I was curious how many different CRM (Customer Relationship Management) companies are out there. I was surprised at how many companies I have never heard of as well as the pricing that is available. I sent each company the exact same questions. Some are based in the U.S however I did speak to companies all over the world. Here are the questions they all received.

1..What is your Support Hours?

2. What training do you offer?

3. Do you have a Partner program available? (This is important if you want to set up a CRM for other businesses)

4. How flexible is your CRM? (You never want to get locked into a CRM where you cannot make changes to fit your company)

5. Price? (Of course we have to know what it would costs.

I looked into over 120+ companies but 1st thing that surprised me was how hard it was to find an email to contact the company. I did look at every Facebook page that was available and watched the available YouTube Videos. This was a very interesting experience. Watching CRM companies and see how they did when it came to following up with there own customers.

Here is who passed and who failed.

Failed to respond

Aplicor

Ardexus

Bpmonline

Contact

Infusionsoft

Maximizer

Microsoft Dynamics

PipeDrive

PipelineDeals

PlanPlusOnline

SalesBoom

Sap

SugarCRM

Superoffice

US QBS

and Workbooks

Companies who responded but poorly (Failed to answer the questions or blew me off completely)

Agiline

C2CRM

FreeCRM

Ivenex

Oracle

SalesForce

SalesNet

SalesPod

Vtiger

Best responses and good prices

Aereus

Asasales

Nimble

OnePageCRM

Softfront

If you would like more details let me know. I was leaning towards a company well known but after getting this experience they are no longer even being considered.

1. Do you have Auto Responders? Many of them did...I found it irritating. 

2. Do you answer the questions coming from your potential customer or do you push for a phone chat? Many did ignore me and said they can set up a phone meeting. If I wanted a meeting would I have not called and not emailed? I found this to be frustrating.

3. Instead of answering questions do you use links? I never clicked any of the links. For those who actually answered the questions I read what they had to say. A link was not written for me. It is a general message and may not address my question at all.

4. Do you offer a price? Or avoid the question.

When using your CRM how would you be graded when someone shops you?

Robert Hildreth