CRM

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CLUB coworking

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Jan 13, 2016, 9:57:34 PM1/13/16
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Hi there!
We're working on opening a new coworking space in Downtown Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and we'd like to hear about your experience with CRM systems.

  • We’d like to ask for your advice, how do you keep track of your clients? what crm do you use?I’ve tried logging onto hubspot, zoho and sugar, but all of them seem very confusing, have so many different functions… I’m sure they’re all useful once you get to know them and given you need all of the functions, but I don’t know if we need all of the functions. I could imagine just using a spreadsheet while we’re still small, but once we grow, we don’t want to deal with switching to a different system. If you were to do it over again, would you use a different system and would you suggest us to use that as well?

  • As for requirements, it should have at least the following:

  • Name

  • Contact Information

  • Membership Status

  • Payment Status

  • Leads tracking/prospect pipeline

  • appointment scheduling?

  • Emailing?

  • Should be:

  • Intuitive, simple & easy to use

  • Don’t want to spend a lot of time entering information manually

  • If it takes more time than creating and maintaining an excel spreadsheet, it probably isn’t worth it

  • We’re currently looking into: hubspot free crm, zoho, and sugarcrm

  • what crm would be best to use to track this?

Thanks a bunch!

CLUB coworking

Jerome Chang

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Jan 13, 2016, 11:52:08 PM1/13/16
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We use HighriseHQ. I tested its simplicity years ago by seeing how quickly and easily staff took to it. :-)

You can use it to tag/categorize membership and payment status, but you should really do this thru your sales/booking/membership system, not your CRM…unless your CRM is integrated with your sales/booking/membership system.

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Tom Lewis

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Jan 14, 2016, 6:25:29 AM1/14/16
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Hi there.  We tried all kinds of systems, and I found Highrise a bit too simple, and like you found lots of the others too fiddly and complex to set up.  We now use Podio for both CRM and hub intranet- it's customizable but very simple to use, and you can use it for as many areas of your business as you can think of.  I do know that Highrise has added a ton of features over the past year though since 37signals handed it over to new management, so it's definitely worth a look 

Bernd Rützel

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Jan 14, 2016, 4:51:26 PM1/14/16
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My advice: Take a look at www.nexudus.com. They provide a complete solution to run a coworking space. They offer it as a SaaS solution which starts with a monthly price of ZERO for the first 5 members and then grows together with you. So no investment needed and it will always be covered by the revenues you generate.

For my own coworking space (www.coworking4you.de) it covers everything from managing the memberships, invoicing, booking of meeting rooms, members directory e.g.

They provide an excellent support and help you to setup the complete organisation of your space.

Good luck and success for your coworking space

Bernd

Jacob Sayles

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Jan 14, 2016, 7:05:37 PM1/14/16
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Yes, Nexudus and Cobot are excellent choices.  We rolled our own (Nadine) and it serves many of the functions you listed there.  Each system is different with it's own upsides and downsides.  

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Brian Crotty

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Jan 15, 2016, 5:03:55 AM1/15/16
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Hello CLUB Coworking,

A perspective from Cobot (mentioned by Jacob).

At various times we have considered building out a CRM to Cobot but found like you mentioned that for the majority of spaces it is overkill.  The members are either coming and signing up, or not. But what is important is keeping in contact for events, meetups so that they keep informed about your space and have a reason to join later. That is why we have a MailChimp integration.  You can signup a perspective lead to a plan called "Interested" and then they become part of a MailChimp mailing list called interested.  You can then send emails targeted to this group (including special offers) so that you stay in contact, but without the traditional Salesforce style lead tracking.

Alternately, we so also have a Beta integration with Zapier (http://blog.cobot.me/post/111166081512/cobot-now-connects-with-zapier-were-looking-for). So you can have people that you register in Cobot (to that same "Interested" plan) also be automatically added into a traditional CRM system.

Hope that helps!
Brian

Elizabeth Trice

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Jan 18, 2016, 6:09:57 AM1/18/16
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Jerome,
What do you use for a sales/booking/membership system?
Right now we use Zoho CRM (for CRM + member data), then Quickbooks Online to charge people, and for communications Mailchimp, and Slack.  We'd like to lower the Quickbooks online cost of credit card processing fees, and we wonder about consolidating systems. 

Jerome Chang

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Jan 18, 2016, 9:08:37 PM1/18/16
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Hi Liz. I use
MindBodyOnline.com for my sales/reservation system,
HighriseHQ.com for my CRM
BaseCamp to manage workflow
Vertical Response for my newsletter, and
GChat for internal messaging.

CC processing fees always seem annoying, but the risk of bounced checks, resistance from clients for agreeing to ACH, etc…those are tough to balance.
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