CRM

[liams7]

Does anyone find CRM systems over complicated.

We have created our own in house system which is a cut back lightweight system rather than something with loads of options like sugarCRM

We were thinking about letting others use it but is it something others would want or are they happy with bloated systems?

Liam

 

[BrianMartin&Co]

We were thinking about letting others use it but is it something others would want or are they happy with bloated systems?

I'm in the process of developing a customer relationship management for my own client. Once it's been beta tested I'm considering placing it on the Open Source market I'm doing this with a few of my projects in the long term.

What do you mean by lightweight, how light?

 

[FreelanceSoftwareDeveloper]

Open Source software will grow and grow to cater for all types of businesses, as you say though any one business more than likely only requires a fraction of what is available.

It would depend if your requirements match those of other businesses.

Are you looking to release it Open Source or as a Product.

 

[BrianMartin&Co]

Are you looking to release it Open Source or as a Product.

I'm releasing it as Open Source but with various (free) modules as you said, there are too many things that over complicate things for those less able, therefore having a blank canvas and easily installing modules to it kinda lets you customise the project as you go along.

 

[liams7]

we may release it as opensource but i want to keep it so the functionality is very very simple.

all of our clients have moaned about how massive other crm's are.

we really want to make it simple to add data with out to many fields and with out it taking an age to add a lead.

we have made it very simple.

i will setup a test account once it is finished so you can see.

 

[Newmedia]

We think some are overcomplicated and will do all kinds but will have something simple that you need missing!

How much would having a simple one (pretty much an address book with notes and reminders really) designed for your business cost??

 

[liams7]

we are looking at it as a saas system so monthyl subscription of £10 a month per licence.

 

[garyk]

fat free crm is a good simple crm system. I wouldnt write a CRM system, why re-invent the wheel but agree 100% vtiger and sugar are way too complex for msost SMEs.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

fat free crm is a good simple crm system. I wouldnt write a CRM system, why re-invent the wheel but agree 100% vtiger and sugar are way too complex for msost SMEs.

That is ruby on rails isn't it? what hosting is needed for that?

 

[Integratech]

some are over complicated and can be confusing especially at first. Personally i find Microsoft dynamics to be one of the easier ones to get to grips with.

 

[BrianMartin&Co]

I wouldnt write a CRM system, why re-invent the wheel

One wouldn't be re-inventing a "wheel" one would be building a tool that was completely white-label and 100% customisable and private.

 

[garyk]

That is ruby on rails isn't it? what hosting is needed for that?

A ruby on rails host??

Yes it is RoR, not sure what you need, I use a company called linode.com for hosting a rails site I had built for a customer.

Cheers

Gary

 

[ISGtechnology]

some are over complicated and can be confusing especially at first. Personally i find Microsoft dynamics to be one of the easier ones to get to grips with.

We also use Microsoft Dynamics, and we don't have any problems with it. All CRMs look very complicated at a first look. But once you get to use it - you see that it is really easy to do so

 

[phil battison]

For what it's worth we had a home grown and very basic CRM system which we worked with for a couple of years but we simply outgrew it and couldn't get the resource to keep developing it (no one else really want to pick up and work with someone else's code).

After some investigation and testing of Sugar, Microsoft and Saleforce we implemented Salesforce Professional - I'd love to say it was easy and is doing everything we hoped for but it's not.

Despite having the best interface of all of those we looked at it's still too complicated for its own good, there are some basic things it does not do (unless you pay a fortune for more custom work).

But we're in now so we are committed for at least 12 months!!

 

[simplesimon86]

one simple word 'SALESFORCE' we have it and it is lifes greatest tool!!

 

[malster]

I definitely recommend using a cloud/SaaS (software as a service) solution as suggested above. (can be) Cheap, customisable, integrateable and accessible when on the road. I work in this area so I'd be interested to hear people thoughts on new cloud technologies, good/bad experiences? reservations?

Those of you who think these systems are over-complex, which ones exactly, and what would/do you want in a CRM system (basic contact management, pipelines, order fulfilment, reporting, visibility, etc.)?

Ben.