And yes I”m a TOTAL TOTAL newbie at CRM. Someone in a newsgroup said that Newbie was a bit …well…just not a word that most folks wanted to hear…but you know what… being “newbie” means that you are learning something new. And that’s good isn’t it? I mean technology changes. Look at the latest thing … CRM…customer relationship management….that’s a process evaluation. It’s not technology per se, but an application that you need to go in and question the business processes, question the data flow, and for many of us, it means something new, something we might not have asked about before.
So…how about you go be a newbie, eh?
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Made a big effort to do CRM from the Action Pack to see if it was any good and to make ourselves some business. Dedicated two days to it – really figuring how to get it to run on SBS (despite contradictory documentation saying you can / you can’t – the answer is you can). Getting it to work on the test rig and client stations. and then…….
Well the long and the short of it was we went out and used the imperfect ACT 2005 for Workgroups because it contains about 500% more useable features that a small business wants for Customer Relation Management. And here I emphasise MANAGEMENT of the customer. Not the subsequent sales on to them of parts built and processed for them. Which is where MS CRM seems to come out the box. I have to say I was really disappointed in the product and I sure hope that the new BETA has made it more customer centric rather than manufacturing process centric.
Sure there is a huge market in add ons and customization – but as long as there are competing products that work out the box with less customization then MS CRM is a high $ low value product.
And then there is the CRM dysfuntional fit with Outlook and Small Business Contact Manager and Small Business Accounting 2006 which in its way is a form of CRM that makes a better stab at competing with Quickbooks than Quickbooks attempt to add a CRM component.
I think I will sit this one out for a bit and see which way it falls from the beta testers’ comments – before I invest more time in the product. Now Data Protection Manager 2006 that just showed up in the Action Pack. That looks like something I can REALLY be proactive with. That’s where we are investing our NEWBIE time this month.