Capsule

Pretty good.

Comments: Overall experience was positive. It's a solution that I recommend to people.

Pros:

What initially attracted us to this CRM was its cost effectiveness. I was impressed by how easy it was to deploy and run. The mobile app was pretty solid, easy to use and probably better or on par with some of the other (more expensive) CRM apps I've used. ~Capsule also had a decent project management function.

Cons:

I think we had some trouble when trying to connect to Mail Chimp. From memory it took a long time to get it right.

Alternatives Considered: Zoho CRM and Salesforce Sales Cloud

A simple CRM that allowed us to hit the ground running

Comments: Overall I have been pleasantly surprised. I at first thought the system would be too underpowered for what we needed, but it has actually delivered on what we have needed and the simplicity of changing things has allowed us to easily experiment with our processes until we have things right. It has suited our small team very well - and I look forward to seeing how well it scales with us.

Pros:

I like the simplicity of the system. It was very quick and easy both to setup (and make changes to) and then to use the system. It has been very easy to train new employees on. The system has some good power around workflows - which have helped us lock down our processes and helped new staff to follow them. It has a good integration with Xero which has saved us a lot of time and has just released an integration into a mail campaign tool (Transpond) which looks to be a nice added bonus.

Cons:

The system doesn't have a document generation tool (so you need to generate invoices and quotes in a separate system). It also is comparatively underpowered in the reports you can generate (even when you upgrade to the higher tiers that have additional reporting functionality). You can export full data sets to CSV - so we have built what we needed in Excel, but it would be nice to have it saved as reports and visualisations in the system. There also isn't the flexibility around notifications that I am previously used to (and so we have had to adjust the workflows a little).

Alternatives Considered: Salesforce Essentials

Reasons for Switching to Capsule: The initial price point was cheaper for Capsule (about half the price of Salesforce) - and I and other key staff members of the team had experience of setting up Salesforce and found that there was just a lot more to do before you could start using the system (and another step change of work before you could start using it again).

Easy to use, keeps my lead tracking process organised

Comments: It's positive - solves a problem, makes my life easier so it's a thumbs up from me.

Pros:

I love that it's easy to use, keeps my lead tracking process organised. No complicated features. I set reminders and track everyone I have contacted. I can access all features really easily and it just makes my sales and marketing manageable - without additional functions I won't use or need.

Cons:

When I import a CSV file - I need to format it slightly for it to identify all the columns - just an extra step which is a bit of a pain but not a biggy.

Alternatives Considered: HubSpot Marketing Hub and Mailchimp

Reasons for Switching to Capsule: Does exactly what I want without the other stuff that make CSMs so more complicated and heavy

Features and Format Lacking, Good for the Basics

Comments: Overall, Capsule seems middle-of-the-road. It's been useful as a database to keep our pipeline and outreach organized at a base level but hasn't impressed beyond that.

Pros:

The ability to export to Mailchimp has been very useful, it allows us to immediately update lists without having to go through multiple extra steps.

Cons:

Certain features I'm used to in a CRM are missing. The only way to correlate multiple organizations (as a subsidiary or similar case) is to make a note of it in the organization description and that doesn't link through. You're also unable to categorize a contact under multiple organizations, so you need to create a new person with the same name if you want to put them under more than one company. It would also be nice to have a better search and reporting function. The only things you can search for are the person, organization, case, and note content, so every other bit of information you'd like to search for and compile must be placed as a tag, which gets clunky and disorganized easily. There is some sales pipeline reporting, but the options are not as robust as other CRM systems I've used in the past.

Near perfect balance of capability and useability

Comments: It has been up and useable every day that I use it, which on most business days is everyday. I came from the corporate world where I was an executive sponsor of bringing in SalesForce to a large organization. I looked at Sales Force basics immediately starting my own business and it was way to cumbersome for a startup that at most will have 4-6 employees.

Pros:

One of the best features is the capsule daily reminder email that comes to me every morning with whom I need to take next actions with. Of course, this requires me to be an active user of tasks, which i have always been, but it allows me to do that all in the CRM and not have followups in Outlook or Gmail . The other aspect is the seamless updating whether I do it on my iphone based app or desktop

Cons:

I use Outlook 365 desktop and having the full HTML and attachment ability is better than the email integration of Capsule. Either Capsule should go right to my Outlook 365 when I start an email