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Freaky discounts? Shares of CRM vendors on the occasion of the transition to udalenka

The beginning of the year is a good time to implement a CRM system: while the budget has been approved, there are clear plans for the year and time to make existing customer and transaction records in the new system before the start of the hot sale season. Our company also thought so, but everything changes when it comes - coronavirus. Explosive sales from April-May can’t be expected, our deliveries (sphere: consumer goods in assortment (if anything - no masks)) decreased significantly, and purchases too. But the budget for CRM remained and we decided to cheat: while everyone is sad, implement the CRM system, put everything in order and overtake competitors at the first start from this long red traffic light. 

The responsibility for collecting requirements and choosing CRM in the company was assigned to me at the head of a small working group. The boss categorically opposed the purchase of popular CRMs from the category “by ear” and said to choose carefully and thoughtfully so as not to fly with this investment (by the way, our budget is modest - less than a million rubles). I had a whole list of 12 systems and we tested them. But in modern conditions, a new selection factor has been added - possible discounts. And I ran through my list again, and discounts were found in 6 of 12 developers ( why I write developers, because vendors can also be partners, but I prefer to contact manufacturers directly) And I will tell you that stocks are very different. I'll try to make out everything. Only, chur, no complaints: I have not chosen anyone yet (and until July I will not choose!) And will be as subjective as possible, because I follow the interests of the company in which I work, and we need: honestly, profitably and “complete mincemeat”. No, well, isn't that what you need from service providers and products?

Well, we begin the dive, put on scuba gear (almost like during a trip to the nearest Pyaterochka). 

  
While I was writing a pathetic introduction, I decided that I would also briefly talk about CRM, because well, you have to understand what you are paying for. 

Actually rides of such different generosity


Microsoft Dynamics CRM - CRM, with which I worked back in 2010, and it is quite suitable for companies with as many names of goods as ours (about 300 thousand). CRM is distinguished by good, even powerful analytics, has platform chips, works well on all devices. But it has one big drawback that is common to all import solutions: the system is tailored to “their” business logic, and to get work with the primary or integration with 1C’s relatives, you need to buy expensive connectors from partners who, of course, do not make discounts and generally work on the principle "if you have money for Dynamics, then you should buy a pack of improvements and our services." So great analytics and business logic are ruined by Russian reality. Suddenly? Oh well, the usual thing.

Microsoft does not provide discounts for the commercial sector, only on the volume of purchases, and even then they are small. But one cannot fail to note the deep social approach of the corporation - they offer free use of Dynamics 365, Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Apps and Power Virtual Agents to companies most sensitive to the situation with COVID-19 for 6 months, i.e. for health care, government agencies at all levels and branches of government, educational institutions. Well, I think that in the case of Russia, they will not go broke - it is difficult for me to imagine a hospital or university that will use this set of applications. Although I would try in their place - data management gives cool results. Another thing is that education practically does not have such specialists, and hospitals, unfortunately, are not up to it. 

Bitrix24the first among CRM-schikov announced that they will have a special tariff that will help teams work remotely. On the site, they said that the most effective business assistance on their part was to remove the limit on the number of users in the free Bitrix24 tariff. By the way, a very sensible and good offer. Previously, a free tariff with many restrictions applied to 12 users. 

Consider the details of the proposal: valid from April 11 to 30, 2020 for Bitrix24 customers - well, we calculated honestly for the entire term of self-isolation indicated by the President, everything is in the case. An important question remains open: what will happen to the tariff after returning to normal life, will it not be reduced to 12 users? Well and yes, of course, the tariff is technically very severely cut off and can only be considered temporary - so for Bitrix24 it’s rather a collection of leads that will soon begin to be actively monetized simply because CRM on the basic free tariff is “small” for many. For example, my company is small initially and I won’t even bother with it.

For companies more serious than freeloaders, there is a more interesting promotion - 30-40% discounts for all customers on cloud tariffs:

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I have repeatedly worked with Bitrix24 and I can say that this is not exactly CRM - it is rather such a huge corporate portal with CRM functions (module). If you do not have a very busy business and a lot of small sales, Bitrix24 will do, but be prepared for a bunch of extra functions from the portal. Well, and separately, I absolutely do not like that B24 has separate tariffs for IP-telephony and, as I understand it, these are uncontested expenses. Again, there are a bunch of applications in the marketplace (almost all are paid), but the individual refinement of the partners is quite expensive. By the way, for remote work, and specifically for monitoring and communicating a team, this is the best solution out of those listed. But I would take it just like a portal, like CRM - no. And for the portal a little expensive. In short, I have not decided yet, but control of working time,I like the live tape and open lines (communication with customers) - for B2C I would take it, for B2B the functions are less needed.

Sales Creatio (they are Terrasoft, they are BPM'online) is a development that introduces me into a small stupor: why is it so often and so difficult to change a brand? What is the sacred meaning of these movements? Sales is a completely normal, strong CRM for managing sales in B2B, with paid mandatory technical support (but I will always reach it!). It is full, functional, but on big data it’s hard for me to work with beautiful windows - there is not enough data viewing area. But this is purely my engineering whim. If you choose CRM for a serious business, take a closer look, but note that they have marketing and service in separate applications, which, as it were, hints at additional sales.

When I received Terrasoft's letter on the promotion related to COVID-19, I was delighted (as much as possible in the current situation) that, in principle, you can stop searching and pick up a discount on an expensive price tag. Nooo ... bummer. In the best traditions of the American company, the letter offered a six-month free subscription to the Customer Center Creatio service and some partner products. Here's what the company proclaims: “Creatio solutions will help you establish communications, simplify and speed up work with calls, and optimize resources. Preferential terms are available to medical, charitable, volunteer, government, and other organizations that help stop the spread or mitigate the effects of COVID ‑ 19. ” In general, again suffering small and medium-sized businesses in flight, if it is not associated with a direct fight against the disease.(Well, you remember that we do not have masks, we fly over).

RegionSoft CRM - I read about this CRM on Habré at the beginning of the year and tested their demo version. Campaign is the only CRM developer company that maintains a blog on Habré. I bought articles. CRM-system is not simple, rather loaded with functions and modules: from a banal client card with 100500 tabs with information to business processes and programmable KPI. It is not very convenient to work with modal windows, but you can inflate the nomenclature, work with the warehouse and form the whole primary on the fly. Honestly, the feelings are twofold: on the one hand, it has everything, the whole modern set of features for business, this CRM fits my recording volumes, but the interface is very different from everyone else. Another feature: CRM is desktop, but it supports remote work and does not require a powerful server. I see in it the main plus for us now:you can pay for licenses once, and that’s all - that’s not a rental application, but a purchase. Empty CRM and CRM with demobase works very quickly, but I haven’t talked with developers yet and don’t know how it will cope with my volumes. 

The action they have is simple and specific:

  • 20% discount on the purchase of licenses (subject to 100% prepayment) - taking into account their prices, the discount is normal, but prepayment is sad for the budget;
  • 30% discount on rent for a prepayment of 3 months - this is interesting, you can then buy out CRM and not pay the rent indefinitely;
  • free extension of your license to a license with remote access support (TRM) - well, in the current situation is valuable;
  • 30% discount on a one-time type training and a 30% discount on a typical installation, including the deployment of a remote mode of operation - this is generally cool, not a single company offered any settings for free and at a discount, but without them nothing.

Dates - from April 7 to 30, all within the framework of the decision of the authorities. Prepayment is upset, but there is no benefactor in business. There are no tricks and extensions, because you need to pay once. I still do not quite understand which edition (version?) I need.

CRM Simple Business- True, a simple CRM for small businesses. The classic CRM-system in the cloud, in which there is marketing, and mailing, and telephony, and work with the site, and analytics, and call tracking, and even video calling. I was confused by security issues in it, until I fully understood the access settings and did not understand why they are in the fields of records and how “protected” module restrictions are, I will ask these questions to managers. And I was also embarrassed by the color of the interface - I really do not like bright colors in business applications, because, as I have said a hundred times, we have a lot of records about nomenclature and transactions and the variegation will be unrealistic. Although I am sure that everything is decided in the settings. An interesting opportunity is its own CMS to create a simple company website. Of course, you won’t get used to this, but for a small business that has still not gone online, a great opportunity.And most importantly, everything is very simple (except for the content editor). By the way, there is a Gantt chart - in one of the most classic implementations, I liked it. I remember the old version of the chart, they also have growth. 

The action of the guys is adequate and unequivocal, without asterisks.

  • “Antivirus” - the full functionality of the Simple Business CRM system for free 30 days + 250 r. on communication (200 rubles for calls over IP-telephony and 50 rubles for e-mail newsletters).
  • “Anti-crisis” - only until April 30 for new customers of the CRM-system “Simple Business” anti-crisis offer “1 + 1 = 3!” You buy CRM at the rates of "Pro" or "VIP" for 2 months and get the 3rd month as a gift. The tariffs also include funds for calls, SMS and newsletters (1,350 rubles for the Profi tariff and 3,300 rubles for the VIP tariff).

I liked that the action was announced without pathos, the conditions are normal and transparent. Only here means for calls, SMS and mailings is a little crafty - our company has such a “package” for 2-3 days, but why not?  

Customer base- CRM, which positions itself as a platform with which you can get what kind of customization you need. But the path of platform solutions is slippery, since the client of such a system must have a person in the staff with engineering or programming skills. In short, you get a constructor for tables, calculations, actions, etc. and you will build CRM for yourself. And it’s not bad and even very cool if you are ready to single out one person who will painstakingly build a system for your requirements - and sometimes such a pro is more expensive than a ready-made CRM (I’ll say immodestly: I’m just that and I’m really more expensive, but not for sale ) Well, of course, you can pick up a ready-made basic solution, an industry configuration (such as a beauty salon, driving school or dentistry) or order a CRM for yourself (for what’s the calculation). And you know what I'll tell you? It’s interesting, but long, difficult,dreary and the start of work in the system will be delayed. In short, I can’t advise you or not advise you - you must solve this issue with the person in the company who will deal specifically with the technical part of CRM. Whether such an approach is justified - well, xs, someone like that.

But the action is the strangest - under the slogan "CRM" KB "as a vaccine against coronavirus." Such a sad slogan, and even roots my biotechnological soul. 

The conditions are: “To make it easier for you to transfer the business to a remote location, we give all new KB users a 20% discount coupon for the purchase of any tariff for a period of 3 months or more. Enter the # VACCINATION promotional code in your account to apply the discount. Hurry up to enter the code word before 04/15/2020. If you are already with us, we give a 20% discount on the first revision. ” By the way, for revision you need to leave a request with a statement of work (terms of reference). I will take this opportunity to tell the KB that the vendor itself makes up the technical task - and you can earn a little extra money on this ;-) Use it, don’t thank it.

The strangeness of the action, of course, is not in the name, but in the terms - until April 15. Well, what greed is, why not until April 30, it is incomprehensible ...

Well , it would be unfair not to mention 1C-Rarus , which organized support for companies in the crisis - it’s clear that it’s largely for the sale of its software solutions, but overall the assistance package is quite extensive . 

Yes, the survey participants and those whom I will now forgive me, but Bitrix24, Simple Business and RegionSoft CRM turned out to be the most humane and consistent - is it because this is purely Russian business and they know firsthand what it’s small and medium business collided this spring. They made a win-win: they weren’t losing themselves, and the customers had real discount offers, not loud speeches about how COVID-19 united us all.

Compare the prices of this banquet


Now let's compare what CRMs will cost us for 3 full years - we have so much predicted in the company until the full and, importantly, sustainable recovery to the level of the end of 2019 (and indeed three years for the business’s operational work is rather small, less and not worth considering). Important! The price does not include revision, configuration, training, backups, etc. - let's see how much it will cost to own the licenses themselves (for small and medium-sized businesses the largest share of CRM costs). I chose the versions about the same, to be honest: for a small company with the required amount of functions. I count on 17 users, as in my company.

So ... mentally fast forward to the future without viruses, crises and hoverboards (no, well, by 2022, somehow it is necessary to master their mass production somehow!)


Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Bitrix24
Sales Creatio
RegionSoft CRM 
CRM  
 
CRM
Sales Professional

Commerce
Professional Plus
VIP
Premium
«» CRM 3 , .
866 232
258 984
862 920
204 960
179 640, 1 .
201 600, ..
?
866 232
431 640
862 920
256 200
179 640
201 600

, SaaS
, SaaS
, SaaS
, on-premise
, SaaS
, SaaS

But I admit honestly that this is a very drawn-out comparison, because if the first 4 CRMs can be functionally put in one row, compare, analyze and cling to features, then the last two - CRMs are much simpler. Therefore, I repeat: collect the requirements, test and collect the arguments yourself! 

There will be no conclusions, you will make them yourself. In the meantime, I will continue the fierce testing of my dozen programs, all of a sudden, until April 30, I will use something. Despite the principle:


The boys are normal. Times are not normal ...

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