Is Saleslogix Software any good?

by Kerry
(Jackson, MS)

We've been looking around a lot for software. Before you jump on me, we already have a strategy and have been working with a consultant to optimize our work flow to support our new customer-centric way of doing business.

Our consultant doesn't know anything about CRM software so I thought I would ask here. Is Saleslogix any good? We need all the basic customer database stuff, but we've also determined that we need to push some information out to our customers as certain database values change. We've also determined based on surveys that our customers would like a portal to check on their account with us as they need to.

Since we know what we are going to measure, we're also interested in analytics. Mostly high level stuff, but can Saleslogix handle that and also allow us to drill down into the details to uncover underlying causes for change in the data?

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Mike's Response:

As I've mentioned on this site, I happen to work with Saleslogix and have done so for almost 12 years. I'm glad you mentioned the strategy part or I would gone off on a tangent.

First, most CRM software has the same core set of features. Some are a little better at certain things, but there are no glaring feature deficits... for the most part.

As for Saleslogix software, it will definitely handle your customer database, as well as your customer portal. In fact, it has extremely powerful web functionality and I challenge any other middle market product to claim superiority.

As for the analytics, I prefer to use external tools. My tool of choice is Qlikview because it is so quick and easy to implement a solution. Ther are no data warehouses to deal with. Their technology bypasses that and while you might think there would be performance issues, the technology they came up with is super fast.

Pushing data out to customers is also something that I would do with an external tool. Your two options with Saleslogix are KnowledgeSync and TaskCentre. I've recently switch to TaskCentre for a variety of reasons, but they both do a fine job of performing monitoring and communication. They're not super expensive, but as with analytics, you need to factor the extra cost into the equation. I'm sure your ROI will still be off the charts!

Mike Boysen - Effective CRM