Conga CPQ vs. VanillaSoft

Conga CPQ is flexible in the price setup. We achieve a lot of customized pricing setups using CPQ. Usage flowing into billing works well also. The Conga cart is a huge painpoint for us. We bill each route and trip we run individually so we have a very large amount of manual, complex cart configuration.

Incentivized

VanillaSoft is well suited for the call center scenarios, it helps the representatives to keep all the leads information well organized and in one single place to speed up daily tasks efficiently and effectively. VanillaSoft is easy to set up, even someone who is new can have it up and running in minutes.

Incentivized

• Fully integrated with Salesforce.com. Allows for the seamless update of all objects on the SFDC platform. As primary quotes are updated, so to are the opportunities.
• Supports integration with Avalara for Sales Tax and Docusign for E-Signature.
• Supports the quoting of product that requires customization that results in a dynamic cost, MSRP and customer price.
• Significant amount of R&D is being invested in to the platform. Many of the items on our wish list have already been incorporated as a standard feature or on the near term roadmap.

• One of my favorite features is the ability to customize routing. Quite often a caller is told by a prospect to call back at a certain date and time, the caller can set that and the record will pop up in the front of the database on that date and time letting you know that you have a call to make.
• We also send out information on behalf of our clients to prospects, which we do directly out of VanillaSoft. After the information is emailed the system will actually let us know when it was opened and moved that prospect record to the front of the database to be a priority in call rotation.
• I also love that we were able to customize it so that the callers have everything they need to see right in front of them. We have a area that has the prospects information, name and address, then an area that has required information fields with questions the caller needs to ask and place answers in the appropriate fields, then we have an area with a notepad, an area to access the calendar, and an area that gives the caller all the previous activity on the record.
• These are considered strengths for us as all of these examples make my job and the callers job much easier and saves us a ton of time and money.

Incentivized

• The GUI design of Apttus is configurable but prescriptive. If you want a very specific look and feel, it will take some effort to do so. There have been some modern design updates recently using AngularJS. Check it out to see if it works for you.

• Telephone numbers should contain dialing code in same column when exporting.
• Should be easier to import dialing code for telephone numbers by country code.
• Data should automatically mark other contacts closed when an appointment is scheduled with that company (should say 'having appt').

Incentivized

It is a stable repository management tool but needs to upgrade its search engine to make it more efficient and user friendly. There can be an advanced search option which allows me to find agreements based on Contract numbers, Company name and Agreement Type as well as by affiliates

We have no reason not to renew. VanillaSoft has been the best CRM (for us) that we have ever used. The value is great, we love the system, and it's easy to get assistance from VanillaSoft team when needed. Our team is so used to the calling and admin functions there is no desire to change.

Incentivized

Conga CPQ is a great tool but lacks good support and [a] very limited knowledge base which doesn't include day to day errors which users face, thus leading us to support and take more time in turn. Also cart performance can be improved drastically which will enhance the user experience as the user doesn't have to wait for the pricing.

Incentivized

The entire system is set up so perfectly. It makes training callers much quicker, and admin tools are so easy to navigate when you get used to using it. Also, if there is ever something I cannot figure out, I can get support from VanillaSoft very quickly to resolve and get my task accomplished.

Incentivized

As a native Salesforce.com app, it's up as long as Salesforce.com is running.

It is very rare that we have system issues. Maybe a handful of times over the years, we had to contact support about being unable to access. It was always a quick response from the VanillaSoft team, and they would clearly explain the issue and usually give time frame on fixing, or have it fixed immediately.

Incentivized

I work on all aspects for VanillaSoft for our company. The pages overall do load very quickly. Reports are amazing, I can get quick report, customized reports, and anything I may need to present to client in very little time. It has made my job so much simpler. As far as I know, integration goes smoothly as well.

Incentivized

We had to use an outside vendor to implement the software and we paid them for a while during the initial choppy months. I was learning as I went along and then we could occasionally reach out to Salesforce if we really needed to. I think the support is there, but you obviously have to pay for it if the admin team doesn't have enough experience.

Incentivized

Response time was acceptable for the relatively few problems any of our users may have encountered. Fortunately, such occasions were rare.

Incentivized

It was very helpful and informative. The learning of the tool is something anyone can do, as the setup is so well thought out.

Incentivized

We attended 5 hours worth of webinars early on.

We had to understand how objects worked to figure out how to structure our data.

I would have liked more in-depth training but it would have been an additional cost

It was very thorough. VanillaSoft team did not rush us. They explained the various functions clearly and were open to any and all questions we had as we began to learn the system. Also, once training completed, if we encountered anything we could not figure out, the support team was fantastic in helping us out.

Incentivized

You need to have IT involved. The implementation partner downplayed the role that IT would have to play. We needed data migration, user set-up, customizations within Apttus for legacy migrations. Luckily we had a developer on our staff for Salesforce.com.

Our implementation was very easy.

Incentivized

It has been too long for me to remember all the various CPQ products we evaluated. But our short list came down to Salesforce CPQ and and Conga CPQ. At the time, we considered them both pretty close to equivalent solutions for meeting our needs, so negotiation mainly came down to price of the solution, and estimates to implement. Now that we are migrating to Lightning, the balance has tipped very strongly in Salesforce CPQ's favour.

Incentivized

VanillaSoft has very similar offerings to Outreach in terms of usability and opportunities for streamlined prospect engagement. The main differences lie with their user experience, customer service, and how information is presented through the platform in terms of knowledge base and analytics. Both are suitable tools, the differentiation comes down to preference of interface and data presentation.

Incentivized

VanillaSoft has been great. The flexibility of the system is wonderful. The scalable software options are impressive as well. I would strongly support VanillaSoft's capabilities in this area. You really can do just about anything to get the setup and or integrations you may desire for your company needs.

Incentivized

• It cost the company almost $1million in 3 years of licensing. It then cost us the business to implement it in 2.5 years over $5 million dollars internally with resourcing involved to roll out globally. There was no ROI, that was just to implement it as the business continues to not adopt the product.
• The adoption level of the product is ~25% of the business actually using the product.
• Business areas ended up hiring and spending something near $150k/year in human resources to use the system for the sales team because of the low adoption.

Incentivized

• Ability to contact more clients each day.
• The ability to save my correspondence and notes on each interaction allowing for the appearance to the customer that I am very engaged when we are speaking.
• Increased sales from the calendar setting and saving my notes.

Incentivized