There are a myriad of new CRM vendors coming out of the woodworks. It’s to be expected, as CRM is forecasted to be a $36 Billion Market by 2017. Because CRM software is so complex, in addition to the overflow of vendors, this overwhelms purchasers and often results in vendors racing to the bottom to compete on price. If there are 50 CRM vendors all claiming to have the same bells and whistles, it’s This usually leads to buying based on price.
Because of this evolution of CRM software, vendors are getting increasingly better at making their demos look flashy with all of the bells and whistles, and the functionality eventually falls short. If you’re looking for a simple contact manager, then the low end CRMs might work. However, as businesses scale and requirements become more complex, it can be more expensive migrating to a scalable CRM than it would have been to just purchase it in the first place.
As a SugarCRM elite partner, we receive inquiries every day from companies using CRM’s like Zoho, Insightly, Infusionsoft, Highrise, etc. who are looking to switch to something more scalable and robust. They have attractive demo’s, attractive pricing, but they don’t have mature ecosystems and have major pitfalls in functionality.
How do you differentiate the CRMs racing to the bottom vs. the best of breed CRM’s? Here are a few tips:
- Ask your CRM Vendor for a customized demo – Provide them data, and make them tailor the demo towards your business processes. Low end vendors generally won’t be able to do this.
- Ask for a trial of the software – Does it live up to the demo?
- How long has the company been around? If they are a start-up, their CRM most likely has limited functionality. CRM software takes years to develop and takes years of actual usage to improve the product based on user experience. Ask your vendor how long they’ve been around
- What is the CRM’s ecosystem like?
- Do they have implementation partners? (https://www.sugarcrm.com/partners)
- Do they have an app store (https://sugarexchange.sugarcrm.com)
- Look up how many employees they have on linkedin(https://www.linkedin.com/company/insightly)
- If they only have 50 employees, how good can their support be?
These are just a few of the things to consider when selecting a CRM Vendor. The reason we love SugarCRM so much is we can tailor SugarCRM to any specific business needs with the tools Sugar provides. Are you struggling finding a CRM solution? Don’t hesitate to reach out to FayeBSG, and we can help guide you through the process.
Faye Business Systems Group is an award winning Southern California-based technology consulting firm and Software Company specializing in CRM implementation with over 25 years of experience helping growing companies become more profitable through the effective use of technology.
