CRM Articles

Whether you refer to the technology as CRM, Customer Relationship Management or Sales Force Automation, the fact is the technology and terminology can be confusing. CRMReview.org helps address this challenge by providing a number of informative CRM articles which include editor reviews of top CRM providers.

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Sugar CRM review

Customer Relationship Management, or CRM as it is commonly known, is a process which helps organizations use technology to understand and empathize with customers and thereby build better relationships with them. Though CRM is made up of several technological elements, it is much more than that. It is a methodology, which enables companies to harness different aspects of their business to forge stronger bonds with existing customers and also to establish this with the new ones.

Open Source

The distinct difference between Sugar CRM and other software of this kind is that the former is open-source software. Sugar CRM is powered by LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) and therefore can be utilized for a nominal charge. Sugar CRM is easily customizable to needs, is responsive and a technology tailored to the demands of CRM management. Sugar CRM is one of the preferred open-source CRM technologies currently available.

Features

Sugar CRM has several features which are user-friendly, customizable and designed to suit the CRM needs of a company. Features such as automation of the sales force, tracking of sales prospects, and customer information management make CRM a vital and energizing force in any organization. The installation and set-up is easy and simple and Microsoft Outlook and Word plug-ins can be merged along with it. The dashboard is totally customizable and provides data of business performance in real time; and customer data can also be imported from diverse CRM tools like Sales Force and ACT.

Sales Force Data

This feature ensures that the sales force's performance data is shown on the dashboard and is easily available. Prospects, sources, results, new opportunities and other vital information can all be viewed here at a glance, ensuring streamlined planning and implementation of sales strategy.

Sales Lead Tracking

Tracking and collating essential information about sales leads, closure ratios and order dates when expected, revenue potential and other forecasts are enabled by the Sugar CRM software. All contacts and prospects are also sorted correctly and filtered according to importance and urgency.

Customer Information

All information about sales prospects and existing customers are collected and arranged in one centralized database. Any information about customers, contacts and sales leads can be accessed from this database and all e-mails are automatically synchronized with the existing contact base. Other details, like phone logs, notes, files and so on can also be tagged on these, so that retrieval is easy and fast. This information can also be disseminated and shared with colleagues when needed.

Workflow Management

Information flow is maintained through the organizational structure in a more streamlined manner and work can be assigned to people with email. Calendars are provided which give an overview of the plan and schedule, which can be shared by different users.

The Sugar CRM software also permits the user to bring forth an item list to provide quotations for the product or the service, which can be converted into PDF format and mailed to the lead or customer.

Those companies with budgetary constraints would find Sugar CRM a good choice as the open-source version is free. The fully-licensed version is a better option for larger companies as it has a more diverse set of useful features.

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