Sugar Sell (SugarCRM) vs. Workbooks

The way Community Tax uses Sugar from a users point of view is, it can house a lot of information for either a company or individual with the option of adding additional sub cases . The down side is there are licenses issued per user and 1 per user is not enough because most of the time we are multitasking. Therefore a program/software would be more suitable instead of using a URL.

Incentivized

Workbooks offers great support, as do ( in our experience) local partners. It works really well for our sales and marketing departments. Workbooks is really effective in tracking our marketing campaigns. It also keeps tabs on existing clients, and gives insight on how quickly potentials are turned to customers.

As with all CRM it strongly depends on how well it is being maintained and used by the user. We have found that with the ease of use of Workbooks its become much less of an issue. Where as before we didn't only look at the data produced but actually had to keep track of the system being used accurately. We constantly needed to keep tabs on the actual level of maintaining.

The fact that we see data being produced organically (naturally being updated and tracked) to me is a testament of the user friendly nature of workbooks.

• Very easy to set up and configure reports among teams. Very customizable and allows me to build reports that illustrate how the team is performing.
• Exporting granular reports into excel for in depth analysis and actionable measures.
• Ability to mass upload lots of information and leads. Important for our team to import lots of information on prospecting clients.

Incentivized

• Sales process management from enquiry to delivery of product
• This was previously on as many as 4 systems using excel and legacy applications such as the written word in log books
• Automatic reporting for financial compliance: once built, the reporting process reduced the workload on a monthly basis from 2 days to 20 minutes
• The FD loved it
• The overall capability of the package enabled the sales force to rapidly pull our pertinent data for a sales call, plus managing time and resources better for increased efficiency
• Business development and focussed marketing became so much easier, we noted that the process paid for itself many times over

• The back-end programming (logical hooks) for advanced customizations could benefit from a more user-friendly interface
• General layout could be improved by the addition of modern templates to customize the standard look and feel
• Support communities could be further improved with the addition of videos on how to do specific configuration, modules.

Incentivized

• We use it for support but find it difficult to easily link support emails that arrive to organisations, it requires a lot of manual input to open/close a case
• The flexibility can be a hindrance as it can be difficult to work out exactly what you wish to see, especially in reports. Sometimes a simple report is all thats required but it provides a lot of information
• Can sometimes be a little slow and goes down from time to time but this is fairly rare

Incentivized

Our organization will continue to use Sugar as long as it remains cost effective and it addresses the majority of our needs. I will, however, recommend looking into other options once our needs increase and there is additional budget for some bigger named and more robust platform options. I feel if the application was friendlier to end users we would get better productivity as well.

the product works. support has been good or great so far all has been great and we hope to get more from the product. we purchased for an initial year then renewed for a longer term, we have no regrets with this.

In the overall usage of the system I still give it a 10 out 10 because it's our day to day system that we use here at work. We all have come to love it because it's quick and easy to use. New updates are given to us by our supervisors or managers and it's easy to do new things in the system. The only Issue like I said before that I'm having is that once I put a payment date and want to modify the dates, it will only allow me to eliminate the date but not put a new one back in.

Incentivized

SugarCRM has never been down for us.

Workbooks CRM never let me down.

No response time issues ever. Very productive due to its ease of use.

Because it provides us with the necessary support and with the updates that are being made in the system, it allows us to improve our work experience and makes it easier for the entire team. When requesting some type of support it is effective and immediate and with this, it [does not] stagnate our productivity.

Incentivized

We feel clasroom training is essential to ensure user adoption and buy-in. Video and on-line training courses gave their place but being in a classroom setting enables the Team to make any potential CRM issues visble right up front.

Only part of an implemementation as noted previously.

Workbooks online trianing does what it needs to; but some training will always be better suited to face to face..

Study, study, and study. Be prepared to train everyday until all processes are flowing nicely. The CRM is the elephant and figuring out where to take the first bite can be a challenge. But there is only one way to eat this elephant, one bite at a time. Systematic planning is very important.

Incentivized

SugarCRM does not stack up well against Bloomreach; we moved away from SugarCRM to Bloomreach, which was much more suited and easily integrated into many different platforms. Bloomreach has a much nicer user interface for debugging and simpler screens for less technical audiences to utilize 3rd. Party support is rarely required, and lots of easy-to-understand documentation is available.

Incentivized

Workbooks is highly customizable, affordable, scalable, and a workhorse when it comes to being able to design a system to get things done. There is almost no limitations to what can be done with it, and even if you don't want to use their built in automation engine to design highly specific workflows, the functionality out of the gates is a tremendous asset for most businesses

Works from 2-300 Users in our experience.

• I know that SugarCRM has made a positive impact on my day to day work. Since we have made the change to SugarCRM (over a year ago) it has made life easier, more productive, and efficient.
• Organization is key and this CRM has done this exceptionally for me.

Incentivized

• Tracking of customers who are in active support or not has benefited the support team's time by not supporting non paying customers.
• Keeping track of why sales are won or lost has meant we can call upon times when new leads have the same characteristics as old wins/loses.
• Creating auto invoicing scripts has drastically cut the finance team's invoicing time.

Incentivized