Are you looking at or currently using a CRM like Salesforce to manage your business relationships?

Finding the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution that also matches your business/industry requirements is an ominous task for any organisation. Add to that the hundreds of CRMs currently on the market and it can be time consuming and very confusing.

At Keystroke, we talk with customers everyday who are looking for a CRM but are overwhelmed by the available options. Often they get caught up in the marketing hype and select a CRM only to find out that it is not the right one for their business. So to help you with your research, we wanted to share why we think Act! is still the number one CRM for SMBs.

Act! was the first ever Contact and Customer Management solution released back in 1987. Through continued innovation and development, Act! has continued to be a leading CRM solution and has stood the test of time throughout three decades of technological and industry changes.

In 2016, Act! CRM solutions are currently used by 71,000^[1] companies worldwide to manage their customer relationships. While Act! can work for any business, the following industries continue to enjoy the benefits that Act! offers: Construction, Distribution, Education, Finance, Health, Manufacturing, Recruitment and Service.

There are numerous reasons to choose Act! over Salesforce…too many to mention in one blog so we have listed our top 5:

1. Match your business requirements exactly

Act! can be easily customised to match your business’s requirements exactly and ensure end-user adoption. Additionally, with Act! Connect (also included) you can easily extend the power of Act! by integrating with hundreds of popular business applications.

2. Reduced implementation burden

Act! reduces implementation burdens on you and your business because it can be implemented quickly. With Keystroke, you are working with a dedicated Act! Certified consultant. The same person who works through your customisation requirements will conduct the roll out and training so you don’t have to continually explain your requirements to multiple people. Your Act! consultant will also provide ongoing local support so that you get fast and effective help from a consultant that is familiar with your system. Additionally, Keystroke has a support team so that you are never left waiting for help if your consultant is helping someone else.

With larger CRM companies, you meet one person who sells you the software, another to workshop your needs, another to implement, train, support etc. Thus part of the reason why the implementation can drag on for months.

3. Security and maintenance

With multiple security levels and the ability to keep your data in-house, you can keep your database secure to ensure relationship details are protected. Additionally, ongoing maintenance is easy with automatic database functions so your team always has up-to-date information.

Many of the CRMs like Salesforce are US based which means your data is also hosted in the US. With some industries in Canada such as financial services, there are stringent restrictions with offshore data hosting to protect personal data from interference, misuse or unauthorised access. With our Act! hosted solutions, your data is locally hosted in a secure Canadian Tier 3 Data Centre.

4. Accommodate the needs of your users

Unlike other online CRM solutions, Act! can access the needs of your users with seamless Windows, Web and Mobile deployment options. Additionally, you can combine deployment options so you can access your data anywhere, anyhow whether you are online or offline. And, best of all, Act! is easy to learn and use, so you and your team will be up and running quickly with little training required.

Another attractive feature that Act! users love is it’s simple to use interface. Users can view all customer information from within one screen. Other online CRMs  require several screens and multiple clicks to complete the same tasks that Act! can do from one screen. Just ask anyone who uses Salesforce.

5. Low cost

You can download and use Act! Premium (or Pro) free for the first 30 days. After the first month, Act! offers annual payment options for $300 USD, or you can purchase your software outright from just $600 USD. Our Act! Cloud packages will get you up and running in just a few hours from as little as $35 USD per user/per month (paid annually). There are no long term contracts with Act! Cloud and you can upgrade/downgrade your service at any time.

Salesforce pricing ranges from $75-$300 USD per user/per month (billed annually) depending on whic plan you select, making it three to twelve times as much as the self-hosted version of Act! Premium, with NO perpetual purchase options.

When you use Act! Premium, the entire feature list is included. With many other CRMs, the feature offering can sound amazing and it’s only when you get started, that you realise that those features cost an additional fee per user. At the time you might not recognise that you need the feature and are then forced into paying more than you originally budgeted for.

So before jumping into a system that is going to cost you a lot of time and money, give Act! a try and reinvest the cost savings into your business. If you are already using Salesforce or another CRM system, it’s not too late to change. We can easily migrate your data into Act! and change over your system with minimum downtime.

Give us a call on 1-800-857-0558 if you’d like to discuss what is involved in changing to an Act! CRM solution.  Like so many of our customers, you’ll be surprised by how much Act! can do for your business for a fraction of the cost of the ‘big guys’. Plus, your staff will thank you!