get sent to my csr. etc... help!!! evdo.hsdpa@gmail.com

Posted 11-Aug-2005 10:54 AM
Bob,

A browser-based (not internet-based) web solution that offers an internet client side portal may do the trick for you. Sage Accpac CRM is both and is highly configurable to meet your needs. It includes response tracking as well as alerts notifications and workflow. It also integrates with MS-Outlook.

Contact me if you'd like more info.
grenner@en-terpret.com

Hitesh Patel
Member

Posted 11-Aug-2005 06:18 PM
Rebecca,

I would suggest you try out salesforce.com - a well recognized but reasonably priced hosted solution.

I've recently completed a salesforce.com project for a Fortune 500 company, and because of its success, it is being considered for other functional groups and enterprise wide deployment.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you need any guidance.

Hitesh Patel
Consultant
hitesh@koonj.net
koonj.net