Intrabench CRM Review

Intrabench CRM is a fast, secure, versatile cloud-based business management system. It is a solution that is well suited to small businesses, allowing businesses to organize their contacts, plan tasks, drive sales, manage productivity, plan marketing campaigns, maintain financial accounts, manage projects, call backs as well as create web based forms and a whole bunch of other features. A comprehensive product that has been designed to cater to the needs of all business units in an organization.

Technical details
Intrabench CRM has been designed with the help of business consultants who have strong understanding of how businesses work. Built using best software development practices and leading web programming techniques, the CRM is hosted in secure data centers. Adequate redundancy techniques have been implemented at every level to ensure uninterrupted service. It can be accessed from anywhere across the globe, all that is required to access it is a computer with Internet connection and web browsers such as Firefox, Chrome etc.

Intrabench CRM at a glance

• Free trial: Yes, free trial is available for 14 days.
• Ideal for: It is vertical independent and ideal for businesses of all kinds and sizes. The CRM has been successfully implemented for various business sectors such as financial services, IT, Sales.
• Training required: Can be used with minimal or no training. Easily accessible helpful online resources and videos are available.
• User limit: There’s no user limit. Users can be added as when need arises, essentially you can have as many active users as you have licenses for.
• Support available: Dedicate support team is in place to provide assistance over email or by telephone.

Getting started
There are several ways to get going with Intrabench CRM – either use their demo, or register for a trial version that is valid for a period of 14 days. If the 14 day period is not enough then you may as well register for a slightly restrictive Free version of the product that gives you 90 days of evaluation time, enough time to decide if you really need it for your business.

The demo version has some features disabled, for example you cannot import your contacts. For the current review we evaluated both versions, the trial as well the demo to measure the potential of this system.

To begin using the trial version one has to register, the registration process involves filling a simple form, no credit card details are required to be entered. Within minutes of form submission you will receive an email on the address you had provided while filling the form. The email contains link to the dedicated CRM instance that has been setup for you.

Submitting the registration form is not the end of the process, the first thing that is required before using the CRM is to go through a 3 step wizard, essentially filling forms which involve specifying company details, essential contact information, details of the admin user and lastly but most importantly agreeing to the terms and conditions.

 

User interface
The user interface has a tabbed layout that has been designed with strong emphasis on usability, the first screen that comes up immediately after login is the company/ contact search screen. Screens are quick to appear, functionality is neatly grouped together, shortcuts make frequently used areas to be easily accessible.

Dashboard
The dashboard is collection of widgets listing – opportunities, calendar, to-dos, call-backs, quick links for quick actions such as adding new calendar entry, company/ contact details, adding timesheet to name a few. These widgets can be moved around and arranged as per choice.

Data import
Switching from other systems is made easier as Intrabench CRM allows importing data in CSV format. In addition to importing customer records, users can as well import product catalogs from their earlier catalog management tool. The import procedure will create custom fields whilst data is being imported and can automatically search for duplicates so that imported data goes in cleanly. During import you can map fields in the input file to fields within the CRM. Also supported are several other data formats from other CRM’s for easier migration.

In the step shown below, you can setup mapping between fields in the CSV and fields in the CRM.

You can assign this imported contacts to internal users and sales reps, as well set sales status for each imported record, just as we had setup the stage to ‘Cold’. The flexibility and the simplicity of the import process is evident by the mapping process. Moreover there’s additional support for detecting duplicates, the duplicated detection logic is outlined in the screen capture below.

The last screen lists data that were imported, including number of companies, number of contacts and if any duplicates were detected.

Company and Contact management
At its core, Intrabench CRM is a contact management system. Adding a new contact or company is extremely easy as the CRM allows entering all details related to a new contact on a single screen. This is helpful if the sales rep is on the phone with a prospect who might give their details in a random order, the advantage is that sales reps do not need to go back and forth between different screens to update and save information.

Custom fields can be added to each company and contact, for example a new field such as Source can be set as a drop down listing various channels, values when chosen correctly can help determine the channels from where the customer came to know about your business.

In case if you wish to give your contacts restricted access to the system then that’s possible too.

The search facility allows searching for company details from one screen. Users can drill down and search for companies, contacts, opportunities based on strict criteria or filters (also possible to drill down using values in custom fields).

The search listing is very helpful, it allows changing the importance of a lead, quickly attach notes to companies and contacts, schedule follow up calls to customers and lots of other options. Call
back reminders allow you to follow-up your customers at the designated time and date you choose with all previous conversations being logged against the customer.

Task management
Many consider task management and task lists to be the ‘heart’ of a CRM. The usage and intuitiveness of the task list determines how much they are used to drive ones day.

Great tool to organize To Do’s & meeting reminders : Time management is available from within Intrabench CRM by the use of To Do lists. To Do lists can be accessed from any module within the CRM. Tasks can be prioritized in the order of what needs to be done, a deadline can be set on the tasks. Upon task completion, an email notification is sent to the creator of the task. By default task lists for all staff are public and editable by everyone, leading to greater cross communication. However, if required to hide a task entry, that can be done by setting it to private. Users can as well move tasks around based on their workload.

Setup callback reminders: Callbacks can be setup with notes so that when you call customers you are aware of the agenda, you know what was last said. For example sales call reminders can be scheduled. Callbacks can be assigned/ re-assigned to internal member. A list of call backs for the day as well as an email being sent to the user in the morning with a reminder of all assigned call backs, meetings.

The integrated calendar provides the much needed functionality for viewing events on different dates and organizing time. Managers can easily identify times when sub-ordinates are available and the ones that are busiest.

Simplifies email communication with customers
Templates can be setup which saves time with repetitive emails and makes mail merging simple. Emailing customers from within the CRM is as simple as clicking on the email address and selecting a template. Also included in Intrabench CRM is an email logging system which logs any emails directly under the customers records, this way you can see who sent what and when. Important to note, users will still be sending emails via their favorite email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird etc.

Centralized correspondence management
Everything starting from communication over emails to phone calls, notes, call-backs can be maintained in a chronological order in this system, the advantage is that users can quickly see every communication in single view.

Sales force automation, Opportunities, Forecasting
Sales management and tracking is a must in any CRM solution, Intrabench CRM scores very well on this front. Leads can be imported into the CRM from 3rd parties, as well as leads captured from your own website. The system will show last correspondence with a customer, what was said and date for next call back. Leads can be prioritized, queued or removed as well as finding leads that haven’t been contacted in a long time. Various sales channels can be easily integrated and monitored for performance.
Opportunities can be created against customer, probability can be assigned to the opportunity to create accurate sales targets for each staff member. Opportunities are helpful in sales forecasting and planning. As with other modules, custom fields can be added to hold more information if needed.

Marketing automation
Marketing automation is as important as sales automation and tracking. Intrabench CRM has a set of powerful modules that makes it easy to promote your products or services. For example, you can search for a group of customers by on various criteria. From the derived search results list, you can call, email, post or fax, in bulk with the click of a button. As all outbound emails are tracked, bounces are automatically unsubscribed, responses come straight back in the CRM and customers can if they want, unsubscribe too.

Supported analytics are available to show the links recipients have clicked on, follow up can setup on the most interested customers. Also available at disposal is an automatic email responder which if configured can automatically send emails on your behalf to customers. All emails can be mail merged that ensures customer gets a personalized email.

 

Customer case management
It is possible to run entire help and support desk system. For example, you could assign support@yourcompany.com to a project, all emails to this address will initiate an automated email to be sent back to the customer acknowledging receipt of the new task. An replies to such requests or support tickets will be copied to other team members. The built-in project manager can be used to change the status, add notes and assign tasks to staff. Reports based on customer, time spent and turn around can be generated which detail employee productivity.

Book keeping and accounting
Intrabench CRM also provides complete book keeping and pay roll system which has several features such as produce VAT returns, accounts management, interim reporting and cash flow accounting.

Invoicing and payment followups
In addition to what is mentioned above, organizations can manage their entire billing processes. Opportunities are linked to quotes which can be used to generate invoices. All invoices have credit terms, customers can get automatic payment reminders, the system in effect is acting as your credit control department!

Web forms, surveys, integration with website
Intrabench CRM has form creation and management module. If you want to create simple and
easy to use web based forms, you can do that from within the CRM. The Forms can used for surveys, feedback or for any other related purpose. The integrated web content management feature allows creating simple website which are hosted from within your CRM instance. This includes a web editor to create web pages which can be integrated with online shop which can be hosted from as well.

Reporting, analytics and statistics
Reporting is a component of paramount importance. Well designed reports can help you gather insight that can help you refine your business processes, define new ones, identify opportunities.

The dashboard shows current workloads, estimated times and tasks likely to go over schedule with everything color coded so you can see at a glance how things are going.  Intrabench CRM has several reports that can be generated from different parts of the system for different users. Examples include generating reports to show the most popular products or customers, by sales person and period, number of calls made per day/week/month by sales staff, total sales, by period, staff member.

Reports can be downloaded to Excel and manipulated for reports or exported into PDF for direct printing.

Integration with external applications
Integrations exist with Royal Mail and Sage Accounting

Pricing
Intrabench CRM is available on a subscription based model. Various packages exist each containing different set of features. As mentioned earlier, there is a FREE package for small businesses to try out a set of features for a period of 3 months. Other available packages are Experienced, Advanced, Enterprise. Additional costs for adding more users, purchasing more space, training. All packages can make use of unlimited email support and monthly backups.

Pros

1. Intrabench CRM is a full-fledged, easy to use, easy to configure CRM, covering essential pillars of a CRM – sales, marketing, support.
2. Custom fields help easily extend the base system, and more importantly filters, search options support custom fields.
3. Well documented features and video tutorials lessen the learning curve.

Cons

1. Intrabench CRM lacks integration with social media.
2. Fewer integrations exist. Integration with Google Apps, Google Contacts will be a welcome addition, businesses who are already invested into Google Apps can easily get their employees on-board.
3. There are no dedicated mobile apps, while the CRM is accessible from mobile devices it is not optimized for smaller screens.

Verdict
Intrabench CRM is a robust product that provides required usability and flexibility to let small business focus on their efforts on the core business activities.