Can you recommend a CRM service?

[Halcyon Yachts]

I have been investigating CRM solutions online and am getting mixed messages. My staff and I use gmail for email and I would like a system that integrates well with this. Ideally something where all of my contacts in gmail can be easily shared/synced.

Any recommendations would be appreciated... Is there a particular system that you use that you would vouch for?

Many thanks!

 

[BTON Agency]

To be honest most emails can be synced to a CRM - however i question why you would use gmail?

If you have outlook in Microsoft office and own a domain name very easy to set up "John@halcyonyachts" looks much more professional.

If i was you, i would get a local IT guy in, tell him the software you want and get him to set up for you and copy across contacts, be no more than a couple hundred pounds and money well spent.

 

[ffox]

To be honest most emails can be synced to a CRM - however i question why you would use gmail?

If you have outlook in Microsoft office and own a domain name very easy to set up "John@halcyonyachts" looks much more professional.

I would agree with @BTON Agency .

It might also be worth your looking at this other thread - http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/t...till-believe-o365-is-just-office-2016.368753/

O365 SharePoint on-line will allow you to build your own CRM.

 

[JamieM]

Why wouldn't you use Gmail? You can still use a domain email like "John@halcyonyachts" with it.

I use Streak CRM with Gmail but I'm not sure it syncs with other users very well. Might be worth a look though.

 

[ffox]

Why wouldn't you use Gmail? You can still use a domain email like "John@halcyonyachts" with it.

I use Streak CRM with Gmail but I'm not sure it syncs with other users very well. Might be worth a look though.

Precisely. That's why I wouldn't recommend the use of GMail. There is uncertainty about the ability to sync and integrate. This is not the case with Office 365.

 

[JamieM]

Precisely. That's why I wouldn't recommend the use of GMail. There is uncertainty about the ability to sync and integrate. This is not the case with Office 365.

Streak definitely integrates with Gmail because that is what it's built for. I just checked and it does actually sync quite nicely across users too.

 

[Tavakli]

I agree with BTON Agency. There are so many CRM solutions out there and it is so important to identify the right one for your business. A good IT Company will ask all the relevant questions and find the most suitable and hopefully "off the shelf" CRM for your immediate and future needs. I have used 4 well known systems over the years and with 2 companies their choice of CRM was entirely inappropriate to their actual requirements. Definitely trial one first before you shell out any money. Most offer 30 day trials anyway.

 

[VictorI]

Hey!
Saw your discussion and decided to say a few words.

As you want a CRM that integrates with Gmail, you can't find a deeper integration than in Streak and NetHunt CRM (my company). Both actually live inside Gmail, with no separate apps or websites to keep open in other browser tabs. I won't go into comparing these two (as I'm obviously a little bit biased), so you should probably take a look at both.

In the meantime, I'd be glad to hear what else you expect from a CRM with Gmail integration. How about we discuss it? Will be happy to show you how NetHunt CRM works. Maybe it's just what you're looking for

 

[Alan]

As you are G Suite ( Gmail for business) users the first one to look at is ProsperWorks Google's recommended product https://www.prosperworks.com/

Happy to discuss your requirements in more detail ( free consultation), I have evaluated many CRMs for different client requirements, and being a Google Cloud / G Suite partner, you can be assured I wont try and sell you O365

 

[David Reinhardt]

Hi Halcyon Yachts

Firstly - I'll openly say that one of the products my business sells is a CRM product for small businesses that sits on top of MS Dynamics. So naturally I have an interest, but will share some general thinking.

(1) I'd agree with BTON Agency on their first point. gmail emails just look like "part time" businesses. You want something with your own domain. You could do this through gmail (if you use the Google business suite, you've not been specific if you do/don't). In my opinion, Microsoft's Office 365 product has largely left gmail in the dust so it is worth looking at. That said, the overarching point is get away from @gmail to your own domain.

(2) I'd disagree with BTON Agency on getting any old local IT firm. You want someone that knows the CRM market. If you are looking to a local IT firm, ask them their range of experience on CRM, ask them for a few product suggestions, etc. If they can't name a few products off the top of their heads, they're not the right people to help you with this problem.

(3) There are a few web based ones worth looking at ... HubSpot, Pipedream and Zoho come to mind as the obvious ones web based CRMs. (The other solutions mentioned here seem to be specific to delivering CRM within a gmail environment).

Dynamics CRM can be subscribed to as a web service but it is very sophisticated and requires a fair amount of setup. FWIW, that's what our product does, i.e. we provide a pre-setup environment so you can use Dynamics quickly and easily. (If you choose to stay with gmail then Dynamics 365 is not the right option for you as you cannot sync contacts).

(4) ffox suggests building your own CRM. I'd suggest this would be a folly. You'll never be giving it the attention that a dedicated vendor is giving it so you'll be spending more money (in terms whatever you pay developers) to get less features than a dedicated CRM solution. I imagine you want to focus on yachts, not building CRM.

I don't know if that's helped? It is hard to recommend on the basis of the few requirements you've mentioned, but hopefully it has given some food for thought. I'm happy to take a call/email convo if you want further ideas.

 

[Alan]

gmail emails just look like "part time" businesses.

How wrong you are. The OP uses G Suite - you can't tell ( unless you look up the MX records ) that they use G Mail, which is linked to their own domain.

I'd disagree with BTON Agency on getting any old local IT firm

I agree with you here. I have done some work for a client that their IT company recommended Sage CRM - why - Because they use Sage (locally installed) accounting.

Complete idiots - infact the 'right' solution for them was Salesforce

There are a few web based ones worth looking at

There are many web based ones worth looking at, the long list is quite long for Small Enterprises here are a few that I have dealt with ( there are many more ...)
- Capsule
- Pipe Drive
- Prosper Works
- Zoho
- Really Simple Systems
- Work Etc
- Work Books
For larger enterprises the list gets shorter
- Salesforce
- MS Dynamics

ffox suggests building your own CRM.

I agree, unless you can make do (as many can) with a simple contact manager / spreadsheet

 

[David Reinhardt]

I should've been clearer - I interpreted the OP's comment about gmail to be a gmail[dot]com. If they're using their own domain and G Suite, then it's no issue. The gist was about the email address and the perception it creates, not G Suite v. Office 365 (or any other provider).

 

[Alan]

Yes they use G Suite, their domains MX records point to Google. it was @BTON Agency making an assumption that mislead the thread with other comments from ffox etc.

Just to be clear, to other readers, paid for business G Mail ( G Suite ) is a 'proper' email system that equals or surpasses O365 in features and capabilities and used by millions of businesses and educational establishments, many of whom have many thousands of employees. ( and for clarity I am a Google Cloud partner - so not making this up )

 

[David Reinhardt]

Cool. Yep, the G Suite is absolutely a full-featured enterprise suite. I use it on some personal domains. We may have to take another thread to argue the point of "equals or surpasses O365", but there's probably not enough beer in the world to settle that argument!

 

[Alan]

but there's probably not enough beer in the world to settle that argument!

Its a moving target - one innovates - the other catches up and in doing so tries to leap frog.

Unfortunately it is very difficult to be a true expert in everything - so I chose not to have any deep expertise in MicroSoft, just a working knowledge ( after all there are too many MS experts already )

 

[JamieM]

How wrong you are. The OP uses G Suite - you can't tell ( unless you look up the MX records ) that they use G Mail, which is linked to their own domain.

You don't even need to use G Suite to send from your domain email. You can do it in Gmail and then just use email forwarding to have incoming emails forwarded to a Gmail address. Works perfectly for me.

 

[Alan]

@JamieM yes indeed, you can.

You can use the Gmail client to send mail as any server based SMTP account, just like you can from Outlook / Thunderbird / Mac Mail

Of course you will need an email service of some form to send via.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22370?hl=en

 

[David Reinhardt]

Let's get back on topic rather than discuss email.

Halcyon - are you looking to use CRM just for storing contacts centrally? Or do you want to use it to track and manage sales opportunities as well?

And another question which might open/close some options - do you want to use CRM inside your gmail user interface? Or are you looking for a separate, CRM specific interface (noting the need to integrate with your email)?

 

[Alan]

Ideally something where all of my contacts in gmail can be easily shared/synced.

If this is the primary requirement, I can understand why, as Google Contacts cant be a shared resource. i..e If I create a contact - I can't specify it to be seen company wide. It is a frustrating limitation.

What needs to happen is the contact needs to be in the global directory as an 'external contact', but there is no end user way of doing that in 'standard' G Suite and 'external contacts' can only be added by 'third party' apps of developer API. https://support.google.com/a/answer/1628009?hl=en

You can buy apps that will share the contacts & no more, if that is the requirement.

Otherwise several CRMs have Google Contacts integration ( from the top of my head Capsule, PipeDrive & ProsperWorks ), whilst not using the global directory - have the same result.

 

[ffox]

What needs to happen is the contact needs to be in the global directory as an 'external contact', but there is no end user way of doing that in 'standard' G Suite and 'external contacts' can only be added by 'third party' apps of developer API. https://support.google.com/a/answer/1628009?hl=en

That is a sad limitation. O365 supports shared contacts. But, as the OP is Gmail user that is academic. The alternatives -
1. Subscribe to an app.
2. Obtain CRM software. But, configuration and migration will require resource.
3. Think again about switching to an alternative mail system.

 

[Alex Calinov]

If you are looking for something similar to Gmail, try Insightly, otherwise, have a look into Active Campaign as well. That's what I am using.

 

[Alan]

O365 supports shared contacts.

I know you don't sell O365 and are a SharePoint specialist, so I can slightly forgive you for not knowing that MS say the feature to share or view a shared contacts folder is not supported in Outlook Web App, if you want to share contacts with people inside your organisation we recommend you use the share contacts feature in Outlook 2013.

I think this extra bit of information in important - as I would assume that people are wanting shared contacts synced to any device at anytime.

 

[Alan]

Insightly

Yes a CRM that integrates G Suite - although I haven't evaluated it

Active Campaign

Is more than a CRM it is a marketing platform, which means it automates digital marketing tasks. It is very popular with smaller business, especially small tech.

Very useful - if that is what you need

One of the other popular marketing platforms, although pricey is InfusionSoft

 

[ffox]

I know you don't sell O365 and are a SharePoint specialist, so I can slightly forgive you for not knowing that MS say the feature to share or view a shared contacts folder is not supported in Outlook Web App, if you want to share contacts with people inside your organisation we recommend you use the share contacts feature in Outlook 2013.

I think this extra bit of information in important - as I would assume that people are wanting shared contacts synced to any device at anytime.

Sorry Alan, but that is total tosh. O365 mail is MS Azure Exchange email. Each licensee can create as many inboxes and contacts folders as they wish and share them with any one on the same domain.

I think you may be looking at Outlook Live (Outlook.com) which is free for anyone to use and is a different animal altogether.

 

[Alan]

Sorry Alan, but that is total tosh.

I just read it from the support page -> https://support.office.com/en-gb/Ar...4f62-9bf6-da5041f651bf#__toccanisharecontacts

 

[ffox]

I just read it from the support page -> https://support.office.com/en-gb/Ar...4f62-9bf6-da5041f651bf#__toccanisharecontacts

Then read it fully -
"Can I share a contacts folder with other people from Outlook Web App?
The feature to share or view a shared contacts folder is not supported in Outlook Web App. If you want to share contacts with people inside or outside your organization, we recommend that you use the share contacts feature in Outlook 2013. For information, see Share a contacts folder with others. Another way you can share contacts with people inside your organization is by using a shared mailbox. A shared mailbox is something that can only be created by an admin in your organization. With a shared mailbox , users that have permission to the shared mailbox can access a shared mailbox, calendar, and contacts."

You can connect to a shared mailbox with any mobile device, or through any SharePoint page with a contacts web part enabled. - Fully supported.

Very surprised that G-Suite does not have this feature, but relies instead on 3rd party apps.

 

[Alan]

Very surprised that G-Suite does not have this feature, but relies instead on 3rd party apps.

It has the feature (of a global directory), but is only accessible by API or 3rd party apps - which to the average joe isn't great.

Strangely, it is clearly not an issue, as there are actually very few market place apps that allow end user input of external contacts into the global directory. As far as I can see the only need for that is when using LDAP / Active Directory, and Active Directory Sync takes care of that, when you want to keep your MS directory and use that to sync Google Apps.

I guess the reason is there is no need, as that the main reason for sharing contacts in an organisation, is for Customer Relationship management and any organisation over a one man band would have a CRM to manage all aspects of client, not just contacts.

Like anything G Suite isn't perfect. With any packaged solution there are pluses and minuses, and it is a balancing act against requirements.

When I do evaluations against requirements, I have never seen a 100% score. Infact most decisions are made on a score of around 80 to 85% fit.

 

[ffox]

It has the feature (of a global directory), but is only accessible by API or 3rd party apps - which to the average joe isn't great.

Strangely, it is clearly not an issue,

But that is the issue. Google clearly depend on G-Suite users to fill the gaps with 3rd party apps. MS do not require this of O365 users.

Look at the OP original post. He's looking at CRM, mainly to share G-Mail contacts. Ask 10 people what CRM is and you'll get 10 different answers. The OP probably doesn't need CRM, he merely wants collaboration.
I suggested that a business in this situation take a look at building a CRM. That way the business starts to analyse what it is they want to do. From there they can decide what software is needed.

O365 provides a full set of collaboration tools. Using the contacts folder of a shared mailbox, the user can link to a SharePoint List. No need for any add in apps - just build the list to contain what is needed by the way of contact incident storage. Pick the customer from the already established shared contacts folder and add the unique content of this particular event. SP will create dates for the event and any subsequent modification of the event, plus the username of who created it and who last modified it. Everyone sings from the same song-sheet.
If something more sophisticated is required sub lists can be created to store details of customer preferences etc. Potential customers can be entered into the system, they are just customers with no sales events attached.
Task generators can be added to automatically task individuals with actions either on an elapsed time or last action basis.
There is no duplication of data, no migration of data (apart from the initial import) and no code to write.

I keep hoping that G-Suite will rise to this level of functionality - apparently, not yet.

 

[Alan]

I suggested that a business in this situation take a look at building a CRM.

Buy versus build, build option rarely works for small of micro businesses. Even a measly £2,000 of dev time buys 5 years subscription for 2 users of many CRMs, without any ongoing dev support & tweaking.

I keep hoping that G-Suite will rise to this level of functionality - apparently, not yet.

Google disrupted Microsofts' paid / installed office software model when they released Google Docs/Sheets in 2007.

By 2011 Google had gained significant ground, because of its collaborative and any device anywhere toolset that MicroSoft had to respond and in 2011 they released O365 in defence.

Google tools grew from a ground up cloud / collaborative model. MS grew from its traditional software and turned into collaborative, witnessed by early days significant clumsiness in collaboration.

Both companies continue to compete and develop their product sets.

What is interesting is

- Google's current focus is on winning major enterprise accounts
- Microsoft (it would appear) are looking for the Small and Micro businesses

Its not surprising, as MS is already, due to legacy of MS (which has been, entrenched in in major enterprises, having been in existence since 1985) however in general Google ( due to its strong consumer offerings and brand) is the first choice of small and micro businesses with 'millennium' owners/employees.

 

[ffox]

What is interesting is

- Google's current focus is on winning major enterprise accounts

Sorry - http://www.techradar.com/news/microsofts-office-365-is-twice-as-popular-as-googles-g-suite says different.

Microsoft (it would appear) are looking for the Small and Micro businesses

Nope. My view of the situation is that MS isn't really bothered about he SME sector. They concentrate on the larger enterprise with O365 sales.

Google disrupted Microsofts' paid / installed office software model when they released Google Docs/Sheets in 2007.

By 2011 Google had gained significant ground, because of its collaborative and any device anywhere toolset that MicroSoft had to respond and in 2011 they released O365 in defence.

That's true.

None of it changes the situation that O365 has SharePoint and G-Suite does not.

 

[Alan]

Sorry -

You need to read my post - current focus has nothing to do with with current situation or indeed current market share.

Google need to make big enterprise sales in order to increase confidence that it is an enterprise grade product. MS don't need to do that, they have been enterprise grade since around 1987 ( at which time I was replacing the since long dead Wang word-processing system with state of the art networked Window 3.1 solution in major corporations )

My view of the situation is that MS isn't really bothered about he SME sector

Maybe , maybe not. I think if they really didn't care they wouldn't create a product like O365 and market it with low entry / buy online prices.

O365 has SharePoint

Its a real shame, as I 'm sure you have valid reasons to value Sharepoint highly, that Sharepoint is so under valued by the SME market.

I have to admit only to have been actively using it between 2009/10 and at that time in a big corporate, the implementation ( millions of $ worth ) was s**te. I'm sure it has come along since.

 

[ffox]

Alan. I'm sorry, I'm just annoyed that G-Suite does not appear to be about to give MS a decent run for it's money. I'm under no illusion, if MS are not challenged then development will slow.

Maybe , maybe not. I think if they really didn't care they wouldn't create a product like O365 and market it with low entry / buy online prices.

Scale the entry price per licence by 500 or 1000 or more. O365 ain't cheap for the larger operation. Don't forget they already have high infrastructure cost and have to fund any migration to O365 before savings can start to be seen. The entry price has to be low. MS need healthy competition or costs will rise for everyone.

have to admit only to have been actively using it between 2009/10 and at that time in a big corporate, the implementation ( millions of $ worth ) was s**te.

SharePoint on-line is not SP on prem. It's way better. Similarly SP 2016 is hugely better than SP2010. So the Google and AWS competition certainly made a huge difference.
Long may that continue.

 

[ffox]

My staff and I use gmail for email and I would like a system that integrates well with this. Ideally something where all of my contacts in gmail can be easily shared/synced.

Here's a possible solution and it's free.
I'm not overly familiar with G-Suite so it took me a while to think It through.
1. Export your Gmail contacts list to a Google sheets SS. Once shared the SS will become your team contact list.
2. Create a Google site and call It Team Contacts.
3. Use Insert to embed the SS into the web page.
4. Share the site and the SS with your team.

Job done. Everyone can update the contacts list and use It on any device as a valid single data source.

You could enhance it by adding further tabs to the SS to record details of contacts made.

It is much better done with O365 But the principle and work flow are the same regardless of tools used.

 

[Halcyon Yachts]

Thanks for all your comments... I have been using Capsule on a trial period to see if it is going to work for me.

Some very frustrating things have been happening!

Firstly, I am now using G Suite and have always liked Gmail (to manage @halcyonyachts emails). Before Christmas I used Hiver to share contacts - it worked really well, but they stopped the service on December 21st. Since then I have switched to G Suite and have started to explore CRM solutions for sharing contacts. Unbelievably my Google Plus account cannot be transferred to G Suite - so to keep using my Google Plus account (which is very popular; I have had nearly 2 million views) I need to keep dipping back into Gmail standard set-up to add people to circles etc... So much faff!

Capsule seems OK for sending mass emails, but the contacts do not integrate with G Suite. If I save a contact in Gmail it doesn't save across into Capsule. If I save a contact in Capsule then the contact does get saved in G Suite, but without any of the tags - so for me, that's pretty useless as I need to categorise my contacts properly.

Does anyone know if Insightly, Prosperworks, Streak or Zoho would be any different?

Once I have settled on a type of software I will start exploring and enjoying the CRM elements even more...