So you’re a mid-sized company looking for a CRM solution that will help you streamline and automate the front end business processes that will impact sales execution and customer service. You know that basic low cost solution won’t get the job done, but you are also concerned that something too complex will turn off your staff and leave you with a yearlong contact with limited to no utilization. You don’t want to make a mistake so you gravitate to the two solutions that appear on every advertising billboard in the industry: Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce.com. Everyone has heard of these companies so they must be good. No one will come after you if you select either one of these, so you do. You select Salesforce.com.
Fast forward a year later and things have not gone as expected. Utilization is low, people find the product difficult to use and you just got your renewal notice with another big payment to make. Some companies simply cannot see themselves going through the selection process again so they just renew for another year with the thought that they will address it next time around. Other companies find Commence CRM, a mid-market alternative that offers similar features and functions as Salesforce.com at half the cost. Commence is not a household name, nor does the company spend millions of dollars on Google advertising campaigns, but Commence is a top rated CRM system that has been serving small to mid-size enterprises for more than two decades.
Functionally Commence CRM matches up very well against Salesforce.com and in some areas offers more capability. But what differentiates Commence CRM is that unlike Salesforce.com, which was designed for enterprise organizations, Commence is designed for small to mid-market enterprises. While there are several product editions similar to Salesforce.com, Commence does not place restrictions on the number of users you can have or strip out functionality in its lower cost offerings. Commence CRM offers robust functionality, has an intuitive user interface and can be tailored without programmer intervention. Best suited for companies of 10 to 200 users, Commence CRM meets the requirements of ease of use and affordability that so many mid-market companies are looking for. If you have the big renewal payment coming due and have found that you are simply not using the features you signed up for with Salesforce.com, it may be time to take a look at Commence CRM. Ask for a free test drive on the company’s website or view a product comparison of Commence CRM versus Salesforce.com.
Image “Did Will Would Should Could Have” courtesy of Michael on Flickr under Creative Commons license.