client management system for small technical company

MizMix

I am doing some consultancy work for a small technical firm- about 8 employees. They offer software solutions targeting engineers (in very simple terms). The boss is a bit of a genius but they really lack any kind of commercial edge/sale processe etc. The owner does everything from emails- he gets enquiries from around the world (their site is well optimized in fairness) and there is usually a few back and forth emails, he may request a call etc. However if nothing happens in a few months he forgets about that lead. If he needs to go back to that client he searches on outlook. He never follows up with customers to see how they are getting on, or if they need maintenance, an upgrade etc. Basically there is no sales process whatsoever. If he goes away he still needs to be working all the time as all customer information is on his emails or in his head!!

He has asked me to pull together a CMS system based on excel. He maintains he doesn't need anything more complex as they don't get many leads. However he misses the fact that he needs something to capture data on every customer, not just leads and something that shows a history. Also lets be optimistic and try to grow leads/opportunities. It's not my core area but I want to recommend a CMS system- I have a feeling salesforce isn't ideal for a small company. And it needs to be cheap! Any recommendations? From an initial look online hosted seems to be the way to go. Any SME owners/employees have any they recommend?

MizMix

PS just to clarify it's basically contact management, tracking sales leads, building a pipeline and follow up automation they need.

Peterdalkey

take a look at these

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=74949693

Sugar and Zoho seem to be very popular... we use Goldmine.. good but not cheap.

MizMix

Great thanks Peter, just looking into ZOHO now. Free for 3 users which would be a huge plus in terms of getting buy in!

MizMix

If anyone has any experience of onepagecrm please let me know. I want to evaluate a couple of alternatives.

Gloomtastic!

What accounts package do they use, if any? Is there a CMS bolt-on for it? It woukd make implementation easier as all the info should already be there in the accounts.

MizMix

I have a strong feeling they don't use one!! I've just asked that question though but I've a feeling everything is just email, spreadsheets etc.

Gloomtastic!

I remember from my consulting days how you discover all these little bombshells as you go along.

There's no advantage implementing a CMS solution unless you can integrate it with their accounts software.

I recommend Sage Accounts because it's the biggest, has the most off-the-shelf bolt-ons (CMS) and most accounts people have used it at some stage in their career.

Peterdalkey

I don't know about Sage but I can say other ERP systems that I have looked at or used with their own CMS/CRM bolt-ons were in the 1Euro shop quality wise.
Many of the better offerings do integrate with a variety of accounting packages. Gloomster is right that integration is a key element, otherwise staff wont bother to use it! just not above functionality.


Cheers

Peter

MizMix

Gloomstar I'm starting to realize that myself! Good job I enjoy a challenge

Thanks for the advice re integration. While onepgaecrm looks nice and simple ZOHO offers invoice software too. Also it can be integrated with the company email system and one thing I want to do is get leads to submit their info on the website if they wish to download something- zoho automatically pulls these leads into the CRM. Now to convince him that an excel spreadsheet won't do!!