Customer service software recommendations needed (1 Viewer)

[Evilgrin 72]

I need to get my CS reps a software suite that will help them organize customer/product information. As it stands, a lot of conference calls prompt questions that end with that unit saying "We'll look into that and get back to you" because all they have is Outlook and our ERP software (which doesn't really have a dedicated CS module) for research, which makes pulling up information on the fly next to impossible. I need to get a software package that allows them to sumamrize phone calls, add notes, etc.. in the system and is easily searchable by keyword, etc. Ideally, it could/will interface with Outlook as well.

Anyone out there buy such software recently and can point me in the right direction? I'm not sure what my budget for this project is going to be, so cost effective and "money is no object" solutions are both welcome.

TIA, will answer yours.

 

[fantasycurse42]

Salesforce

 

[B Maverick]

Salesforce

 

[Brony]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!
Highrise
Infusionsoft
Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Nimble
Oracle
Sage CRM
Salesforce.com
SAP
SugarCRM
Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

 

[urbanhack]

Zendesk.

 

[Chadstroma]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Sales Force sees Salesforce.com as a competitor? Isn't that them?

 

[Evilgrin 72]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Act! is the one my boss recommended I use as a jumping off point, but I really want whatever works best for my team. They just need to be able to pop in a customer name, product name, or keyword and get all prior conversations/notes on that subject quickly and in a user-friendly, easily digestible fashion. I'll look into these, thanks guys.

 

[Fennis]

FountainKite

 

[Evilgrin 72]

Zendesk.

I ran across this in my cursory research this morning, can you elaborate on why you like it?

 

[Fennis]

or maybe eLasso

 

[Brony]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Sales Force sees Salesforce.com as a competitor? Isn't that them?

Yes, sales force sees salesforce.com as a competitor.

 

[Fennis]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Sales Force sees Salesforce.com as a competitor? Isn't that them?

Yes, sales force sees salesforce.com as a competitor.

they really should merge

 

[fantasycurse42]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Act! is the one my boss recommended I use as a jumping off point, but I really want whatever works best for my team. They just need to be able to pop in a customer name, product name, or keyword and get all prior conversations/notes on that subject quickly and in a user-friendly, easily digestible fashion. I'll look into these, thanks guys.

Again, Salesforce

 

[Evilgrin 72]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Act! is the one my boss recommended I use as a jumping off point, but I really want whatever works best for my team. They just need to be able to pop in a customer name, product name, or keyword and get all prior conversations/notes on that subject quickly and in a user-friendly, easily digestible fashion. I'll look into these, thanks guys.

Again, Salesforce

I'll look into it for sure. Wasn't saying that program doesn't fit the bill, just specifying exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Dan Lambskin]

Can't Microsoft One Note do that? Should be part of standard office suite.

Maybe some better stuff as others have said though...not really my forte

 

[urbanhack]

Zendesk.

I ran across this in my cursory research this morning, can you elaborate on why you like it?

automated outreach and it's truly more customer service-based type software rather than just an internal CRM that you use to organize your contacts for sales calls. It can integrate with your propriety platform to consolidate orders and keep a better profile on hand for your consumers.

 

[urbanhack]

is your business B2B or B2C?

 

[Binky The Doormat]

Wanna spend millions and get inflexible, Nazi-based customer service software - go SAP.

Oh and spend millions more on 6 month "updates" that completely ####s everything up if you attempt any customization whatsoever.

Those guys are the worst - should be arrested.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

Zendesk.

I ran across this in my cursory research this morning, can you elaborate on why you like it?

automated outreach and it's truly more customer service-based type software rather than just an internal CRM that you use to organize your contacts for sales calls. It can integrate with your propriety platform to consolidate orders and keep a better profile on hand for your consumers.

Oooh. This sounds exactly like what I am looking for.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

is your business B2B or B2C?

B2B.

 

[urbanhack]

is your business B2B or B2C?

B2B.

Hmmmm. I might steer you towards saleforce.com. Zendesk is really geared towards consumers and B2C.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

Wanna spend millions and get inflexible, Nazi-based customer service software - go SAP.

Oh and spend millions more on 6 month "updates" that completely ####s everything up if you attempt any customization whatsoever.

Those guys are the worst - should be arrested.

We ran SAP for 5 years before switching to a manufacturing/fulfillment specific ERP package. It's not cheap either, but peanuts compared to SAP. We had to use it as we started as an offshoot of a parent company that used it. We used maybe 1% of its functionality. I was never happier than the day we went autonomous and dumped SAP permanently.

 

[captain_amazing]

Don't get anything Blackbaud related, unless you hate your life.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

is your business B2B or B2C?

B2B.

Hmmmm. I might steer you towards saleforce.com. Zendesk is really geared towards consumers and B2C.

I'll look at both. We're B2B but the functionality you describe seems congruous with what we're trying to accomplish.

 

[Evilgrin 72]

Don't get anything Blackbaud related, unless you hate your life.

Noted, thanks.

 

[saintfool]

one of the more underrated things about Salesforce is that it can be customized pretty well. it's a framework as much as anything.

 

[belljr]

Build one in house

 

[Mario Kart]

India

 

[Binky The Doormat]

Build one in house

omg

 

[Ron Swanson]

is your business B2B or B2C?

B2B.

Hmmmm. I might steer you towards saleforce.com. Zendesk is really geared towards consumers and B2C.

I'll look at both. We're B2B but the functionality you describe seems congruous with what we're trying to accomplish.

I've always seen Zendesk as more of a ticket/case management system with some automations. Salesforce also has Desk.com which is very similar. Runs on the same backend and can be easily upgraded to Service Cloud when needed.

 

[Abraham]

Salesforce for crm

Google drive, Dropbox or One note to share documents, files, proposals, templates

Slack for chat. Alternately hipchat

Zendesk for ticketing. Maybe Jira.

That's pretty much the exact stack that every startup I know of is using.

 

[Ignoramus]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Sales Force sees Salesforce.com as a competitor? Isn't that them?

Yes, sales force sees salesforce.com as a competitor.

they really should merge

Like Walmart stores won't price match walmart.com. Silly, but from te company's perspective they are separate entities.

 

[fantasycurse42]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Sales Force sees Salesforce.com as a competitor? Isn't that them?

Yes, sales force sees salesforce.com as a competitor.

they really should merge

Like Walmart stores won't price match walmart.com. Silly, but from te company's perspective they are separate entities.

In all seriousness, Walmarts online marketing strategy is so short sided it might get them crushed in the long run. Their main goal is driving people into the store. Obviously you go in looking for one product and the goal is to get you to leave with ten. They aren't nearly as concerned with eCommerce as they should be and eventually Amazon will be eating their breakfast, lunch, and dinner if they don't change this strategy.

 

[Ron Swanson]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Sales Force sees Salesforce.com as a competitor? Isn't that them?

Yes, sales force sees salesforce.com as a competitor.

they really should merge

Like Walmart stores won't price match walmart.com. Silly, but from te company's perspective they are separate entities.

Except Salesforce IS Salesforce.com. All of their offerings are cloud based. In fact, along with Netsuite they are one of the originals of all the current cloud offerings.

 

[GoFishTN]

I did a survey for Salesforce not to long ago and here's all the companies that they considered as competition:

Act!

Highrise

Infusionsoft

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Nimble

Oracle

Sage CRM

Salesforce.com

SAP

SugarCRM

Zoho

Salesforce is pretty inexpensive in the grand scheme of things and is so ubiquitous it's easy to find help, but if you're really pinching pennies, I'd look at Base CRM, Sugar CRM or Nutshell.

Sales Force sees Salesforce.com as a competitor? Isn't that them?

Yes, sales force sees salesforce.com as a competitor.

they really should merge

Like Walmart stores won't price match walmart.com. Silly, but from te company's perspective they are separate entities.

Um, yes they will.