Proper control over client data can improve customer satisfaction and can win you sales. RMIT IT Test Labs look at the technology to help you do this.
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Contents 
Introduction
ACCPAC
Act!
Coordimax
GoldMine
Legrand
Maximizer
Specifications
How we tested
Editor's choice
About RMIT |
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I know of makeshift systems so unwieldy that staff, having identified a customer's ID, will then seek further information from the filing cabinet rather than on the computer. Worse still the database on the computer doesn't even allow for useful notes about the customers to be entered -- this makes hard-copy files with space for handwritten comments essential.
Modern contact management and CRM applications are more than databases -- they are tools for the analysis of sales and customers alike. The software package allows users to conveniently communicate with the outside world through e-mail and traditional documents. Data can be imported and exported to where it is needed with minimum fuss. And in today's business environment it is also important for staff to access data from wherever they happen to be.
Managing customers
A CRM tool should not just be compatible with company procedures -- it should help enforce them. For example: an appointment with a customer is missed, what happens now? This is determined by escalation management. Any decent contact manager tool would have informed the user of the upcoming event, but now that it has been missed a CRM tool can be configured to force the user to reschedule before further action is taken. Where many activities are involved this could be difficult, if not impossible, without CRM tracking all of the client-staff associations. Another example is where a standard process for dealing with customers exist: the software guides the user through an entire tender process by requiring certain communications and analysis to take place before moving to the next stage.
Mobility
In order to support busy people who may not be able to regularly reach their desk at work contact management software can provide integration with mobile devices such as Pocket PC's and Palm handhelds. In this way staff can keep up to date with work schedules and details of contacts. While this full functionality is not provided through a PDA, significant changes can at least be updated immediately. In some cases the full software package may even be Web based allowing full system access from remote locations.
What about SugarCRM?
SugarCRM is one of the fastest growing CRM/Contact Management systems in the world, and competes directly with many of those systems listed.
SugarCRM's commercial open-source model clearly differentiates it from the competitors by providing full access to all source-code allowing the system to be easily tailored to suit each customers needs, making it a powerful alternative to an otherwise proprietary and inflexible systems included in the review.
SugarCRM is commercially supported in Australia by Insightful Solutions, and backed internationally by SugarCRM in the US.