Basic CRM
Author
Discussion

jonwm

Original Poster:

2,747 posts

145 months

Monday 16th December 2019
quotequote all
Anyone know of a basic CRM for personal (in work) use?

Basically i work for a global organisation that use Salesforce.com as the tool but i work in a small team who have customer outside of the wider picture and so access to salesforce has been removed, we currently use word of mouth in the office asking if a customer has been visited etc.

I was hoping to create a basic access type database for logging date of visit topics discussed etc that could be shared weekly or monthly.

Does anyone have any recommendations on templates I could use?

Chimune

4,338 posts

254 months

Monday 16th December 2019
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Many moons ago I looked at these guys and was v impressed.

https://www.reallysimplesystems.com/free-crm/

No idea if they still good but worth a look!

Bikerjon

2,211 posts

192 months

Monday 16th December 2019
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Ask your IT department? It's kind of what they're there for!

jonwm

Original Poster:

2,747 posts

145 months

Monday 16th December 2019
quotequote all
Bikerjon said:
Ask your IT department? It's kind of what they're there for!
They are based overseas and would charge a fortune for any writing of a program, licence to Salesforce is circa £100 per month per user last time i asked.

jonwm

Original Poster:

2,747 posts

145 months

Monday 16th December 2019
quotequote all
Chimune said:
Many moons ago I looked at these guys and was v impressed.

https://www.reallysimplesystems.com/free-crm/

No idea if they still good but worth a look!
Thanks will give that a looksy later

pmanson

13,388 posts

284 months

Monday 16th December 2019
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Maybe something like Monday.com? Not CRM but you can set tasks and then make comments on activity/assign activity etc

Bikerjon

2,211 posts

192 months

Monday 16th December 2019
quotequote all
jonwm said:
They are based overseas and would charge a fortune for any writing of a program, licence to Salesforce is circa £100 per month per user last time i asked.
Understood but "global organisations" tend to have internal procedures, standards and preferred software for such tasks so that they have some control over data and can provide support if it goes wrong. Are you really expected to go your own way on this?

Neptune188

348 posts

208 months

Monday 16th December 2019
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I've been very happy with Hubspot - similar situation; the wider group has a SalesForce implementation but my group company is quite a long way removed and by the time they've built the system for my business migration will be a nightmare.

With apologies for hijacking the system - my wife works in an organisation looking to implement a CRM system. Much like a car dealership they have multiple inquiries for a single asset but only one "instance" of that asset. I'm struggling to imagine how a traditional CRM system would cope with this - not every inquiry translates to a sale and each asset can only be sold once. Any suggestions for this? Kind of like a "backwards" CRM.

akirk

5,778 posts

145 months

Monday 16th December 2019
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Neptune188 said:
I've been very happy with Hubspot - similar situation; the wider group has a SalesForce implementation but my group company is quite a long way removed and by the time they've built the system for my business migration will be a nightmare.

With apologies for hijacking the system - my wife works in an organisation looking to implement a CRM system. Much like a car dealership they have multiple inquiries for a single asset but only one "instance" of that asset. I'm struggling to imagine how a traditional CRM system would cope with this - not every inquiry translates to a sale and each asset can only be sold once. Any suggestions for this? Kind of like a "backwards" CRM.
The issue with any off the shelf CRM is that you may have to bend your processes to fit what the CRM allows... The CRM we write has some standard modules we use for all clients, but then the capacity to have bespoke processes written as well, meaning that the system supports the business and its processes rather than dictating them... each version we deploy becomes totally unique, from simple to complex...

as for one asset many enquiries etc. doesnt sound like an issue - just write the code to fit the process...

Australiam

277 posts

160 months

Tuesday 17th December 2019
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Ignoring the assumption that your IT team does not care about the use of shadow IT (which I find difficult), and if you decide a custom CRM is not for you, I would also take a look at Hubspot!

cobra kid

5,615 posts

271 months

Tuesday 17th December 2019
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Thought it was a Cathode Ray Monitor!!!!!