As I mentioned previously in "Growing Marketing Automation with a Growing Business", our business has been changing rapidly, and with those changes comes the need to adapt technology and infrastructure to keep up. So not only did I decide to implement a new Marketing Automation Platform before the end of the year, but also a new CRM - why not?
This year has brought us steady growth, and since the primary cause of growth is new customers and new sales, it was definitely time to make sure we were taking care of those customers the best we could.
Our former CRM served us adequately for a time. Not so long ago, we had a primary distributor responsible for lead generation and sales, and we didn't have many records to keep track of. Well, we let them go last July, and in the last six months have taken responsibility for everything in house.
As the last weeks of 2011 approach, we are on pace to increase sales over last year by a respectable amount. So we are not only managing our existing customers effectively, but it appears taking care of new customers better ourselves than when we had a distributor.
We are also releasing a new product first quarter 2012, which will bring in an entire new customer base.
To manage all our customers and prospects really well, cultivate leads, handle support calls, and make sure none of them slip through the cracks, we needed a capable, and fast CRM. After much research, seemingly countless demos, and chatting with as many marketing and sales folks as I could, I decided to go with Salesforce.
The primary consideration was the desire for a smooth implementation, and as little interaction from our developers as possible. With a new product release in the offing, pulling them off of production for any amount of time would mean an undesirable delay.
The other important feature we needed was efficient support capabilities and support interaction with sales.
After that, most of the big CRM companies really have all the same similar basic features. To help with implementation, having our friends over at PSN to handle setup and API integration makes a huge difference. So off we go, and will hopefully have everything ready to go just after the first of the year.
The one thing I will say surprised me, is after all the courting and demos that Salesforce has as a part of their sales process (which were solid), the hand off after purchase was oddly abrupt. There was no implementation check list, no implementation support, and the only thing I received after finally inquiring about it to the sales rep was a link to an intro webinar. I understand that it's a monster of a platform, but, given the amount of money we've committed to spend, I expected a little more than a "Good bye and Good Luck."
What is your CRM of choice?