Simple CRM Software suggestions...?

[mocheckjohn]

Hi All - am looking for a very simple 'CRM' type of solution...

There are 4 of us involved in sales activities in our small company. Our needs at this stage are very simple. We want to be able to store our customers' details centrally so that we can all access them remotely. We need to be able to access these details, and update them, recording who spoke to who most recently, add notes etc.

Many solutions i have explored look way too over engineered for our needs, as well as being costly, with steep learning curves.

Any suggestions appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ian Sutherland]

A simple Microsoft Access database would probably suit your needs and you don't need to be a programmer to create it. I'd imagine an Access for dummies type book would get you started sufficiently. There are also a lot of independent developers who write Access applications to meet your needs and I can put you in touch with some if you would like.
In terms of accessing it remotely you could use webapps in Office 365 but there are a lot of limitations. An alternative would be to run it as a hosted application on a hosted remote desktop, see this link for more information on this or DM me. It is very easy to split the database into front-end and back-end so you can avoid having to pay for Access licences (or Office Professional) as you just use the free Access Runtime licence.
There are a few free online CRM systems like ZoHo, but when I looked at these you had to pay for multiple users, or if you wanted to customise the fields. At least with Access it can be made to suit your specific needs and you can get away with just one Access licence if creating it yourself, or none if a developer does it for you. See this link from Microsoft on splitting databases

 

[ffox]

The problem with using MS Access or any spreadsheet solution is that there are issues when it comes to sharing. Access with a DB on a network share would cope well with 4 users, but you would need Access to be installed on each users machine.
That would mean 4 Office licences.

A better way would be to get 4 Office 365 licences. The DBs could then be built in SharePoint lists. These are accessible from any PC, laptop, tablet or smart phone. The lists can also be linked to Access if you need it. However, it's very rare for that to be necessary, except when importing or exporting large amounts of data.

 

[Ian Sutherland]

Chris is right that running on a network share would require installs on all PCs. However as mentioned if you used the free Access Runtime licence you do not need Office licences.
The hosted remote desktop solution I was referring to only requires a single install and also any updates only need to be installed once to the hosted server. The other advantage of this is that the users can also run it on their Mac or iPad or Android tablets remotely.

I'm a big fan of SharePoint, so using SharePoint lists is a good way to go as well. However, the Access developers I've spoken to have suggested that using SharePoint lists with Access does not perform well.

 

[Alan]

No secret I'm not fan of MicroSoft, others here are and will/have given you their solutions.

Firstly why are CRMs complex and costly?

A typical CRM is £15/20 per month so for 4 that is approx £80/month. That is not a lot if the 4 people are the sales department of a bigger company, but I suspect the 4 people in your case is the whole company.

CRMs are designed to support a sales process, in some form of funnel of contacts>leads>prospects>deals>closings - so a CRM would seem over engineered if indeed you are not using it to support a sales process ( different question is should you have a sales process?) and using it differently.

Option 1: A Shared Spread Sheet - Google have a free product called Google Sheets you can share this sheet with specific people - and this has 'comments' on fields that could be used to make notes. Its free, it works anywhere with apps for iphones / android

Option 2: A free Cloud based CRM - there are very few truly free cloud based CRM they all have limits on their free options, but Zoho CRM will give you up to 10 free users and has enough functionality to support your needs, and if you are not using a sales process is not complex. Again apps for phones etc..

Personally I would advise against 'building' anything inhouse more complex that a spreadsheet in house if you are a micro business and not a technology business. And outsourcing bespoke software is not something that should be taken lightly or though of as a 'cheap' option.

Happy to take PMs.

 

[ffox]

Personally I would advise against 'building' anything inhouse more complex that a spreadsheet in house if you are a micro business and not a technology business.

If you can build a spreadsheet you can build a SharePoint list.

CRMs are designed to support a sales process, in some form of funnel of contacts>leads>prospects>deals>closings - so a CRM would seem over engineered if indeed you are not using it to support a sales process ( different question is should you have a sales process?) and using it differently

SharePoint lists can be linked together and combined with O365 tasks to accomplish this with ease. No need for coding, no need for 'complex solutions'.

Spreadsheets and CRM applications 'silo' the data. To use it elsewhere in the business would require data export. SP allows the business to use any data any where.

However, the Access developers I've spoken to have suggested that using SharePoint lists with Access does not perform well.

Linked Access tables/SP lists are okay, but generally unnecessary unless importing/exporting large data sets.

 

[mocheckjohn]

Thank you all for your suggestions, feeling a lot more informed about things. I will be looking into your suggestions.

Thanks again!

 

[BenTargett]

Have a look at HubSpot (free) and Pipedrive (£10 per seat)

Both are fairly easy to use and will help you discover what you really need from your CRM

 

[Barry O'Neill]

We are also small at the moment - or at least in terms of who needs access to the CRM.

We use Insightly and have found it quite decent. The free version allows up to two users although we do plan on upgrading to the next tier so we can use the mail chimp integration

 

[Darren Waring]

Might I suggest Podio? Essentially a collaborative database in the cloud (made by Citrix).

It's free initially (not particularly obvious but if you signup without specifying a plan, you'll get the free tier for up to 5 users). We use a custom 'Podio App' (they have internal apps and an app marketplace) as a CRM for our business and workflows, and there's a mobile phone version too.

As a new user I can't post links but if you search for 'podio as a crm' you'll see what I mean.

 

[Chris Elwood]

Hi,

Not sure if you have found a solution but we develop a simple CRM for exactly this purpose.

We licence stand alone versions as well so you can have the benefit of cloud CRM without the ongoing subscription.

Prices start from £499+VAT and we can also build in other features for you if needs be (invoicing / timesheets / projects / jobs)

Give me a ring on 01892 514 636 if you want to have a chat about it.

Kind Regards,

Chris.

 

[avalanche]

I use streak it is free, simple to use and integrates with gmail

 

[MathSpire]

We wanted something extremely simple so we just use the contacts folder of a shared mailbox in Office 365 Outlook.

 

[threenine]

For simplicity and ease of use. I totally concur with HubSpot CRM.
If it is just straight contact management you want with a few additional sales oriented features, undoubtedly it's great. For the most part it is free.

We use it internally for prospecting CRM.

However, once you start going out of the sales arena and looking for more marketing capacity it gets expensive and pretty damn quickly too!

I am certainly with @Alan here, and would recommend staying away at this moment from Share Point and office 365, for a CRM implementation.

MS CRM, is for most small businesses complete overkill, we've empowered many larger organisations to use it, and to be honest the conditions for success can and do vary!

Internally we make use of X2CRM, a free open source PHP based CRM system. It works great for our needs and has many advanced power features.

This is our main CRM for sales and marketing, but as mentioned earlier we tie this in with HubSpot for prospecting

If your hosting provider has CPanel on depending on your hosting package, it generally is free application you can install.

 

[ffox]

I am certainly with @Alan here, and would recommend staying away at this moment from Share Point and office 365, for a CRM implementation.

MS CRM, is for most small businesses complete overkill, we've empowered many larger organisations to use it, and to be honest the conditions for success can and do vary!

This seems to be confusing. O365/SharePoint on line is not MS CRM. The latter is a relatively expensive, but very comprehensive CRM solution. It is, I agree, very much overkill for most SME organisations.

SharePoint online is part of the standard O365 subscription product. It is not expensive, it is not complex. If you can build a spreadsheet, you can build SharePoint lists and libraries. See https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHUIj6NKff5Wp_AxknlgZQA
for examples.

With these basic building blocks you can structure a CRM to whatever degree of complexity, or simplicity, you need and want.

 

[threenine]

I'm sorry, and I know this is purely my opinion and based on personal experience, however Sharepoint in all of it's incarnations is the biggest pile of warm dog excrement in the form of software I have ever had the displeasure of encountering.

Microsoft and it's partner network of evangelists have been trying to punt it and get people using it for years. The fact it after a couple of months or even years many organisations often realise it's major flaws and then often embark on often very expensive Migration projects.

Don't get me wrong, I love this fact and I whole heartedly recommend your organisation implements it, but please do forward me your details as I will definitely like to stay in touch

That being said, I really do think a share point list, is a bad choice for this type of solution, as it quickly becomes unmanageable from a contact perspective, as you have no idea which contacts openened your email, when was the last time you called, feedback options. Then how do you feed information in, when and if your contacts actually visited the links or opened the proposal or even opened the email you sent?

HubSpot CRM has these features, that can quickly and easily be integrated into the CRM.

Trying to manage this in a sharepoint list? Good luck

 

[ffox]

Hello @threenine

I'm sorry, and I know this is purely my opinion and based on personal experience, however Sharepoint in all of it's incarnations is the biggest pile of warm dog excrement in the form of software I have ever had the displeasure of encountering.

Lol. I can tell from your succinct appraisal of SharePoint online and your eloquence of description that you are indeed an analyst of rare perception.

That said

I really do think a share point list, is a bad choice for this type of solution, as it quickly becomes unmanageable from a contact perspective, as you have no idea which contacts openened your email, when was the last time you called, feedback options. Then how do you feed information in, when and if your contacts actually visited the links or opened the proposal or even opened the email you sent?

Given that a SharePoint List is merely a data repository (that's a place where you store data for later retrieval) I can't see how anyone with any SP experience can fail to see how simple it is to link the data with email (Outlook Exchange, GMail, or any other) in order to generate tasks and alerts when ever email comes in or goes out.

I have no 'beef' with Hubspot, CRM but I would say that whatever it can do SP online can do better.

If you have had hands on experience with Office 365/SharePoint you will know that SP Lists are user defined and can be made to hold, transform and process data in any way that the user wants. This is achieved without the need to involve coding or developers.

SharePoint Lists hold data in a cloud based SQL DB, the whole DB is 'crawled' and indexed frequently by default and this means that data can be located manually by filter and query. It also means that the searches can be scheduled to launch automatically by date or event.

Unmanageable? I think not.

but please do forward me your details as I will definitely like to stay in touch

You can contact me anytime via my sig. But I think you will need to 'unlearn' quite a bit before you can benefit.

 

[threenine]

It's great that SP apparently has "grown up"

But I am failing to see the value of spending time building the basic functionality supplied out the box ?

 

[WHGB Tom]

Streak is a good choice, I see someone has already suggested it. Its simple and pretty easy to use too.

 

[ffox]

But I am failing to see the value of spending time building the basic functionality supplied out the box ?

Hubspot CRM - integrate customer CRM list with SoP? - Awww, you have to buy HubSpot Sales.
SharePoint online - Your customer list serves CRM & SoP & whatever else you decide to use it for. In O365 all data is available across the enterprise. All data is available on Mobile, All data is available, yet controllable because you have Azure Active Directory governance.
You're right SharePoint, along with O365, has 'grown up'. It's the only cloud solution that delivers true administrative control. No more risk of Data Loss.