Base CRM (now Zendesk Sell) For Android Brief Review

Update: Novem­ber 2018: Base has joined with Zen­desk Sup­port. Their new name is Zen­desk Sell. Their pric­ing struc­ture has changed as well. It spans from $19, $49, $99 and $199 per user. I use the words Base CRM in the arti­cle below, writ­ten in 2014. You know I’ve been a fan of Base CRM for the past few years. I am actu­al­ly a fan of a num­ber of CRMs on the mar­ket! After all, here in 2014 you have a pletho­ra to choose from. In this post, I just want­ed to share my expe­ri­ence with Base CRM work­ing on an Android device. I have been an Apple guy for awhile now and have real­ly not done much test­ing on Android devices, so this was a bit new to me. After spend­ing some time with an HTC One and the Base app loaded on the phone for a week, how­ev­er, I was very impressed. In fact, Base CRM has more fea­tures on the Android device than it does on Apple’s iOS.

No Lim­its on Android

Apple makes it pret­ty dif­fi­cult for devel­op­ers cre­at­ing appli­ca­tions for iOS. Most of the time, the rea­son for this is to make sure that the apps are safe and close to bug-free. Over­all I like Apple’s lim­it­ed apps pol­i­cy because I’m nor­mal­ly very hap­py with the apps I use. Most are easy to use and look great. I’ve been get­ting more frus­trat­ed late­ly though with Apple’s restric­tions when it comes to busi­ness apps. I want more fea­tures per app so I don’t have to clog my phone with mul­ti­ple apps. Before try­ing Base on the Android device I thought, ​“How can Base get bet­ter? It is already fan­tas­tic on iOS.” Well, if you’re an Android user look­ing for a CRM that has easy to use fea­tures and works won­ders on a mobile device, you’ll be pleased with Base CRM. It is the best app I’ve worked with on any device to date. Here are a few key fea­tures that make Base a great option for any small to medi­um sized business. 

• Geo-loca­tion fea­tures: I wrote about this fea­ture in a post last year. To me, this is one of the best fea­tures for a mobile CRM.
• Update your entire sales process from your device (prospect­ing to close)
• Great, easy to read reports with filters
• Cap­ture leads
• Send e‑mails and, in the desk­top ver­sion, have them tracked
• Access your Base Con­tacts from with­in your Android phone (you don’t need to make calls through the Base app)
• Record and log calls (make notes about how the call went and next steps). You can’t do this on iOS
• After a phone call is over, if the con­tact is not in Base, you can add the num­ber and info direct­ly to Base in a few short steps (you can’t do this on iOS either)
• Offline access. You can make changes and when you come back online, it will update Base CRM
• Upload and store doc­u­ments with­in a contact/​deal.

In short, you basi­cal­ly do not need to use the desk­top ver­sion if you have an Android phone or tablet. I’ve includ­ed a few pho­tos for you to view of the Android look. I am very impressed with Base CRM’s work on the Android device and hope Apple will be a lit­tle less strict for qual­i­ty com­pa­nies like Base (Future Sim­ple).

Who Should Con­sid­er Base

Base CRM has a lot of cool fea­tures com­ing in 2014, so stay tuned. It will prob­a­bly remain a sim­ple CRM though. What I mean by ​“sim­ple” is that it is not try­ing to stand up against Zoho or Sales­force. Those two com­pa­nies have cre­at­ed the all in one busi­ness solu­tion. They cost more mon­ey, have more fea­tures, and have their place in the CRM world! There are also a lot of busi­ness­es who don’t want all the fea­tures and just want to track con­tacts, deals, and have a good idea of where they are at in the pipeline. Base CRM will do just that and more. It is a great task man­age­ment pro­gram and will soon han­dle appoint­ments. They’ve also prob­a­bly been the leader at mak­ing a CRM work real­ly well on Win­dows, Android, and Apple mobile devices.