Best CRM? Saleforce?

Hi John,

Salesforce might be a bit overkill at the moment. It's hard to know without more details.

I'd start with capturing their email/contact details. If you find you're getting a large volume of customers, then you can always migrate your data to a platform like Salesforce.

Also, I think Salesforce offer a trial period. I'm not sure but it's worth checking out.

Dave

Holla,

Sales Force is an automated platform for working upon CRM & other management concepts.
Trying Zoho, SugarCrm, is not a bad idea for CRM applications & to develop strategy for sales development.

All these specific software will let you create your backup in terms of contacts, schedule management, most of them will also offer synchronizing database details too.

get highrise (by the guys that made basecamp)

Salesforce is over-kill for all but enterprise-level companies IMO.

I don't think Highrise allows you to capture leads from forms (although you could use their email dropbox feature).

Have you looked at Infusionsoft?

I used SF for 5 years, a year ago switched to ZOHO. Prior to SF and entrepreneurialship, I have used Goldmine, ACT! and another that was an outlook plugin.

Albeit SF has greater integration and more appz, but after your honeymoon period with your new software you'll tend to resort to the most basic CRM functions and focus on the more important growth areas of your firm. In otherwords, you'll likely not take advantage of these highly sophisticated solutions with SF until you have the resources to implement them company wide.

So starting out I'd recommend nothing but Zoho. I have Zoho in all three of my businesses now. We're using Google Appz and have integrated Appz with Zoho and our android devices. It's a beautiful set up.

Hey Johnpaulgrant,

It's good to see you're looking into a CRM application, it probably seems like a whole new can of worms but when integrated properly can save you lots of time and money.

Depending on the size of your business, Salesforce may not be the best idea - its appeal is more to large enterprises than small companies. Its also a bit more on the pricey side. It has all the bells & whistles, but if you're only dealing with contact management and leads, you probably won't get your moneys worth.

Highrise may be what you're looking for, as it is known to be the simplest when it comes to CRM apps. It costs less than Salesforce, and takes little to no training to understand (Salesforce is known for its intricacy and hours of tutorials). However it lacks in a few areas:

- No calendar feature
- No forecasting/reporting
- Inability to assign leads
- No sales pipeline


I do contract work with WORKetc.com so call me bias, but from what I've learnt they offer a pretty well rounded tool. Their platform is simple, easy to use, but offers just as many (usually more) features than the top competing CRM tools. The difference between WORKetc and platforms like Salesforce/Highrise, is that it is a complete business management system. It offers project management tools, billing tools, and CRM tools combined into one flowing SaaS. Many Highrise/Salesforce users realize while their business is evolving that they also need project management apps/billing apps and then pay extra for apps like Basecamp or Financialforce and vice versa.

If you want a more detailed comparison of WORKetc to Salesforce/Highrise etc, take a look at the comparison chart on their site.

Hope that was helpful,

David

You don't need a CRM software as much as a helpdesk platform. Personally, I use helpscout.net and you can even plug that into a couple of crm programs. Zendesk was too expensive for me and overkill, but it is also very good too.

This is a 4 year old thread still since it has been bumped, so here are the major CRM for small and enterprise businesses -

CRM for Small Businesses

Zoho CRM
Capsule CRM
Highrise
Stride
Batchbook
Less Annoying CRM
Tactile CRM
Clevertim
AlbertCRM
Pipedrive
Base CRM
Salesforce
Nimble

Enterprise CRM Software

Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Oracle CRM On Demand
SAP CRM
Sage SalesLogix
SageCRM
NetSuite

WTF dude, why would you like to put a CRM in place for? Capturing contacts for people who "might not be ready to purchase"? Unless you have a clear sales pipeline in place, don't bother and start building and engaging your list by giving value until they purchase.

Just put a lead capture tool on your site like SumoMe in 10 sec and start building that list. It's not a CRM you need from what you are saying.

If you intend on following up and start selling to them personally, then fine, use a sales tool. One good alternative to SF is close.io, you also got pipedrive, some already mentioned here and I know some use help scout... depends on your needs, it's not that hard to find a good enough one, tools is not what get you sales.

Salesforce actually has joined together with Benchmark Email for a free and easy to use plugin for users both accounts. You get the traffic-generating and customer-engaging benefits of email marketing with which you can directly target your contacts with personalized email campaigns, newsletters, and whatever else you want to do.

Email marketing is still the number one method of engaging with customers, so if you want to reach your contacts on a deeper level. Social media tweets and posts have to appeal to the world web, but with email marketing that lets you segment your contacts, you can send emails that contains what each specifically needs

Salesforce Integration for Benchmark Email