InforCRM at a Billion Dollar Cooperative
Pros
- It is fairly easy to use, though I prefer the retired desktop client. We are in the process of upgrading to the newest version, which should help immensely with the user experience.
- It is easy to modify, even at an administrator level. For example, we have separate tabs set up for areas across the business to make their specific data easily accessible.
- You can fairly easily pull data into Business Objects for analysis and integration with data from other systems.
Cons
- InforCRM has made dramatic improvements in the web client though in some cases it has been painfully slow to get the most needed things updated. An example is the slow speed of the web client. The newest update is supposed to fix this.
- The web client does not autosave, so users have to remember to hit the 'save' button at each screen. This is the biggest complaint of users going from the desktop client to the web client.
- I personally would like to see data panes (account, contact, etc.) with the capability to set up a different view for each team and/or security level that would access the data.
Return on Investment
- We're launching a new project where we will be building a sales funnel, including sales metrics and KPIs, sales process, and reporting/dashboarding. This is going to be a huge shift in our thinking and how we manage our sales. I'm expecting a substantial ROI on this work.
- We've automated a lot of tasks that required attaching items to emails and duplicating work. For example, instead of attaching sample order picks to an email then sending it to our fulfillment group, we assign them the ticket. All communication is done via the ticket process. Once the order has been shipped, the UPS information is added to the ticket and it is assigned back to the original user for tracking. This has saved us so much time, not only in errors, but in missed orders and trying to get tracking information after the recipient has already not received their package.
- We really needed to build in functionality that would allow separation between the different types of teams (procurement, certification, sales, etc) that we've had all trying to use InforCRM vs investing in multiple platforms. This is our fault more than InforCRM, but again, being able to have different 'views' based on department and role would be a really nice improvement for the next update.
Other Software Used
Swiftpage ACT!
