Customer relationship management (CRM) database

[Hodge]

Anyone had experience with a good CRM database? I'm looking at Oracle's Siebel (which may be out of the price range), Sage's ACT!, and FrontRange's Goldmine. If anyone has any experience with these or any others please let me know. It would be very much appreciated.

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

I led the Siebel install as an outside consultant for all of Johnson & Johnson (J&J USA)... over 10,000 users... 8 companies
It's a good product if you don't exceed the 80/20 rule... that is... if you customize over 20% of the Out-Of-Box system... you're in for major headaches... J&J customized 80% so it was a piece of crap and they blamed Siebel... they caused their own problems..
As far as Value... I wouldn't say it's a value... but may be the only game that can handle MAJOR/large firm CRM installs...

I know a lot about SAP installs... so when I heard they were jumping into the CRM arena for major installations.. I just CRINGED...
I'd stay so far away from anything labeled SAP you couldn't find me...
Only works if you change your entire business processes to fit their software...

NOTE: I did all this in 2002-2005... so keep that in mind...

I reviewed Goldmine just for the heck of it... and was very impressed... from a Value perspective... excellent... for a mid size or smaller operation...

I looked at ACT too... and can't say anything bad about it either... but from what I looked at, may be focused around smaller installations... looked very flexible... and simple

Microsofts CRM was just coming out last time I looked around... sounded interesting enuf that you should at least look at it...

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

Here's where being a BP member will save you $15,000 in consultant fees (mine )

Flowchart all your processes BEFORE you engage in a software solution...

Review and CHANGE processes you can improve.. BEFORE you engage in a software solution...

Your warrantee and free vendor support starts when the purchase is made... don't waste it... this will save you a huge amount of money... especially not needing overpriced consultants like me come in for two weeks, look around and then tell you that...

So obvious but almost ALWAYS never done

 

[Flocka]

I went through this same situation where I work. I ended up going with ACT! because it is reasonably priced, and a very good product. If you want any more info you can PM me.

 

[Hodge]

Thanks guys, I'll have to look into the demos that I have as well. It is a smaller-medium operation, and it will have to get customized some. That's the part I'm not looking forward to.

I'll be away most of the weekend, but I appreciate the feedback. I'll PM if/when i have more questions later.

 

[sandgk]

NJ-Buckeye's advice on what to do before unwrapping the software is golden.

I know of one medium sized business that spent oodles of cash customizing an off-the-shelf solution - without first looking through what they did, how they did it, and what errors needed to first be corrected.

The result was a loss in money far outstripping the real cost of doing it right the first time. The utility of that customized behemoth grown from a small package? Zero. It was ditched and they are still, I think, struggling with what to use in place of that POS.

(Which means they never learned the first lesson preached by NJ-Buckeye).

 

[Dryden]

We use GoldMine and our marketing/cr people love it. It's very slim usage though, like 5 or 6 concurrent logins, though we are tracking tens of thousands of customers and sales leads. For what we do it suits our purpose, and our minimal load has never been an issue, nor are we putting any demand on a relatively weak application server that hosts it (it's an old P-III 800 that still runs like a champ).

From my perspective it's very easy to backup/restore/administer if anything goes screwy, and I have never experienced any complaints regarding the GoldMine system in regards to file contention/file locking issues. We've got around 6 or 7 years worth of sales data in it and the entire db directory footprint is only around 70 Mb too.

 

[OCBucksFan]

Same as Dryden, one of our system companies uses Goldmine, personally I love the product, it's easy to administrate, requires very little support from my end and performs well.

 

[Hodge]

I checked out the Goldmine and ACT! demos today. Customizing ACT! turned into a pain quick. I may just end up building what they need from the ground up. It may well be the easiest way. They sort of want a CRM, but the specs don't revolve around sales really.

 

[NJ-Buckeye]

You could build a sys from scratch... but within short order they will want more and more... thus.. I'd still lean toward buying a package.. cuz chances are, whatever the users would want... is most likely already in there... just needing to be unwrapped and used

 

[Flocka]

You could build a sys from scratch... but within short order they will want more and more... thus.. I'd still lean toward buying a package.. cuz chances are, whatever the users would want... is most likely already in there... just needing to be unwrapped and used

I agree. Unless it is something extremely intricate, most likely GoldMine or ACT! will carry it. What customizations are you trying to perform?

 

[Hodge]

You could build a sys from scratch... but within short order they will want more and more... thus.. I'd still lean toward buying a package.. cuz chances are, whatever the users would want... is most likely already in there... just needing to be unwrapped and used

I agree. Unless it is something extremely intricate, most likely GoldMine or ACT! will carry it. What customizations are you trying to perform?

check PM...

thanks

 

[NorthShoreBuck]

I am late to this one. How many users? Did I miss that? What are you doing with it, just tracking calls and customers? Will it intergrate into any other package?

There is a a product that integrates into MS outlook called Prophet. I liked it. I have used Seibel, Act and Goldmine. I tried Maximizer, what a POS. We ran a slightly customized version of Goldmine. It could do a lot of things.

I have not used the MS CRM product.

 

[Hodge]

It's really only for 1 user. I think I've got everything worked out with customizing ACT--turns out it was easier than I had initially thought. Just need to figure out a few more quirks, then it should be up and running very soon. Thanks a ton for your help guys.

 

[kenlin]

With that avatar, you really should be looking at an open source CRM, right? ;-)