Capsule CRM Review

Rating: 4
Author: SmallBizCRM

“Capsule does an amazing job of putting so much functionality into such an inexpensive, simple and easy-to-use relationship management tool.”

Visit Website

Calendar/Reminder System
Contact Management
Document Storage
Email Marketing

Marketing Automation Integration
Quotes/Proposals
Social Media Integration
Task Management

Free Trial

Pricing starts from

$18

Free Subscription

Premium Subscription

Amount of users

10+

Training/Documentation

Online Support

Mobile Access

Customer relation management (CRM) software is the one of most used applications in businesses worldwide. The customer-business relationship is the most important relationship in the professional domain. A good CRM model helps businesses build and maintain strong ties with their customers.

Platform independent applications are one of the most preferred solutions by small and medium businesses. Today, many business applications are available in a software-as-a service form. Using SaaS solutions helps businesses cut down on the expenditure and time
required for implementation.

Web-based CRMs such as Capsule CRM are strong and viable alternatives to on-premise CRM. The cost of on-premise CRM makes it less suitable for SMBs. Today, business is no longer confined to the office or any particular place. With the introduction of 3G services and Wi-Fi, a majority of businesses are slowly shifting to mobile platforms. Many SMBs have their own mobile sales force that taps opportunities wherever possible. Let’s take a look at the Capsule CRM and see what makes it most suitable for SMBs

Getting started with Capsule CRM:

Users can sign up for a free CapsuleCRM account, or businesses can sign up for a professional edition of Capsule CRM for $18 per month per user. Businesses can test the functionality of the professional edition for 30 days free before deciding to sign up for the professional edition. The free account can only have 2 users and has limited storage options. Free account users are also not eligible to use the CRM integration features with top business applications. Professional edition users enjoy added functionality such as seamless integration with Xerox, KashFlow, FreeAgent, FreshBooks and MailChimp along with added storage space and the freedom to create unlimited opportunities.

Exciting features of Capsule CRM:

Complete contact view:

All contacts stored in the CRM are stored according to user defined categories. The contacts can be tagged or sorted for easy identification such as vendor, customer, and lead/opportunity. A user can also add notes such as scheduled meetings, meeting outcomes, and every detail about the customer. Capsule CRM is capable of tracking all emails sent to a particular person/business client from any mail client or Outlook. This feature of congregating the data helps the user know everything about the customer before interacting or presenting an offer.

Sales Pipeline management:

Capsule has introduced a new kanban-style visualisation for this feature, so users can see and manage their opportunities from a board rather than from a list. This feature allows users to drag and drop opportunities, moving them along milestones, and easily put them into their won or lost areas. The Sales Pipeline icon takes users directly to the new Pipeline view. The dashboard can still be reached using the dashboard button which is the last icon in the group. In this way Capsule gives users a better overview of how their sales are progressing.

Gmail contextual gadget:

The contextual gadget in Capsule CRM extends the functionality of your Gmail inbox and brings all the information stored in your CRM to your inbox. For example, if you are viewing a particular customer’s email, the contextual gadget will give you a glance of every customer-centric detail that is stored in your CRM. In simple words, the Gmail contextual gadget will update you about the different activities and opportunities related to the customer so that you can make informed decisions thereafter.

The Gmail contextual gadget is capable of scanning names, purchase order numbers, and other relevant information in an email and presents the user with relevant actions in-line with the email. The gadget allows the user to view the customer’s past interactions and special considerations.

Integration with Zferral for Affiliate Management:

Today, providing incentives can encourage customers to buy products and services. It is also a good way to reward your loyal customers. Zferral presents businesses with an easy and convenient solution to offer incentives to their customers, is easy to use, and gives help at every step of the way. Businesses can sign up for any program and start building their marketing and affiliate campaigns. Zferral provides a wide range of tools to create an effective and professional marketing campaign too and also allows businesses to launch multiple campaigns while still managing incentive programs efficiently for each campaign.

Zferral is also ideal for businesses that are small and have a tight budget for marketing campaigns. Capsule CRM provides complete integration with Zferral, which means businesses can use this powerful marketing tool within the application.

Tight Integration to Accounting System KashFlow

KashFlow is fast establishing itself as a wonderful accounting solution for small businesses. It is extremely easy to use, and doesn’t come with an overwhelming array of superfluous features. The tight integration to CRM’s like CapsuleCRM make it an attractive accounting option. If you use PayPal in your business, KashFlow is all the more compelling, as the integration to PayPal is superb.

Smart integration with Wufoo:

Wufoo is a simple application that helps one create functional and powerful web based forms. The application creates all scripts that are needed to gather information from your users. With Wufoo, you don’t have to create or upload any form on your website. It can create forms within a few minutes and also create a linked database where the information collected through forms is stored.

Added functionality with Dropbox:

Users can create a new opportunity and link it to the email and send it to Dropbox. Capsule CRM Dropbox then creates and stores contact information along with the opportunity and email. This feature allows users to save time, as they do not have to manually create an opportunity and link it to the email. The application does this task automatically.

Secure Data Backup:

Data security and backups are extremely important for businesses. Businesses always look to keep a backup of data in case of any mishap. Capsule CRM understands the concerns of businesses and provides tools for easy backups as well. Capsule CRM keeps an additional copy of data in Amazon S3 (simple storage service) backup storage services. The CRM data is backed up every hour and can be easily retrieved when needed. Capsule CRM takes every measure to secure and protect valuable data.

Capsule CRM on the mobile:

Capsule launched their mobile application in April, 2011. This powerful app, suitable for users and salespeople always on the go, runs on iPhone, Android phones and BlackBerry. A local database is created when logging on to your account via mobile for the first time and everything including contacts, task list, activities etc. is synchronized. In this way users are able to access their contacts, tasks opportunities when out of the office. The mobile version has some very useful features, one of them being that when the name of a contact in Notes/Description is typed in, the application automatically suggests a link to the contact. Water, a powerful 3rd party iPhone app, to access Capsule contacts, opportunities, cases, and tasks can also be used. A recent feature added to Capsule mobile gives users the ability to manage your calendar and tasks from the app itself, rather than just view them.

Bottom-line:

Capsule CRM is full fledged CRM which does not bind your business to a particular office set-up. It is an ideal solution for an individual, small, and medium business and sales teams who want the full functionality of the CRM without installing the software to access it. The mobile sales team can benefit from capsule CRM functionality as they can always keep themselves updated about all opportunities. Capsule CRM allows businesses to collaborate with their employees and, CRM functionality ensures that every member is aware of the tasks assigned to him/her.

If you a looking for strong Project Management, CapsuleCRM is not the best option, however. It will function for small-scale projects, but you would be better off considering CRM solutions like WORKEtc., which has sophisticated project management capabilities.

Capsule CRM is a far better option than on-premise CRM, which needs to be installed on the system. Besides, the CRM data stored in the on-premise CRM system cannot be accessed outside the office. Today,
businesses are required to equip their sales teams with every detail about the customers before they interact and present a deal to the customer. The Capsule CRM features ensure that the sales team is well informed even it is miles away from the office or from an available opportunity in some remote area.

Read our latest review of CapsuleCRM here…

Cases: Another great aspect of CapsuleCRM, cases give you a central repository for everything your business is managing: files, tasks, notes, contacts, etc. The case page is similar to that of a contact page in Capsule, offering a history for all item updates and changes related to that case. This tool can be used very creatively, and I can even see it being used effectively for managing simple projects. How you use it however is up to you, that’s the beauty with Capsule – it’s very flexible.

Honorable mentions:

Tagging: This feature shows up throughout all of Capsule, and it is one of the main reasons this system is so flexible. Tag everything from contacts, to opportunities, to cases. I’m sure you can imagine how useful this can be.

Teams: In November 2018 Capsule released Teams, a powerful new upgrade that helps you and your business grow with Capsule. With Teams, you can allocate your leads, customers and sales opportunities to teams that match your organizational structure, and then secure access through team membership. Teams can be used to secure sensitive contacts. Teams also covers salespeople who only need and want access to their own records. Just choose the new “Restricted” user role on a person’s user settings and they’ll only see the records that they own. Any records which aren’t assigned to a team or owner will be available to all users who aren’t restricted users.

Lists:

Capsule’s aim is to make users feel that there is no obstacle in the way of them and their contacts. With this in mind, they have made a bunch of improvement on their contacts list pages. To access the new page right away, click ‘Turn On’ on the People & Organizations page. Here are the highlights:

Quick and easy filtering – All actions now take fewer clicks. To filter contacts, users no longer need to ‘Create a new list’. Simply start filtering as soon as you visit the People & Organizations page.
Manage saved lists – If a list needs to be saves this can be done in the ‘Saved Lists’ drop down menu on the top left side of the page. Alternatively, if this filtering is being done on the fly, the unfiltered state can be restored by clicking ‘Clear Filters’ on the far right.
Direct selection and bulk actions – For some time Capsule has wanted to bring users the ability to directly select contacts in a list. This will give them more control when performing bulk tasks such as adding tags or exporting contacts. If it is necessary to perform a bulk action on all contacts, click the ‘Add Tag’ button without selecting any contacts and the action will apply to all the contacts in the current list.
New ‘OR’ conditions – When creating a set of conditions, users often try to match more than one value. Previously it was not possible to say ‘show me contacts whose country is US or UK’. Now it will be possible to select several countries in the country filter. This will act as an OR condition. OR conditions can also be added to text fields. For example, to find contacts whose job title contains manager or lead, open the job title filter and press the plus button to add an OR condition.
Add or remove columns – When it is necessary to focus on particular details about a contact, such as when they were last contacted, hide and show columns as needed using the table settings button and checking or unchecking the columns to be displayed. The custom field data in the table can be saved and saving a list will also save the column structure created.
Column ordering – After deciding which columns are needed, move them to the order wanted with a simple drag and drop
Sort by – Use the same table settings button used to edit columns to sort by a select number of fields. Just click on the “sort by” button and select one of the six options to sort by.

Downfalls:

Security: This is the biggest downfall of Capsule and could be the reason some businesses decide against adoption of this software. User permissions in Capsule are weak: you can choose to set a user as an administrator, which will give him the ability to invite other users, do some minor configuration, or choose whether they can export data – but that’s it. Everyone has the same permissions when it comes to viewing opportunities, cases, contacts, correspondence, and other business information. Capsule’s reasons for avoiding implementing this feature are unclear, but I can’t personally see how adding permissions would conflict with how Capsule currently works. In fact, I can see it working well hand-in-hand with Capsule’s extensive tagging and list capabilities. This will probably be strengthened in future versions.

Files: While you can attach files to nearly everything in Capsule, there’s no dedicated file section, which can be problematic when managing important files and more general, non-associated files. Part of the reason for this is the claimed Google Apps integration, but the integration isn’t ‘true’ integration. It’s not a two-way auto-sync with Google Docs.

Capsule does an amazing job of putting so much functionality into such a simple and easy-to-use relationship management tool. While it offers less functionality in areas other than contact management and sales, Capsule offers integration with numerous other services such as:

Xero
Kashflow – great small business accounting solution, especially, but not only, if your business uses Paypal. (Are you using PayPal? If not, why not – PayPal is awesome!)
FreeAgent
Google Apps
Zferral. A great tool if you are managing a team of affiliates (resellers).
Freshbooks
Mailchimp.

The Xero integration specifically is seamless and particularly fantastic. The Google apps integration; not quite so fantastic. However, the Gmail contextual gadget is particularly useful when it comes to getting up to date on contacts and making changes to items directly from your Gmail. Capsule also recently launched into the mobile domain, offering applications for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

Pricing

Capsule is extremely affordable and has a competitive pricing model: Pay $18/month/user and get 2 gigs of storage per user, 50,000 contacts, unlimited opportunities, unlimited cases, and integration with numerous other services. Or choose the free CRM edition, which may be limited to 2 users, but still offers much of the functionality of the professional version. One of the more annoying aspects of Capsule is the limitations on the free trial: unless you want to put down your credit card, you can only use the free version as a trial. This makes it hard for companies that want to test the full functionality of a system without putting down any financial information.