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Ask HN: What CRM system do you use other than Salesforce?

4 points by e40 ↗ HN
My company needs to move off a legacy (unsupported, but working) system and we're in talks with Salesforce. It's not cheap, but they appear to be the dominant player in this market.

We had a project to move to SugarCRM about 5-7 years ago, but it failed for reasons unrelated to SugarCRM. At the time, I didn't really have a good opinion of it, though, which is why we're looking at Salesforce now.

When I went to SFO a couple of weeks ago I saw billboards for Salesforce competitors, but I couldn't see the company names. They referenced (I think) things like being cheaper and easier to use.

Are there better solutions out there than Salesforce? If so, I'd like to look at them.

Thanks.

3 comments

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ziddoap
I don't have a recommendation of what to use, but I sure a hell can steer you clear of the CRM we use... Which is Swiftpage's ACT!.

It's not cheap, and it's honestly the worst program I have ever had the displeasure working with.

You can really tell that they don't care about the development, aesthetic, quality of life, or any other aspect of the software other than making sure you'll pay them your subscription.

Any features you would expect by default is most likely a 3rd-party addon (that you have to buy separately) that is in a completely unregulated market (no vetting of developers at all) and there are some really sketchy addons.

Even the small quality of life things are done in a maddingly frustrating way. I haven't been keeping a list, but things such as the back button (which, when it works - wont work as expected), the fact that it prompts you to input your own phone number every time you launch, the arcane way of setting up sync for remote workers....

I have a lot of pent up rage against ACT. Our work refuses to get rid of it, because they are scared of the migration. I think thats the only reason ACT has business anymore... Corporations would rather pay thousands for an abysmal product than spend a couple weeks to prep and transfer to a different product.

gtsteve
My company uses Zendesk Sell (formerly Base). My business partner loves it and uses it religiously. I haven't used it quite as much but I really like the UI and I've done a few API integrations with our internal systems. The mobile app is also really impressive, at least from a technical point of view.

Salesforce is a very different kind of product however, I don't think ZS offers anywhere near the level of customisation, or at least it doesn't at the level we pay for. For a small business like ours ZS is perfect.

cosmodisk
There's a lot of them out there.. However, if a company wants something more sophisticated,like process automation, integrations and similar bells and whistles, it will end up being either Salesforce or MS Dynamics.Most other CRMs are toys compared with these.