SmartThoughts is an authorized solutions provider for Adapt Software Inc. Adapt can be found on the internet at www.adaptcrm.com There are at least one thousand commercially available CRM-related products on the market, 250 of which are "true" CRM's, and 25 of which any mid-market CRM player might consider to be its competition. Consider that if every CRM product delivered on its promise of increased sales and higher customer retention, there wouldn't be so many new faces popping up in the market every year. Similar to how there are many choices of cars available for different types of drivers, there are many CRM's available for different types of businesses. When it comes down to selecting a car or a CRM, the consumer generally narrows down a decision to buy or not to buy based on a few key features. In some cases, it's simply a matter of personal preference such as the user interface. So, to avoid a feature comparison, which by the way every vendor is capable of winning by selectively choosing which features to highlight, here are the top points why AdaptCRM should be considered: 1. Accounting Interface 2. Price 3. Customizability 4. Table-Driven Architecture 5. Ease of Use Each is explained in detail below. Accounting Interface: The feature that opens more doors for this product is their interface with third-party accounting and ERP software. ADAPTcrm is the only product to offer real-time integration with back-office accounting packages. This means that users do not have to switch between two programs to manage their customers or worry about duplicate and out-of-sync records for the same customer. Most users of accounting software recognize the value in having the customer management system share data with the accounting system. There are only four products that have, or at least have announced, some accounting interface (GoldMine, SalesLogix, Siebel, and Clientele). Currently, all of these use “batch” interfaces that prevent a CRM user from seeing up-to-date information from the accounting system. ADAPTcrm is alone in providing real-time integration. Price: Even with real-time accounting integration, ADAPTcrm is priced affordably at $995 per named user and $1495 per concurrent user. A complete implementation which is estimated at less than a ratio of less than 1:1 (product to service), the total price is generally less expensive than purchasing the departmental software components (without implementation). Only entry-level consumer-oriented products like GoldMine™ and ACT™ are less expensive, but these products typically lack the features and support needed by the majority of small to mid-sized businesses. Table-Driven Architecture: Most CRM products are modular in their architecture, requiring users to switch between screens and programs to navigate the system. Often the marketing, service, sales, and collection features of the competition were developed by separate companies and do not feel like the same product. ADAPTcrm’s approach is to provide a single set of screens that can be extensively customized via setup tables, thus reducing the time needed to learn and implement ADAPTcrm. The key benefits of this approach are flexibility and fast implementation time. Most of the highest priced CRM products are very complex to implement. Even if they lower their price to enter the mid-range market, they cannot easily lower their complexity without removing important features. This makes it virtually impossible for them to compete with ADAPTcrm in value. This competitive benefit is highlighted in product demonstrations. It is the primary reason that product demonstrations are such an effective selling tool for ADAPTcrm. We find that we rarely lose a sale to a competing CRM after having given a demonstration of ADAPTcrm. Users like being able to access most of the important features from a single screen and not needing to learn multiple commands or menus in order to understand how the product can benefit their business. Simple Database Configuration: ADAPTcrm makes extensive use of setup tables to customize the behavior of the product. Where other products have “hard-coded” features that work only for certain types of businesses, ADAPTcrm lets the user easily define new features via these tables. For example, ADAPTcrm is the only CRM product that permits the user to create an unlimited number of additional data fields to track their contacts. All of these fields are indexed, which means that users can search on them with instantaneous response. Since no two businesses are alike, this is a critical feature for all of our customers. Other CRM products that offer customization rely on complex programming that is too time consuming and difficult for the intended users of the system. In ADAPTcrm, the underlying programming language is itself composed of setup tables. This allows us to build new features upon request in a fraction of the time of our competition, and we do not have problems upgrading users of custom features to new versions of our software in the future. Our ability to develop custom features in a fraction of the time and cost of the competition allows us to overcome sales objections. We use this feature to our advantage by performing a needs analysis of our clients. During this process we identify requirements unique to their business that are not met by traditional CRM software. We then demonstrate how we can meet these requirements in ADAPTcrm, thus eliminating competition from consideration. Ease of Use: The user interface is simple and un-cluttered. There are no pull-down or pop-up menus to learn, and the consistent look and feel of the system minimizes the need to navigate through many screens to get the data you want. All data is presented to users via customized views so that users don’t have to learn how to run reports or queries. For users of the Professional Edition, there is no need for a database administrator. A setup wizard will guide new users through the implementation process. By using business templates, it is possible to select a pre-configured implementation based on your business type and then quickly tailor it to your own company via a short setup interview process. Most of the features that require end-user expertise in other CRM systems, like adding fields, customizing forms or creating reports, can be easily be done by novice users in ADAPTcrm.