My CRM Story: How I came to chose Prophet CRM - Adam (Texas)

I was having trouble deciding on a CRM solution. I am running a one person consulting practice out of my home. I use Outlook as my e-mail client and I will be using QuickBooks for my accounting software.

I really like some of the new technologies that currently exist such as – sales process automation, trickle marketing campaigns and e-mail intelligence for opened/read marketing e-mails, ect.

Well… I am sorry (embarrassed) to say. I went through a few CRM’s. I ended up spending way too much money trying to get it “right.” In a nutshell…

Stated with…

  • MS Business Contact Manager
  • Reason – free
  • Opinion – too clumsy. No clean integration with QuickBooks.
  • Result – dumped it

Next…

  • TeamScope
  • Reason – tight integration with Outlook
  • Opinion – good product, UI is outdated, support is terrible and expensive,
  • does not play nice with other Outlook plug-ins.
  • Result – dumped it

Next…

  • Maximizer
  • Reason – integration with Outlook & QuickBooks, decent UI, a real database backend
  • Opinion – good product, steep learning curve, weak Outlook integration,
  • support is great
  • Result – took too long to ramp-up… Dumped it

Next…

  • Prophet CRM
  • Reason – tight integration with Outlook
  • Opinion – good product, UI is clean, support is good, plays nice with other Outlook plug-ins, I wish it had a more robust functionality.
  • Result – I KEPT THIS ONE. 😉 It does not have everything I would like.

But, it works well with Outlook and keeps to the KISS principle.

This is probably more than you wanted to hear… But, you asked. 😉

Thanks,
Adam

Microsoft Outlook Resources

Additional MS Outlook resources can be found at Slipstick.

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