Customer relationship management, or CRM, is an essential system for any modern business. The combination of software, methodologies, and Internet capabilities you use to generate sales leads, manage marketing leads, and identify and target your best customers is critical for both revenue generation and customer retention.
Because CRM is so important and so widely implemented, there are multitudes of vendors and platforms from which to choose. Today, many companies are choosing to migrate their CRM to the cloud—and vendors have responded by expanding their cloud offerings.
What’s out there, and what’s the best choice for your CRM?
SugarCRM
An open-source, web-based solution, SugarCRM is highly customizable for multi-industry functions, and is also available in commercial open-source applications. It can be implemented as a partial or full cloud application, or run entirely on-site.
Key features of SugarCRM include:
- Integrated prospect communication
- Sales force automation
- Marketing campaign capabilities
- Customer support integration
- Collaborative functionality
- Mobile and social CRM, in addition to web-based
Microsoft Dynamics
It’s not surprising that Microsoft has software for everything, including CRM. The key claims to fame for Microsoft Dynamics—outside the obvious easy integration with other popular Microsoft products—is its automated capabilities, which include:
Issue tracking and resolution
Ticket management
SpeedSearch / Knowledge Base functions
Notifications and alerts
There’s also back-office integration and options for cloud and mobile deployment.
Salesforce
A widely used system from a company that leverages CRM and cloud technology, Salesforce CRM can deliver full migration to a cloud environment. It’s offered as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), with the drawback that businesses are unable to make a permanent purchase.
Still, rapid basic implementation and sales responsiveness, along with back-end integration and multi-industry flexibility that adapts to nearly any type of business, provide Salesforce with some decent advantages.
Sage SalesLogix
Another multi-industry CRM solution, SalesLogix provides a centralized module that makes it easier for your sales force to manage customer data. Monitoring, tracking, and forecasting, as well as report generation, can be performed through a single interface.
Some of the key features of SalesLogix include:
- Sales process automation
- Advanced Outlook integration capability
- Customer communications and integrated customer service
- Back-office integration
- Competitor tracking
- Web, cloud, and mobile solutions
Informatix offers flexible CRM platforms for your business
Recently, Informatix has implemented SugarCRM solutions to provide streamlined operations and seamless integration with the cloud. Contact us to find out more about how we can help improve your CRM—and stay tuned for the upcoming launch of exciting new CRM business solutions.