| Introduction |  | |
RightNow CRM | | |
Microsoft CRM 3.0 | | |
Verdict |
The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market is heating up, with most of the major software vendors touting their own solutions.
Most businesses face a similar challenge -- how do you manage the volume of information surrounding your customers? Since computers were first introduced in businesses, they have been used to gather and store information about customers, their purchases, etc. It has only been in the last 20 years that businesses have realised the potential in this information and have actively started marketing to their customer database, using all of the demographic and purchase history details they have available to them.
And as businesses saw the value in storing customer information, a number of packaged software applications came on the scene and the term -CRM" was coined. CRM or Customer Relationship Management software is a customer-centric view of the business world. Where older business systems looked at customers in terms of invoices or product sales, CRM focuses on the customer as an entity and can be used to store information about that entity to help improve customer service, increase sales and customer satisfaction.
A number of software vendors have jumped on the CRM bandwagon, offering either standalone CRM applications (like Salesforce.com) or adding CRM offerings to their existing product suites (SAP, PeopleSoft, etc.) These applications fall into two distinct categories depending on the method used to deliver the application to users. The first category is hosted CRM applications, also known as -on-demand" applications. Some examples include Salesforce.com and Salesnet.
This type of CRM application is hosted on a central server and provided as a service to multiple businesses and other organisations that require CRM capabilities. The advantage of on-demand applications is that businesses don't need to worry about maintaining their own servers and software -- they can simply access their CRM application through the Web. Another advantage to on-demand CRM is that there is no client software to install and configure, as anyone with a Web browser and an Internet connection can access the application.
The second category of CRM applications is the installed application, where an application server is installed on servers maintained by businesses or organisations. Access to this application is provided either through a Web interface -- so users can interact with the application using their Web browser -- or through a -fat client" application that is installed locally on each user's PC. Examples of installed CRM applications include Act!, GoldMine, etc.
Installing an application server or client software locally has a number of advantages, most notably the fact that you have complete control over how the product is deployed and configured, including the ability to customise the application to suit your own purposes.
And for installed applications that can be accessed through a Web browser, there is little or no setup required on the client side to get the application up and running. Fat-client CRM applications provide more ways to integrate with desktop applications (like Microsoft Office, etc) and as a rule provide a richer user interface than Web-based applications. The downside, however, is a client-based application needs to be installed for every user.
In this review, we compare two CRM applications: one from veteran RightNow Technologies and Microsoft's latest version 3.0 product.
How we tested
Both vendors provided a hosted version of their applications for testing purposes. The modules were run through simulated real-world usage.
We looked at how easy it was to create and edit contacts and organisations, as well as find a particular record within a contact list. We also looked at the suitability of the product for use in the sales cycle, including entering and tracing opportunities, as well as reporting on sales pipelines and providing forecasts.
On the marketing side, we considered the ease in which a marketing campaign could be created and managed, including the ability to market to customers via e-mail and other methods, as well as track the results of the campaign.
Finally on the service side, we looked at how easy it was to create and manage support incidents, including managing the flow and volume of incidents from a customer service point of view, as well as the tools provided to both customers and customer service representatives to manage support incidents.
| Introduction | | |
RightNow CRM | | |
Microsoft CRM 3.0 | | |
Verdict |
