Sales CRM with full email integration?

A

Amoxicillin

New member
Sep 28, 2012
255
8
0
I don't know why this doesn't seem to exist..

I want a CRM orientated on a sales that integrates into one or more email accounts via IMAP. I want it to keep track of all emails going in and out and let me tag them as potential leads for the sales funnel. I want it to track against multiple inbox's so I can keep track of who told a customer what.

There are products out there that try to do with with BCC. They suck and don't work well (highrise doesn't even support my mail client.) I want full and complete integration via IMAP/POP3/etc..

What can you suggest?
 


Why not use a ticketing system? Would be a lot simpler, more streamlined, and more centralized.
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
Why not use a ticketing system? Would be a lot simpler, more streamlined, and more centralized.
Click to expand...

I currently use a collaborative inbox with assignment capabilities, priorities, etc.. so that is basically a ticketing system. Here is the problem...

I get leads off LinkedIn, forums, or by direct email. My team also gets similar lead requests. Like yesterday, a woman reached out to one of my employees on LI and we started the sales funnel (trial first) and got her setup.

I logged in at 7am and noticed she was having a browser issue (IE7) so I jumped in the collaborative inbox and sent her a message advising her of the issue, offering a workaround, and we exchanged ~4 emails before I jumped off the chain as it was easier to respond from my personal account. We started to discuss demoing other products, however I'm not her account manager, but I'm more than happy to help her (my business, I don't care who makes the sale.)

Now the guy she was originally talking to needed to be updated by me about where the sales process is at, and to avoid any confusion about what she has been shown, what pricing she has been told, etc...

Now if I had a CRM that integrated into my email, those further emails would be automatically attached to her record and I wouldn't have to tell my guy anything.

If she has any support requests, my sales don't hear about it. If she gets told something by sales, my support guys don't know to keep their mouths shut. A unified CRM that kept track of emails fully without anyone having to BCC, start funnels, or any of that shit, would make my life 100% easier and be downright logical.
 
Yeah, a ticketing system should work fine. Might need a little customization to whatever system you choose, so your staff's e-mail aliases are routed properly, but what you described it pretty standard.

Scrap POP3 / IMAP altogether, and instead, all incoming e-mail to your staff addresses gets piped into a ticketing system. Or you could provide both, if you wanted staff to have a POP3 for more personal e-mails (eg. lisa@domain.com = POP3, lisa@tech.domain.com = ticketing system).

Then as e-mail comes in, sender e-mail is checked against existing customers to determine whether it's an existing or potential customer. Your staff has access to a web based ticketing system, where they can view / process all their pending tickets, etc. When your customers get a reply from your staff, they can just reply to the e-mail, it'll get routed back into the ticketing system, and appended to the appropriate ticket / conversation.

Then with your example, as administrator you'd have access to all tickets. When you sent off those few replies, when that staff member checked in next, they'd see new activity on that ticket, check it, and see your replies so they'd be instantly up to speed. Plus when a customer e-mails you, it gets assigned to their account, so full info including previous conversations are at your fingertips.

Anyway, not sure what the point of this is, but yeah, ticketing system. I'm not sure of any popular solutions, although Kayako MAY provide what you're looking for. If you want some help getting setup, drop me a PM.
 
mituozo said:
You're looking for something that doesn't exist on the CRM front, because it'd be too complicated for most businesses to bother setting up. (Hence the BCC solution).

What's your major issue with BCC'ing? Salesforce's has always worked well for me:
Salesforce for Outlook - Sales Lead Tracking Software - Salesforce.com
Click to expand...

My issue is that BCC is more complex than IMAP and needs to setup on every device I own and by every employee (and besides that, doesn't create leads properly in 90% of CRM's).

IMAP is just typing in a host and user/pass. It's not complicated. If you can setup email on your iPhone then you should be able to setup IMAP on a CRM. Heck, if it's a GApps domain, you should be able to do it with only a few clicks.

Besides that, it doesn't look like the Gmail app on my phone has an auto BCC option. Fail.
 
Take a look at Podio. There is a CRM solution that is modular and customizable. It has Google apps integration that works with Gmail such that you can task team members right from within the email you receive from whomever. Works for me, not sure of the complexity of your game.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back