Less Annoying CRM - Why it wasn't for me but might be for you!
As you may know I am currently in pursuit of a new web based CRM system to replace ACT! which I have been running on my desktop and laptop for many years. I discussed the background in my last post on this blog.
When I made my last post I had narrowed my list down to;
When I made my last post I had narrowed my list down to;
- Capsule
- Insightly
- Onepage
- LessAnnoying
and I was still investigating the possibility of Zoho and Salesforce. Salesforce is off my list at the moment ironically because i haven't liked dealing with their Salesforce! Zoho looks more impressive every time I learn something new about it but I still haven't fathomed the pricing because of their modular approach.
The first system I have looked at properly was LessAnnoyingCRM and it has a lot going for it first off it really does live up to it's name. The pricing is flat 10 US Dollars per user per month, unlimited use. And when I raised questions with their support people they came back to me quickly, with simple plain English answers - and seemed very keen to learn from users about what they want so they can improve and advance the system.
All great stuff and it would have been absolutely ideal for me when I started out 10 years ago, but not know.
I have never 'studied' marketing in any formal sense I have just been self employed 90% of my working life and what I know may not be academically correct but in my business I operate two types of marketing. I call the "acquisition marketing" and "retention marketing" and while there are activities I undertake that often blur the lines it simply amounts to the fact that I have multiple marketing activities going on at one time and sometimes prospects/clients are involved in more than one activity this means I need really good ways to segment clients.
Now LessAnnoyingCRM does certainly allow segmentation by assigning contacts to groups but that is pretty much it, once you have a list of people on screen in a group all you can do is access them individually or export them to a .csv for importation in to another system. It's just not joined up enough for me. I appreciate the ability to pull a list together and hit mail all in one system etc.
Now if I was starting out again without thousands of prospects and clients already in my system this system would be on my radar undoubtedly.
When I started every prospect and client came from an individual meeting at a marketing event or a referral from another client. This scenario is where this system comes in to it's own. You can set up a 'pipeline' so that when you enter a client in to the system you start getting cues for one to one actions - it really is a good system - and I would be happy to use it if I didn't already have thousands of hard earned contacts to work with. So for me this system would be excellent for anyone entirely focused on "acquisition" of new clients preferably entering low numbers of leads at a time.
I don't think this system should change to meet my needs it simply isn't for me it could improve it's service to ideal users by helping them to improve their 121 acquisition marketing with social media plugins to help users get conversation starters and just touch base etc.
I'm going to look at insightly next.
P.S. if you want to try LessAnnoyingCRM you don't even need to bother with their generous 30 day free trial as they have a live demo with dummy contacts you can play with - this is ideal to me as I would never load client data in to a system until I was committed to it, financial services is simply too sensitive an industry
The first system I have looked at properly was LessAnnoyingCRM and it has a lot going for it first off it really does live up to it's name. The pricing is flat 10 US Dollars per user per month, unlimited use. And when I raised questions with their support people they came back to me quickly, with simple plain English answers - and seemed very keen to learn from users about what they want so they can improve and advance the system.
All great stuff and it would have been absolutely ideal for me when I started out 10 years ago, but not know.
I have never 'studied' marketing in any formal sense I have just been self employed 90% of my working life and what I know may not be academically correct but in my business I operate two types of marketing. I call the "acquisition marketing" and "retention marketing" and while there are activities I undertake that often blur the lines it simply amounts to the fact that I have multiple marketing activities going on at one time and sometimes prospects/clients are involved in more than one activity this means I need really good ways to segment clients.
Now LessAnnoyingCRM does certainly allow segmentation by assigning contacts to groups but that is pretty much it, once you have a list of people on screen in a group all you can do is access them individually or export them to a .csv for importation in to another system. It's just not joined up enough for me. I appreciate the ability to pull a list together and hit mail all in one system etc.
Now if I was starting out again without thousands of prospects and clients already in my system this system would be on my radar undoubtedly.
When I started every prospect and client came from an individual meeting at a marketing event or a referral from another client. This scenario is where this system comes in to it's own. You can set up a 'pipeline' so that when you enter a client in to the system you start getting cues for one to one actions - it really is a good system - and I would be happy to use it if I didn't already have thousands of hard earned contacts to work with. So for me this system would be excellent for anyone entirely focused on "acquisition" of new clients preferably entering low numbers of leads at a time.
I don't think this system should change to meet my needs it simply isn't for me it could improve it's service to ideal users by helping them to improve their 121 acquisition marketing with social media plugins to help users get conversation starters and just touch base etc.
I'm going to look at insightly next.
P.S. if you want to try LessAnnoyingCRM you don't even need to bother with their generous 30 day free trial as they have a live demo with dummy contacts you can play with - this is ideal to me as I would never load client data in to a system until I was committed to it, financial services is simply too sensitive an industry
Hey it costs a few dollars per month if you will compare it with another crm systems, but in my opinion it is not perfect crm tool. http://affgadgets.com/less-annoying-crm if you will look on reviews then some people are happy with that and some are not ..I tried their demo and I will probably stay with excell :)
ReplyDeleteI think if excel is your solution you don't really need a CRM at all but maybe some sort of contact manager - have a look at Zoho Contacts or Nimble.
ReplyDeleteInsightly also offer a free plan that is surely better than excel.
BTW - I doubt that a perfect system exists as everyone's needs are different.