THE HUNT FOR CRM

by Hank Trisler

More years ago than I care to remember, in the dark days of DOS, I stumbled upon a contact manager called TeleMagic. I thought it the most wonderful invention since indoor plumbing and immediately signed up to be a dealer.

I sold TeleMagic at high levels until they decided to come out with a Windows version. It was horrible; slow and buggy. After an extended period of suffering, I took on a package--out of Australia--called Tracker. It ran well on Windows and was a thoroughly adequate contact manager. The Aussies never quite got the hang of marketing in North America, however, and soon ran out of money and lay, smoldering, at the side of the road.

Since I was without product to sell, a friend introduced me to GoldMine. This was the beginning of the transition from Contact Manager to Customer Relationship Manager. It was amazing. It would handle all my correspondence, my appointments, even manage my faxes and emails. I loved it and sold it happily for nearly ten years. Eventually, GoldMine wanted more time from me than I was willing to commit, so I stopped selling it, but remained a happy and devoted user.

Fast forward to a new computer running Windows 7. GoldMine wouldn't run on it. No sweat, I'd just upgrade to the current iteration. I called the home office and was told they wanted $1,100.00 to get me current. ELEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS? Do they think Mom and Dad were cousins? I ought to be able to buy ten contact managers for that kind of bucks.

And so, today, I'm on the hunt for a new Customer Relationship Manager. I've downloaded the demo for ACT!, but found it to be sorely lacking in the demo department. I'm looking for something that works and doesn't require a pilot's license to drive it. I need your help to tell me what you're using and how it's working for you. When I have some data compiled and a decision made, I'll feed back the results for our mutual benefit. Here are the factors I consider important in a CRM package.

• An excellent word processor, or integration with Word.
• An auto-dialer.
• An excellent email client, or integration with Outlook. It needs to be able to do email blasts and hide the names and addresses of the recipients.
• Obviously a trick calendar with lots of alarms and ticklers.
• Synchronization with iPhone.
• Prefer being able to network with one other computer, but not essential.

You'll notice that I have not included reports, as I have no one to read them. I also omit forecasting, as I think it's a joke.

So there you have it. Help me find a CRM solution and I'll share with you the fruits of our investigation. I'm thinking it will be interesting, educational and fun.