A David Creation

I’ve been keeping an eye on Base CRM (formally Pipejump) for over a year now. The thing that attracted me to Base CRM originally was the design and User Interface (UI). It was a very simple UI. It should be, as it was developed by a company called, Future Simple. So far they seem to make simple, easy to use web and mobile apps. So what makes Base CRM special or worth checking out? I won’t go over all the details, just the key features I liked:

• iPhone & Android Native Apps: This is where Base CRM Shines more than most other Customer Relationship Management programs on the web. They have not promoted their product much until the Native Apps were released (at the same time too). I think this was a very smart business idea. Many people, including myself, have worked with one CRM after the other, hoping and praying for a good mobile solution to be released. Small business people are on the move, not always in front of a desk. Most software companies will release a web app version before a native app, when their customers want a native app. (If you don’t know the difference, comment in this post or email me. I’ll explain.) The Base iPhone App works very well in my testing. Once again, it doesn’t have a lot of features, but it has just enough: Contact Information, Task and the ability to create and monitor deals on the go. The contact area works similar to the iPhone contacts too. What more do you need? I’d love to see the calendar feature, but that is not a must at this point. The design and UI of Base CRMs mobile apps are very slick. In fact, I like it better than Salesforce (the leader in Cloud CRMs). The reason why most other CRM developers do not have native Apps is because the expense and updates. First it is very expensive to create an App: as high as $50,000 sometimes. Then getting updates pushed can take awhile: Google or Apple has to approve them. That is the main reason most developers steer away from them. The consumers (you and me) have gotten addicted to the easy of native apps, so we like them better than going to a browser.
• Integrates well with Google Apps for Business. If you don’t really know what that means, read my post about Google Apps vs Gmail. You can forward the emails you want quickly and easily into Base. You can also create Notes, Task, View Existing Notes, Customer Details all within Gmail. See Screenshot.
• Export Task/Events to Google Calendar with One Click: Base keeps everything very simple, including naming things. For example, Task can mean either an event or to do. Instead of having two many buttons and options, Base makes it simple to create a task. When completed, you have an option to send to iCal or Google’s Calendar. See Screenshot.
• Custom Fields & Customer Information: Again, no information overload with the Contact Management area. It starts out with the very basic information, and you can then add custom fields, which in my test, worked great! You can easily look up customers and contacts using their easy to find search section and dig deeper using Tags. I actually like how simple the UI is for the Contact Management area. Many small business owners are overwhelmed with too much information. It is also one of the reasons I still evaluate CRMs…looking for simple solutions for that one audience and more advanced programs for those who want more! This CRM is easy to learn and do what most small businesses need (at least starting out).
• Deals and Reporting: This is where Base seems to spend a lot of time in developing a good user interface with the design and reporting. Once you start filling in your deals, Base begins creating a custom database for good reporting. (note for the old Act! users reading this: Deals are Opportunities). You can quickly look at where all your best leads are coming from, how many you’ve closed, lost and what still needs to be done to close out a deal.
• Support: Very quick response and help when I needed it. They listen to me too!
• Importing from Other CRMs: They make it easy. I tried it and had no issues. They’ve also offered to help import existing deals (and have them postdated)
• Price: The price is free for anyone to start using Base. So how do they make their money? Well, they give you a certain amount of free DEALS. Once you reach that amount, I think it is $150, then you go to a paid account, which starts at $29.99 a month. This could still be a very affordable option for many small businesses. Lets say you are a remodeler who does 50 bids a year. It would take you 3 years before you’d reach the paid version. If you are a paint company that does 20 bids a week, it would take you a couple months before you hit the paid version of $29.99 a month. Where it can get a little pricey for the small companies is when you hit 1000 deals. Base charges $99.99 for from 1,001 to 10,000 deals. If you have a larger sales staff 5 estimators, $99.99 a month is nothing.

The Bottom line about Base, so far in my early testings of it’s abilities: I like it. I’ve suggested a number of features to the company, and I hope they will implement them. For example, their Task Times only give you 1 hour options. I’d rather make task with 15 min increments. Seems like an easy update, and they’ve already said it is in the works. Integration with Google Documents, a File storage (Dropbox, Egnyte, Box.net) would also be nice. They are working on a Quote system (to send estimates and invoices similar to Freshbooks. It is already released, but improvements are underway). Base CRM is your simple and easy to use CRM. I think by not having too many features, it will make some of you very happy and have less frustrations. I’d like to see Google Apps have more plugins and keep the CRM simple.

Let me know if you’ve tried Base and what you think about it.

I recently came across another cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that I found noteworthy: Nutshell CRM. My first though: “Oh great, another wannabe CRM competing in red oceans (a competitive market).” Yet the more I explored the features of Nutshell, the more I could not believe how intuitive and simple each feature was to use. I can see blue oceans ahead for this program!

The design of the user interface (UI) was very impressive. Of all the CRM programs I’ve tested in recent years, Nutshell seems to have the best UI. I found myself wondering if the designers worked for Apple, since every design feature was top-notch. Most CRMs I’ve tested start with some advanced features but not a great UI. Then as they release updates, the designs gradually improve. Nutshell, on the other hand, started with a good UI, so I expect each update to be like updating my iPhone, just more features with a quality design. This observation makes Nutshell noteworthy to me, because they right from the start they have a quality product with good features.

The icing on the cake for me was the native iPhone mobile App that does an instant sync with the desktop version.

Pros

• Google Apps plugin to add new contacts or forward emails into Nutshell’s Contacts (works great)
• User Interface is simple and beautiful
• The native iPhone App is simple yet powerful (two-way sync)
• Android App soon to be released
• CRM is very customizable
• Can be used as a simple or advanced CRM program (lots of features if you want them, or a simple Contact Manager)
• Reporting and Analytics: easy to run reports and view (again…user interface is very good)
• Sales Pipeline is very organized: You can customize all sorts of activities such as when to send an email, a thank you note, follow up, who and when, what day, and much more
• The “deals” (or Opportunities) make it easy to add standardized pricing. So a contractor could have set service prices i.e. Kitchen Remodeling $45,000 (then adjust the price)
• Easy to setup and start using
• Events Sync up nicely with your Google or Outlook Calendar (I only tested Google Calendar and it was instant)
• Importing from other CRMs seems to be easy. I tried it from my CRM, Highrise and it took me a couple minutes. (btw, I still use Highrise and like it…it fits my business style perfectly)
• Captures leads from your website and creates a contact

Cons

• The iPhone App, although is awesome, still has room for improvement. It does not sync with your native iPhone calendar…and I am not sure how well setting events on the app work with Google.
• The Task Manager works well when dealing with a Lead (next steps), but not great dealing with existing clients or projects. I’ve spoken to Nutshell, and they are working on releasing a Task Management section soon. So this “con” may change. Task Management is one of the number one reasons I continue to use Highrise.
• To set a task, you basically have to create an “event.” So the process is not easy. This may sound minor, but for me, I use to-do lists and reminders all day long.
• The program is more geared for sales management than for customer management. This too is a major downside to the cloud-based CRM. The whole purpose of a CRM is to manage the ongoing relationships you have with your customers. It is not a one time deal: sell them, do the job and move on. A good CRM should then take you through the next steps: customer follow up, customer satisfaction, setup monthly email blast, thank you notes, etc. Although there are ways within Nutshell to do some of these tasks, it is not as simple as one would expect. If they improve in this one area, I believe Nutshell will be a major threat to Zoho, Salesforce, Pipeline Deals and others.

Your Thoughts?

This was just a quick, “nutshell” review of Nutshell CRM. Has anyone out there tried Nutshell?  Do you currently use it?

A quick word of caution: don’t quickly switch CRM programs. Although companies online are making switching easier, take the time to evaluate what you want your CRM to do. I would also suggest talking to your staff about it too. Show them the program(s) you are looking at. Ask them to take some time evaluating them and give you feedback. I tend to always want a program to do something better and can easily get discontent. I’ve forced myself to stay with Highrise from 37 signals. It keeps getting better and works for my company.