CRM: VTiger
July 3, 2008
About a month ago, I started using VTiger to organize the relationships we have with our (possible) customers. Actually this is the first project that we use a CRM-system in – shame on us.
I’ve spent some time comparing different systems, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sugar CRM, VTiger, but since VTiger was open source (which is always enchanted in our software company), completely free and seemed to be able to serve all the purposes, we pretty soon chose VTiger. I have to mention that JumpBox offered an ideal way to test VTiger in depth easily. Everything you need is a VMWare player and you are ready to test all the features.
Our system administrator was able to install VTiger pretty easy on FreeBSD, and on we went. At this point, I use VTiger every day to check the status of the different accounts, insert contacts and new potentials,… IVtiger sums up pretty well on how we are doing with TalkerBee. I’ve installed an Outlook Connector, which allows me to associate emails with accounts/contacts with one click. When I get contacts on the phone, it’s very easy to look up the history of communications we have had. Furthermore (future) colleagues are able to jump into the system and help our customers probably in the same way as I am able to help them.
One thing we haven’t figured out yet, is how to use VTiger for multiple projects. When we want to use it for our Intellivic Product Line for example, we seem to have two (both unsatisfying) options:
- We create a new VTiger environment, which will defintely cause redundancy, since some customers will be in both systems.
- We put Intellivic accounts in the same VTiger environment, resulting in an unclear situation, where you don’t easily see which account belongs to which product.
Maybe a solution will pop up in the near future. Anyway at this point, I’m very satisfied with VTiger, it has definitely increased my productivity and the way I get in contact with our customers.
