CRM Choice : Open Source or Commercial?

After contacting a customer, you should maintain your relationship with the customer. It is not easy to do so, while it is important for your business to survive and thrive. In order to maintain such subtle relationship, it is a must to deploy CRM.

Powered by Gartner

What is CRM?

CRM is also related to the financial and accounting systems to help the company track the revenues and expenses. They can help companies better predict the future needs of the customers. To deploy CRM is simple deployment. What you need is a server, a database, and a browser.

Free or Commercial?

As you can see in the image above, there are numerous CRM systems available. CRM systems can offer vastly different features, which can make it difficult for you to choose. Setting a price range is a starter. Firstly, let us see the difference between free and commercial CRM tools.

With commercial CRM, such as Microsoft Dynamics, it is obvious that you will have an inclusive system. The only problem is the pricing is expensive for small companies and the features are too comprehensive, so you might end up overbuying.

For small companies, free CRM system is an ideal option.

Free CRM comes in two categories – free, but limited (also known as freemium), and open source. So the free, but limited, versions set caps on the amount of free users, contacts, storage, extra features, or some combination thereof. Open source, on the other hand, offers an unlimited, fully functional CRM to users.

Comparisons and Features

Secondly, let's prioritizing features you want in your CRM systems. There are three free CRM tools and see their features.

• SugarCRM

- Pricing: starting from $40

SugarCRM has sales automation and forecasting, marketing campaigns and lead management, customer service and case management, and online support. With the plan of $40, you can also get a 15GB storage. Only the price is a little bit expensive for small teams, because a minimum annual purchase is required, which can as much as $4,800/year. But hey, you get what you've paid for! Right?

• Zoho CRM

- Free Trial: 15 days

- Pricing: starting from $12 per month billed annually

Zoho has a lot of applications to offer, and CRM is just one of them. If you want to connect your CRM data with accounting system, you have to download Zoho Finance apps.

With the plan of $12 per month which has to be paid $144 once a year, you can enjoy sales forecasting, scoring rules, charts and KPIs, document library, roles and profiles, custom fields, call center connectors, web forms, and secure, encrypted transmission.

• Zdoo
  

Not Just a CRM, but an Integrated Collaboration System

- Free Trial: Up to 6 months

- Pricing: Starting from $10

Now, let come to Zdoo which is an integrated system. Its CRM features include sales management, lead management, order tracing, contact management, invoice management, etc. Also, CRM data can be integrated seamlessly with other modules in Zdoo, such as CASH module which is an accounting application built in Zdoo.

Zdoo also has HRM, Inventory, Document, Attendance, and Amoeba management modules, which can assist you improve the efficiency if your team. With the plan of $10 annual payment, I would say that Zdoo worths way more than what you paid. Value for money? Five stars!

Reference

1. https://www.softwareadvice.com/ crm /#top-products
2. https://opensource.com/business/16/2/top-6-open-source-crm-tools-2016
3. https://blog.capterra.com/free-and-open-source-crm/
4. https://www.ccim.com/cire-magazine/articles/159615/2012/03/choosing-crm/?gmSsoPc=1