CRM?

[goldennugget]

We get lots new quote enquiries from clients but have no strategy in place to follow those up. I'm looking for a tool that will help us to manage these potential clients.

Can someone recommend a tool that will help? For example, once we quote we pop the details in the system. It then reminds at X intervals to do follow up action A, B or C etc.

 

[Simply Coffee Shops]

Try SugarCRM its an excellent free open source tool with lots of customizations etc.

Regards

John
Simply Coffee Shop

 

[goldennugget]

Perfect, thanks!

 

[tacticalsales]

If your looking for free than another option to consider is Insightly.com.

Great little CRM system and if you happen to want to upgrade it's still inexpensive in comparison to the other systems out there.

However if you plan on building a database quickly and aggressively it may be worth considering some of the more beefed up versions such as Salesforce.com.

Another great system but can't deny that it does come with a hefty price tag so be sure you want all the bell's and whistles when purchasing the super CRMs.

Another key thing to remember with CRM systems is that they are only as good as you make them to be. When 90% of system implementations fail it's usually because the user hasn't put in the time to develop and understand their desires and how the system will do it.

We actually held a couple of seminars last month regarding effective CRM usage, so if you happen to be interested keep an eye out for a few more events we have coming up!

 

[tony84]

You could do that with one of these

Not all that techy but it would do the job.

You could also just have an excel spreadsheet. put in the date of the call, clients details and then a date they need to be contacted on.

 

[leemason]

Have a look at https://highrisehq.com or https://www.vtiger.com/.

 

[TealDigital]

Highly recommend either Insightly or Streak (if you use Gmail)
I personally love Streak as it's integrated right into your inbox saving you the trouble of having to go back and forth between email enquiries and your CRM program

 

[Tech4Homes]

I've just been playing with unsightly after moving email/calendar/drive etc to Google Apps. Very impressed, using the free version at the minute, still a bit more playing to do but it's quite easy and I like the project management features.

Good free iPhone/android app also.

 

[Greg Black]

Take a serious look at InTouch, you can use tasks to automate your processes which will remind people to do things at set times, or indeed fire off emails at predetermined times.

If you feed quote enquiries directly into the system from, say your website using one of the web forms you can trigger an automated follow up sequence, create a sales lead, send follow up emails etc.

This is the site: http://www.intouchcrm.com

 

[wearewattle]

I am surprised nobody has mentioned the obvious choices.. Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, probably the two largest players both cloud hosted.

 

[garyk]

I am surprised nobody has mentioned the obvious choices.. Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, probably the two largest players both cloud hosted.

Because for an SME they are overkill.

More features in a CRM does not equal better.

fatfreecrm is free and as its name implies has the basic features you need.

 

[wearewattle]

Because for an SME they are overkill.

More features in a CRM does not equal better.

fatfreecrm is free and as its name implies has the basic features you need.

It is a business decision...

Do you want an interim solution that you are likely to change in the future that has lower capital costs, or do you have a plan for growth and need systems that scale with your business.

Microsoft CRM is £45 per user per month - not exactly overkill, and it will scale to fit everything from a small to enterprise level business.

I implement CRM systems (MSCRM) and a service I often make money on is charging for data migration from interim solutions (be that open source CRM systems to spreadsheets) - so I am all for a light short term system - it means I retire earlier

 

[scootc7]

We use a CRM platform called Base. It is the best I have used and we have tried plenty!