Nimble.com; the social crm

One of my readers asked if I had used nimble.com and what my thoughts were. I hadn’t and was very interested in trying a CRM that had reportedly deep social ties. I spent some time connecting my social accounts and moving around in the software and here is my take.

The Good: First, it’s incredibly easy to get started and to get your social accounts, Google Calendar and e-mail account/s connected. I might even say it’s kind of fun – but that might just be me. Once you have your accounts connected the application brings in contact information from the various social accounts – this is just cool.

Here’s an example . . .

Now that the information is in nimble.com I can add tasks, calendar activities, and even log previous activities. Better yet, I can send an e-mail, LinkedIn Message, and other social messages via the “Quick Actions” menu. I can even see my contacts social stream on the same page.

The rest of the software is incredibility easy to use; from adding activities and deals to viewing your full social stream. Another easy to use and very useful feature is found under the Messages tab. If you connected your e-mail (IMAP) account/s to the software it displays all your messages in one stream – including all your social messages. Don’t worry, you have the option of choosing specific message types from the tabs – All, Email, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

The Ugly: The product is pretty new on the scene and requires significant updates before it’s what I would consider fully functional. The first and biggest sin is its inability to send you e-mail reminders when tasks come due. This is a pretty basic feature that resides in any good CRM system. The only thing that might persuade me that this is not necessary is the fact that nimble can act as my e-mail client as well. The problem is its low level of functionality as an e-mail client.

First, there is no way to create sub-folders in your e-mail accounts. This might not be so annoying if you could sort by any of the columns; however, as far as I could tell you can’t. When composing a message there are no formatting options; so, you’re stuck with plain text. One other annoyance with e-mail is the fact that while you can add multiple e-mail accounts – which I like – you can’t have multiple signature files. So, your signature has to be one size fits all.

In closing, while I won’t do a full switch to nimble.com from my current Zoho account it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on as they develop some of these important features. I’ll certainly keep my account open and might even use nimble.com to communicate to some of my social networks. It’s a cool product and definitely shows the other guys why integrating social media into CRM is really important and useful.

A few thoughts on online CRM solutions

I have used many CRM solutions and spent many hours researching and testing solutions for some of my customers. I have found that there are a few options that work really well depending on what you're looking for.

Salesforce.com:

The Good: This is an excellent CRM and sales management tool. The level of customization that can be done is more than sufficient and the fact that it's an industry standard means there's plenty of help out there for it. The layout and most of the functionality is straight forward and easy to jump in and start using it right away.

The Ugly: I have two problems with this product. First, the expense - it's probably one of the more expensive products available on a per user bases. Second, is the fact that several of the plug-ins are built for the most expensive model. Sure, you can get the group model which is not so expensive. However, the level of functionality is greatly decreased and makes the product not such a great choice.

Sugar:

The Good: It's open source! You can download it onto your own server and run the whole thing yourself. The level of customizing you can without code knowledge equals - in my opinion - that of Salesforce. Additionally, since you're running it on your own servers you have even greater flexibility. Last time I checked they also have paid plans. However, if you're tech savvy and want a free CRM this is probably the way to go.

The Ugly: It's Open source! The amount of time you'll end up putting into doing all the little technical stuff you need to do in order for it to work the way you want may very well make it more expensive than some of the paid products available. However, if you have a tech team in place to take care of it or you're a tech and love messing with stuff like this it's worth a go.

ZOHO CRM:

The Good: I just started using this one recently and have been pleasantly surprised. I'm able to do many of the customizations that I was able to do with Salesforce. Also, I have access to lots of functionality for only $12.00 a month per user. They also have a free version for 3 users that has some limitations. However, if you just want to give it a go that's the best way to get started.

The Ugly: I haven't found much ugly with this one yet. I will say that the new interface is so much better than the previous. One downfall of the free version is the inability to setup e-mail reminders on tasks. Now that I'm paying though I can do this and have found it to be an excellent tool. I'm still exploring this one and may have more ugly a few months down the road. However, I have been using it for about 4 months now and have really enjoyed its interface and functionality.

Hmm, I know I left it somewhere

For some reason I just can't seem to find it today. I've actually been looking for it over the last few days and have come up lacking each time. If only I could remember where I had it last that might help; then again - maybe not. It's that little thing called inspiration. The World English Dictionary describes it as ". . . special or unusual activity or creativity".

So, today I decided to spend a couple of hours on the tech news sites hoping it might be lurking in an interesting article. Sure, there were some interesting stories out there today.

Probably one of the more disturbing articles concerned a lawsuit against Absolute Software for capturing a couples sexy time via email and IM. It appears that a laptop with Absolute Software's LoJack was purchased by a teacher from a student. Little did she know that it was stolen and all jacked up and capturing her extra special communications. You can read more at http://bit.ly/n9jsUV.

Then there's the news that Groupon's traffic is down 50% and both Facebook and Yelp have decided to get out of the daily deal market all together. Some say this indicates the death of the daily deal and others think, not so much. Do a Google search on "Death of the daily deal" to find a bunch of articles. Here is one such article: http://cnnmon.ie/n6dRcs

Then there's the news about Windows 8 and how cool it's going to be and the re-launch of the 'Dead' HP tablet. Interesting maybe - inspiring; not really.

I'm still looking for my lost inspiration and am hopefull that I'll find it hiding somewhere nearby. Maybe I left it in my car only to be descovered on the way home. Only one way to find out . . .