What do you think is the best web based CRM system?

From a sales and management perspective (read: not highly technical) I like Salesforce.com for our business, understanding that each CRM has it's own value proposition as it relates to type, scale & scope of business and more important, objectives for application of any given CRM.

Due to ease of use, functionality and adapatability for our organization Salesforce.com has proven to be a very good decision taking us from a system that was merely used as a contact management tool to a business process management application that has helped us drive more sales.
The "appexchange" is a remarkable environment of best business practices and marketing automation tools some of which are free, others are paid services by third party approved vendors, which enables organizations to better tailor their individual application to their needs quickly and economically.

Kara,

Generally I don't like answering questions like this because a general 'who's the best' question is almost impossible to answer well without knowing 'for what' - as well as 'how are you going to use it?'?

Two suggestions I would make:
* Take a look at the Focus Hosted CRM Buyer's Guide at http://www.focus.com/research/buyers-guides/crm/buyers-guide-hosted-crm/ (and others as well - there are many out there). A good Buyer's Guide will walk you through a checklist of factors that will increase the relevance of any answers specific to what YOU need.
* Look for solutions that have developed an ecosystem of partners and integrated solutions. CRM is no longer a standalone application (nor should ever have been one) - it's becoming increasingly important for CRM applications to have not just open interfaces and APIs, but also a partner network. While I'm not necessarily endorsing them, Salesforce.com and their AppExchange certainly stands out on that front.

Will be happy to help you one on one - feel free to contact me directly. But beyond the above, it's very difficult to say with any significant accuracy what's truly 'the best' without knowing a lot more about how your organization works, and what you're trying to do.

Kara,

We we have compiled a list of On-demand (web-based) CRM Suites that include functionality for marketing, sales and customer service. (60+) here: http://www.crmmastery.com/article.asp?pagetype=article&articleid=5969

Solutions that DO NOT include Customer Service & Support functionality and may or may not include any functionality for Marketing are included in the Sales Force Automation category (30+) here: http://www.crmmastery.com/article.asp?articleid=6016

Finally, solutions that DO NOT include "Deal" or "Opportunity" data records and accordingly can not track a sales pipeline, are included in the Contact Management category (10) here: http://www.crmmastery.com/article.asp?articleid=6017

Feel free to get in touch for any help or questions.

Hi Kara,
Following to Simon Gantley's comments, your question begs more questions. If you cant tell us what you are looking at and why, perhaps you can share where the biggest improvement to your sales and marketing plan is needed.

What key results are you looking for?
Size,scope and skills of user base?
Your business category?
How will you staff use CRM?
Does best mean easiest, cheapest, ...?

Unless you first define in detail where the biggest improvements are needed, you run the risk of missing the target all together and being left with an end-to-end, soup-to-nuts program lacking a defined CRM strategy. If that is the case, it doesn't matter what CRM you use.

Thank you, Luke. This is very helpful. I will definitely pass this on and we will be sure to take a closer look at borneosoft.

Thx

Perry, thank you for your suggestion. We definitely are in the process of looking at Salesforce. They seem to be one of the top leaders in CRM. I will do some further research on the "appexchange," sounds interesting. Thanks again.

Hello Kara. I installed SugarCRM in my company. We do not sell or represent Sugar in any way so this is an unbiased opinion. It provides all of the marketing, campaign and contact management that my company required and was very competitive from a pricing point of view. You can install Sugar on your in-house servers or via the cloud.

Any questions, please post a note.
Regards,
Neil Swanson

My business specializes in helping other small businesses do administration work (ie typing, creating documents, research) so the best CRM for me is a single software that do a lot of tasks to run my entire business. I don't want something which I have to pay for each and every feature I need, I need a whole package because my business needs increase as my business develops. For instance what I initially needed was just a CRM which could manage my leads, put together my contact lists and have it available to me and my staff. But just a few months back I needed my CRM to be able to track my leads to sales, assign tasks to my staff and see how they progress, manage my customer needs/feeback, and help in billing my clients. Secured document sharing with my staff and my clients are also among the top needs to consider. All these features rolled into one system is the best CRM for me. What I have now is a web-based CRM www.worketc.com which I chose after considering a few others. What I love most about worketc is that it saves me time by automatically creating new projects when my leads convert to sales, plus it sends billable items automatically to the WORKetc.com billing software where I can easily create invoices and send to clients in just one single click. And let me add that the invoice is compatible with PayPal, the best option for VA companies like ours (worketch is also compatible with other payment options, you may check on their site).

I'd have to agree regarding Salesforce. The last company I worked for used Salesforce.com. They have many great free add on's from what I understand. I loved working with it.

Taya
Account Manager at CDW
Toll Free: 877.325.0295
tayaele@cdw.com
www.cdw.com

Take a look at NetSuite as CRM in this application goes much deeper as part of one system. Sales order processing is a natural step in this application and thus avoids integration issues with ERP application as it is native. Integration is good also.

Salesforce.com is the leader and is well supported by partners wherever you are. Integration with Twitter is a winner. Chatter is pretty cool as well.

I have used Zoho and SugarCRM - not bad but a long way to go for real scalability and manageable support.

Its NetSuite or Salesforce from me.

Kara,

Bill nailed it! Take a look at what you need to drive business. One of the largest roadblocks to successful CRM implementation is user adoption.

As for the $$ side of things, ROI is very easy to calculate...if your people are more productive because of the system you implement, and they are able to close more deals, then the investment will pay for itself every month. However, if the system you chose is too cumbersome, too difficult to manage or maintain, then it will be too expensive no matter what the monthly fee. Remember, you need to look at TCO or True Cost of Ownership...how much time does it require to populate and maintain the CRM. It could be FREE but if it's a bear to manage then it's still too expensive.

Take a look at who the end users will be. For example, if you are looking to increase the productivity, visibility and accountability for a FIELD sales team then look for something that is field sales rep friendly such as www.telenotes.net.

However, if you just need something for inside sales, for those who never leave the office, then take your pick from those mentioned above.

Some CRM's are better suited for large corporations and others for smaller businesses so you will probably need to do a bit of research. Focus has some great comparison guides to help you out.

Finally, make sure it meets your needs as far as mobility is concerned. Will you have the information you need with you at all times or do you need to be chained to a computer to get the data??

Best of Success!
Tom

Kara, after using SalesForce.com for 8 years and after seeing several instances where people where never really achieving the functionality they thought they would, I switched to BatchBook, and we are now about to launch a service called mybusinessintegrated.com. the tools are really all a commodity, the real key is having something that will be easily adopted and something that is easy to integrate. If you would like to learn more feel free to reach out.
Cheers, Chris Kiersch

Having been part of a team or directly responsible for the implementation of Salesforce at three separate organizations, all of varying size and complexity, as well as a user of the platform at each, I can honestly say that I would be hesitant to ever go in any other direction. Unless you have very basic requirements for your CRM system that do not include integration to other systems and you do not expect to ever extend the system to meet other requirements, Salesforce is the answer.

I have recently spent significant time evaluating and working with various marketing automation and inbound marketing solutions for our clients and once again have been impressed by the fact that each of them has Salesforce as their core focus when it comes to integration.

As you have heard from others, regardless of your selection, adoption is going to be key. You will want to be able to rely on a product that provides significant flexibility as far as the configuration of the system is concerned. You will also want to make sure that integration extends beyond the ability to connect additional services and includes the ability to tightly integrate the base services and systems (e-mail, etc.) that your company has already implemented. In addition, if your reps are field based, support for mobile devices is a must. All of this coupled together will significantly ease adoption. Not everyone will use it all, but the power players in the organization will lead the way and the rest will follow just to keep up.

Again, based on my experience, you will get all of this and more with Salesforce.

All of that said, this might be the biggest selling point of all - providing you have some level of competency within your organization today when it comes to working with, configuring and administering a solution like this, the learning curve is extremely low and your reliance on professional services will be negligible.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can provide any additional information or answer any questions.

I ended up picking BatchBook over Highrise. Both are primarily for very small businesses.

AJ Helpdesk SAAS is a simple, yet effective web based customer support software with robust ticket support
http://www.ajhelpdesk.com

Web based CRM is the most popular category of software at the moment so there are plenty of solutions to choose from. If you are in a specific industry i would suggest to look for very niche product but if your needs are not unique i would even recommend to look at integrated solutions CRM/Project Management/Accounting etc,.. You can see a quick comparison of 3 popular apps in this space here http://www.getapp.com/compare/onlinecrmforsmb