A David Creation

A few weeks ago, Pipeline Deals released a new featured called “Goals” which is just outstanding. It is one of the few CRM programs that has this feature. Goal setting for a salesman is key to his or her success. It is also crucial for a sales manager or the business owner so he too can keep track of his estimators and sales team. By using the new “Goals” tab, an owner can set weekly, monthly or annual sales goals along with prospecting goals. I like the prospecting goal idea too. You can create a goal for your sales person to get 10 new business contacts a week or write 20 thank you notes per month or knock on 5 doors a day! Then you can keep track of his or her progress. How cool is that?

About Pipeline Deals

I’ve been using Pipeline Deals for a number of months now. I like some of the bigger companies, Salesforce and Zoho but found Pipeline to be simple, easy to use and affordable. Another reason I selected Pipeline is the two-way sync with Google Calendar and Contacts, which I use all the time. Their support team is also incredible. Pipeline CRM is a scaled down Customer Relationship Management program built for small to medium size businesses.

Future Request

What I’d love to see in future updates are the following:

• A native App for Smartphones. I really don’t like using the Mobile Web App. It is very buggy.
• Make Contacts easier to look up on every page of Pipeline. Right now, I have to do a couple clicks. I’d like to be able to do a quick find of clients
• Quick view of documents. I upload my notes and documents to Dropbox and have begun keeping a copy in each customer’s “folder.” However, when I click to view a document, it wants me to download it. I don’t want to do that. I’d rather just see a snapshot of the document to review notes: similar to Google Docs or Mac’s Preview
• Integrate with Google Voice, not just Skype
• More integration with forwarding emails automatically
• Better Integration with Google Contacts (Right now each new email I get creates a new contact)
• Update the Calendar functions and Task to make it more user-friendly like (Google Calendar) Right now too many clicks and typing. The task need to have reminders too (Mobile version)

I’ve been keeping an eye on some full scale CRM programs in the cloud and a number of simple and less complicated CRMs for small business for many months now and have some exciting news to report. Pipeline Deals, a simple and easy to use CRM for small business, finally made a big change to their cloud-based CRM. They integrated a two-way sync with Google Contacts and Calendar. They are also on the Google Marketplace, making signing in a cinch. A two-way sync makes Pipeline Deals miles ahead of most other online Customer Relationship Management systems. I am surprised that Zoho, Tactile, Highrise, Batchbooks and most other companies have not integrated a two way sync.

So why is this such exciting news for small business? If you are like me, I’ve completed switched from Microsoft products to a Cloud-based business. My business is run using the following: a Mac, an iPhone, Google Apps, Dropbox and 37Signals’ Basecamp. I did not use a CRM, because nothing synced well with my “Office in the Clouds.” I’ve been testing out Pipeline Deals CRM and so far…so good! I can make an appointment with Google Calendar, and it shows up in my Pipeline CRM account. Also, if I create a new contact on my iPhone, that syncs to Google Calendar, which then syncs to Pipeline Deals.

I must add 4 items for my Pipeline wish list to make it an almost perfect program:

1. I’d love to see a Native iPhone and Android App, and not web-based. The current mobile version does work well but has its limits. The scheduling of an appointments do not work well on Pipeline’s mobile version, for example. But now I can just continue to use Google Calendar!
2. Make the flow of creating a new lead to customer easier (currently a bit confusing where to start and enter data).
3. Creating and managing deals (opportunities) are a bit confusing as well. I’d stick to what people are familiar with: Opportunities. I’m still figuring out how to use “deals”
4. Make the Mobile Version’s activities (events) with more details: location, time, reminder, (like Google/Outlook details). It is currently more setup for “Task” that activities

All in all, Pipeline Deals is excellent for tracking your sales on the go! Now that it is one of the first to truly sync with Google Apps, it makes it my favorite! Pipeline will get my business, and I’ll stay with them…especially if they make my wishlist come true.

Get a copy for your estimator/salesperson today. It is only $15 a month!

I’ve been keeping a close eye on a cloud computing CRM program called Zoho CRM for a year or so now.Zoho CRM is a lot like SalesForce but is a lot cheaper and has less features. However, it may not be long before Zoho because a possible threat to the expensive Salesforce giant.

Benefits of Zoho

If you are looking to go to the clouds for your business (online applications as opposed to software installed on your desktop) and you do not need a lot of bells and whistles, Zoho CRM will pretty much do the job. It is free for up to 3 users. I’d recommend the enterprise version, which is around $25 a month and gives you four unique users. You can access your data from anywhere around the world in real time. It also has a good email add on, integration to Quickbooks and syncs with Outlook. Zoho CRM also syncs with a Google Apps account. By the way, I’d highly recommend Google Apps for your business, IF you are trying to get away from Microsoft Exchange and a dedicated server.

The New iPhone and Android Version

For over a year, Zoho has promised Zoho CRM on an iPhone, Blackberry and other mobile phones. They have finally pulled through and created a Beta version. It is not an “App” but a mobile-browser version: m.zoho.com/crm#

The application, as I expected it to be is quite buggy. However, it is also awesome! It does not work well with Google Calendar at the moment and some of the functions are a little “sticky” or don’t work well yet, but I expect in a few months, Zoho CRM for iPhones and Androids will be a great tool for small business users. I do not foresee a Zoho CRM iPhone App in the near future, as that would be very expensive and this company is slow at developing.

The Bottom-line

I really wish I could fully recommend Zoho CRM for my customers both for mobile and online usage. If you happen to be tech-savvy and don’t mind overlooking a few minor bugs, then you should try this program out. It is an excellent start. I’ve already submitted a few of my request to Zoho, so we’ll see if they begin to fix those bugs. Give it a try, and let me know what you think.