CRM recommendation for 4 coworkers?

[Rogelio]

I'm guessing that other coworkers here have cracked the CRM nut
(customer relationship management), so I'm hoping the someone here
could recommend a solution for four remote workers that does the
following:

1) is free (zero budget as of yet - total shoe string project!)

2) is cool and easy ways to hook into gmail / google apps, preferably
with a way of seeing last emails inside CRM web GUI itself

3) has cool ways to remind us on prospects for follow up (since only
first phase of project, we're not really concerned at this point for
building complex funnels, loyalty programs, opportunities, inventory,
etc)

4) is web based (two use Windows, one uses Linux, and one uses Mac),
but also has interfaces via a smart phone app (both Android and
iPhone)

5) PREVENTS VENDOR LOCK IN!

For what it's worth, here is what I've put up so far...

1) SugarCRM (keep track of contacts) - not always intuitive, but a
small price to pay to have some flexibility later on if/when this
grows. We're not wedded to this, but it seemed like a good first step
while we look for other easier-to-use CRMs with better workflows /
integration features. Super easy (and cheap!) install on Dreamhost.
Daily chron backups because I don't trust them!

2) iSugarCRM (iPhone) and DroidSugar (Android)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/isugarcrm/id536162467?mt=8 (the one I use)
http://goo.gl/0YNva

3) Boomerang / Rapportive - hooks into gmail and lets us schedule
emails and also see online presence of other ppl in group. Rapportive
is free, but Boomerang isn't (but we each already had that).

4) Rondee / FreeConferenceCall / FreeScreenSharing - how we meet
together at different coworking spaces

5) Mailchimp / Survey Monkey (once we narrow down someone who is a
good candidate and doesn't mind being a part of what we do). Also
looking into other F/OSS mailing tools once this grows, like PHPlist /
MailMan / OpenEEM (double opt-in, scheduling, click tracking, bounce
management, etc).

http://alternativeto.net/software/surveymonkey/
http://alternativeto.net/software/mailchimp/

6) Usual other collab tools -- Skype, Google Docs / PiratePad, Google
Hangouts, Evernote, etc.

(Goes without saying, but if I can help anyone else here and save
time, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm also on LinkedIn.)

[Jerome Chang]

This might sound blunt, but I think to "crack the CRM nut", you simply have to pay.
We use HighRise HQ, but would love more customizability, reporting, etc. But it does generally work for us.
There's a $5/mo plug-in for our gmail-based email to connect with HR directly, such as follow-up tasks, etc.


Jerome
______________
BLANKSPACES
"work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"

www.blankspaces.com
5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles, CA 90036
323.330.9505 (office)

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[Alec Grant]

Rogelio - We're in the process of setting up a coworking space in Surrey, UK and we're looking at a whole host of tools in addition to CRM ones that will help us run the space. I'm also setting up a software consultancy and so need the same set of tools to work for that as well. With my software consultancy hat on my take on this would be that it all depends on the context of the individual business. As we all know, no 2 businesses are a like and so while a particular tool might be great for one company it might not be so great for another.

Some of the tools we're currently looking at 

• SugarCRM Community Edition (our web host provides this as an off the shelf installation)
• Nimble (CRM which allows the importing of Google contacts and email and builds a profile based on that information)
• Insightly (CRM & project management which provides the creation of opportunities, tasks, organisations etc which can be all linked together)
• Capsule CRM (recommended by Tom Lewis from coworking bath)
• Podio (Collaboration)
• Trello (Collaboration tool created by the well known software developer Joel from Fog Creek Software)
• Mavenlink (Project management)
• HighRise HQ (as recommended by Jerome & again Tom and is produced by the same company, 37 Signals that created Base Camp the highly recommended project management tool)
• Base Camp (as mentioned above)

Jerome - while I would agree that there are definite cases for paying for software, again it comes back to the context for an individual business. For a startup with little or no existing client base and limited funds, they need to make a decision between what they do and don't pay for. So I would argue that any of the above tools and others that provide a SaaS product that is free to micro / small businesses with some limitations (number of users etc), are a reasonable choice to start with before moving onto paid versions of these products.

In fact for anyone just starting up, if you can get all your contacts (suppliers, leads / opportunities, business partners etc) into Google Apps then that's a good platform to base things on given that many of the above tools and lots more all provide integration into Google Apps allowing you to import / export etc.

If anyone is interested, Tom and I are putting together some information about tools (with a slight UK focus) and we would welcome other opinions and support in doing this. This is all part of a bigger effort to follow the lead of the coworking spaces in the US who are actively working together and having shared events etc, and to do something similar for spaces in the UK. Again any input, support and help in doing this is most welcome.

Regards,

Alec

--

Alec Grant

The Digital Work Hub

Email : al...@thedigitalworkhub.co.uk

Twitter : https://twitter.com/#!/digitalworkhub

[Dirk Onderdonck]

Alec,

I can recommend you ZOHO crm

Have a nice day

Dirk

Bar d’Office Deinze Belgium

 

Van: cowo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cowo...@googlegroups.com] Namens Alec Grant
Verzonden: zondag 25 november 2012 11:45
Aan: cowo...@googlegroups.com
Onderwerp: di...@filad.be - Re: [Coworking] CRM recommendation for 4 coworkers? - Found word(s) opt-in in the Text body

 

Rogelio - We're in the process of setting up a coworking space in Surrey, UK and we're looking at a whole host of tools in addition to CRM ones that will help us run the space. I'm also setting up a software consultancy and so need the same set of tools to work for that as well. With my software consultancy hat on my take on this would be that it all depends on the context of the individual business. As we all know, no 2 businesses are a like and so while a particular tool might be great for one company it might not be so great for another.

 

Some of the tools we're currently looking at 

 

• SugarCRM Community Edition (our web host provides this as an off the shelf installation)
• Nimble (CRM which allows the importing of Google contacts and email and builds a profile based on that information)
• Insightly (CRM & project management which provides the creation of opportunities, tasks, organisations etc which can be all linked together)
• Capsule CRM (recommended by Tom Lewis from coworking bath)
• Podio (Collaboration)
• Trello (Collaboration tool created by the well known software developer Joel from Fog Creek Software)
• Mavenlink (Project management)
• HighRise HQ (as recommended by Jerome & again Tom and is produced by the same company, 37 Signals that created Base Camp the highly recommended project management tool)
• Base Camp (as mentioned above)

Jerome - while I would agree that there are definite cases for paying for software, again it comes back to the context for an individual business. For a startup with little or no existing client base and limited funds, they need to make a decision between what they do and don't pay for. So I would argue that any of the above tools and others that provide a SaaS product that is free to micro / small businesses with some limitations (number of users etc), are a reasonable choice to start with before moving onto paid versions of these products.

 

In fact for anyone just starting up, if you can get all your contacts (suppliers, leads / opportunities, business partners etc) into Google Apps then that's a good platform to base things on given that many of the above tools and lots more all provide integration into Google Apps allowing you to import / export etc.

 

If anyone is interested, Tom and I are putting together some information about tools (with a slight UK focus) and we would welcome other opinions and support in doing this. This is all part of a bigger effort to follow the lead of the coworking spaces in the US who are actively working together and having shared events etc, and to do something similar for spaces in the UK. Again any input, support and help in doing this is most welcome.

 

Regards,

Alec

 

On 24 November 2012 05:33, Jerome Chang <jer...@blankspaces.com> wrote:

 

--

Alec Grant

 

The Digital Work Hub

 

Email : al...@thedigitalworkhub.co.uk

Twitter : https://twitter.com/#!/digitalworkhub

 

 

--

[Alec Grant]

Dirk,

Thanks for reminding me about Zoho, it's on the list and I forgot!! It's a shame it charges for Google Apps integration but like HighRise HQ and some others, that seems to be the way things have gone. That said, the free version of Insightly doesn't charge to import contacts from Google.

Alec

Mobile : +447539226944

Twitter : https://twitter.com/#!/digitalworkhub

[Alec Grant]

Rogelio, I forgot to say thanks for the heads up about Rapportive. How did I live ever without it!!

Twitter : https://twitter.com/#!/digitalworkhub

[Cesar Lou]

Here's a free one.  Must use Promo code: FREECRM and link below.

https://crmboost.com/crm2/register.fwx?plan=1

Cesar

[Cristina Santamarina]

Hi Rogelio, 

My name is Cristina, I work at cobot, we do software for coworking spaces management - of course also with some CRM. I see you are looking for free software now but If you ever need a tool to manage memberships, bookings, invoice and payments you can try us for free at http://cobot.me

I would recommend you to try Streak for your CRM. It is made by the Desk.com guys. It is a free plugin for your gmail account. I use it for my CRM & event planning, I am very happy with how it works and I think it is a very versatile tool. You can see some video demos here: http://www.streak.com/

I hope this helps, I tried many of the other free CRM tools out there and I am very satisfied with how streak works and the logic it uses. 

Cheers, 

Cristina Santamarina

cris...@cobot.me

[Tom Lewis]

On this subject, we've tried a few links between Highrise and Google mail, and Colabspot have the most amazing chrome extension which bridges them perfectly, allows you to send emails to a case, shows you all the history within the google mail window, etc etc.  It's far and away the best HR to gmail solution we've seen so far.

[Alex Hillman]

For all of the talk about what tools there are, I'm wondering if any of you who are using these CRM tools can share a bit about your workflow using the tools you've chosen, in detail? 

CRM tools, as I've experienced them, are more about lead management than relationship management and that's made them really clunky for us. 

I'm hoping somebody's come up with a workflow that's just not obvious to me and can share the workflow is valuable for them!

-Alex

--

/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

pre-order my new eBook, "the business of community"

[James Hackett]

Hi all,

One of our data center members, John Roberts, was the founder and creator of SugarCRM (http://www.sugarcrm.com/) which still has a free community version you might check out.

He has also recently launched his new system X2Engine (http://www.x2engine.com/), another  totally open source CRM solution.

At Cruzio, we're an ISP as well as a coworking space and have a pretty well-developed billing/customer management system. But I also use Highrise -- largely, as Alex says, as a lead management tool and contact database.

James

Cruzioworks

[Tom Lewis]

Funny you should mention this Alex, as someone who is MAD about tools and SaaS systems, I've been wondering how much of the ones I have planned are in danger of substituting for real life community and conversation.  I just come back from a tour of a long established space in a city near us, and did another one in the same city last week, and it's made me think hard about the reality of the community.  On the way back I read your latest email newsletter about the rituals and routines you have at Indyhall, and I thought about similar conversations with the hub owners we'd met.  I could see that even though they both had great communities, and both formal and spontaneous stuff going on, it was the personal touch which kept them talking day to day.  All very well having a clever swipe system linked to a membership system linked to a billing system, and a booking system, but when I was in these real places, the actual conversations were about this stuff- "is anyone using the meeting room", "anyone want to go for lunch", etc etc, and even having to sign in or tick a bit of paper when arriving means a chat with the receptionist instead of swiping a card- all these things go a long way to creating a feeling of connection, and not being part of a machine.

I'm still committed to working out some systems to make life easier for us (the community as a whole), and for the management of our new hub, so I can spend more time with the community and less time rekeying data, but now more than ever I'm going to be careful.  Many of our members will have chosen to opt out of the 9-5 corporate life, and swiping in and out, and feeling like a machine may not be a great way of showing them that this is a new way of working together.

Definitely a balance to be had, but I can see now that members aren't going to cancel their membership because they can't book a room online (even though it would be great), they will cancel because they don't feel connected.  I think I need to learn a lesson from Facebook and Twitter.  Funny how I get daily signups from people working from home who want to join because they feel lonely or out of the loop- despite having social media.  Technology is definitely not a substitute for community, and I've learnt today how I need to respect that when we open the hub.

[Jerome Chang]

I'm not sure what the difference is between lead and relationship management. For us, it's so far the same. HR tracks the correspondences and cases throughout the entire process. I guess one critical component that's missing for us is perhaps a running checklist: on boarding stuff, exiting process, membership participation, etc. For now, all of this checklist is buried in the correspondences and cases. 

Jerome (not from an EvilBerry)

[Alex Hillman]

This was an awesome post, Tom, and highlights a lot of the reasons we've been careful about automation, as tempting as it often is. In many of the communities that I've worked with, premature automation is actually one of the things stifling their growth! 

...but when I was in these real places, the actual conversations were about this stuff- "is anyone using the meeting room", "anyone want to go for lunch", etc etc, and even having to sign in or tick a bit of paper when arriving means a chat with the receptionist instead of swiping a card- all these things go a long way to creating a feeling of connection, and not being part of a machine.

It's easy to over optimize. We keep an eye on a set of very intentional points of friction - even if its as small as manual booking of a meeting room or as complex as starting or changing a membership - because they've been put in place to help maintain relationships that provide far more value than the little bit of pain it causes our team to maintain. 

Definitely a balance to be had, but I can see now that members aren't going to cancel their membership because they can't book a room online (even though it would be great), they will cancel because they don't feel connected.  

Some members will cancel because they can't book a room online, but those members are generally junk food members anyway. :)

-Alex

--

/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

pre-order my new eBook, "the business of community"

[Alex Hillman]

What kinds of things are being tracked in correspondences & cases? How is that info used by your team? I've spent some time in Highrise while I was doing bizdev and project management but haven't figured out where it fits into our workflow here. 

-Alex

--

/ah

indyhall.org

coworking in philadelphia

pre-order my new eBook, "the business of community"

[Jerome Chang]

We bcc our emails into HR

We enter notes for a lead that we can share with the team, or share privately with a colleague or colleagues

We create deals that shortlist our top prospects.

We could create cases that coordinate issues that affect multiple leads or members, etc.  [we don't use this feature...yet].

At anytime, anyone on the team can look back at the history of notes and emails for issues that pop up as a member leaves, or a misunderstanding of an 'agreement'

We're now using Basecamp to manage internal projects.  There's no crossover of accessing leads from HR into Basecamp, but switching apps seems seamless as it's just a menu item.

Jerome
______________
BLANKSPACES
"work FOR yourself, not BY yourself"

www.blankspaces.com
5405 Wilshire Blvd (2 blocks west of La Brea) Los Angeles, CA 90036
323.330.9505 (office)

[Jacob Sayles]

Ding ding ding!  This is a very important point Tom!  Thank you for injecting it into the conversation.  Often there is an over idealistic view of what efficiency brings which is funny because humans aren't very efficient as a species to begin with.  But that's a whole conversation in and of itself.  

As for systems and flow, we use Nadine to keep track of our members.  It only works for current members though I bet we could work on that.  It has a list of tasks we need to complete for each member when they sign up, and when they leave and we build our flow around this.  All it does is auto-populate the "to do" list when anyone signs up.  Then, as a team, we work through the list together.  This is facilitated by a weekly team meeting where we go over new members, exiting members, and billing issues.  This way we can discuss each member more in depth and interject little things we've learned about them.

Jacob

---
Office Nomads - Individuality without Isolation
http://www.officenomads.com -  (206) 323-6500

[Cristina Santamarina]

Well we use cobot to manage the members in our space (what else!?) and I use Streak to manage inquiries for cobot. It works well, I can define the stages of my relation with people and add notes, change fields... the first time I receive an email from someone I create a box for that person, fill in information, and I add further emails to this box and update comments as needed. The cool thing about streak is that you can also use it to schedule reminders, and that all the data can of course be exported to csv. I still like to have somehow raw data that I can use to get the exact information I am looking for.

On the other hand I also use streak to organize Rails Girls workshop (something I do in my free time) and it is what I use to keep all my contacts - organizers, sponsors, coaches, attendees... Again, the cool thing about streak is that you can really customize all the fields and that everything is kept in your inbox. I wouldn't say the tool is specific for lead generation and management, it is a real CRM! Plus, the support is just great - I started using streak at the beginning of their beta and they were very responsive about the bugs I found.

Cristina

cris...@cobot.me

Cristina Santamarina

@crissantamarina

Sk: cristina.cobot

[Veel Hoeden- Where Many Hats Meet!]

Although I don't currently use it for our space I use Contactually as a CRM for my consulting business and have been pleased so far.  I actually was on the free version for over 4 months before recently moving to a paid plan.  Depending on your needs you may be able to get by well with the free version.  I really like how in integrates with social media and other CRM systems.

 

Thanks & God Bless,

 

Joel Bennett

Chief Dreamchaser

Veel Hoeden

veelhoeden.posterous.com

Join Us on Facebook!

 

[Connections SF Customer Service]

Hi Everyone,

 

It's Toby from Citizen Space, it's been a while since we posted to the group, we have had our heads down here working on our brand new space, Connections SF. The first space I have ever built from the ground up to service freelancers and startups with on demand lodging and office spaces. All new construction, and all new modern furniture.

 

If you own a space, and have members who travel to San Francisco occasionally, we are offering your members discounted hotel rooms, and free day passes in our new space, Connections SF. If this is something you would be interested in offering to your members, please contact us about a formal partnership, and process for a seamless member experience.

 

Here are some of the amenities to help accelerate your members time in SF:

• Discounted hotel rooms & corporate apartments
• Day time event space in the financial district with on site AV & catering
• 40 Luxury Coworking Desks
• Semi Private & Private work spaces
• Complimentary Meeting rooms in member common areas
• 20 Person Board Room with interactive white board
• Gym & laundry services
• Espresso, Coffee, and free snacks

You can check out our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/connectionssf, we have tons of photos on there, and constantly add more. In case your wondering, my wife, Gina Morning has taken over as CEO of Citizen Space. Please feel free email her [ gi...@citizenspace.us ] directly if you have members who want to visit our SOMA or San Jose spaces.

 

Thanks in advance for your continued support, and please stay tuned for more info on our Coworking Hackathons we will be organizing with the crew from Next Space starting in Jan!

 

Kind regards,

 

Toby Morning
Connections

Chief Evangelist

Office: (415) 268-3800

Fax:    (415) 268-3977

Direct: (831) 295-1482

Skype: connectionssf

http://www.connectionssf.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/connectionssf  

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/connectionssf
"WORK,PLAY, STAY"