Really Simple Systems

Vorteile

Having an awareness of the cost of some of the well known CRM platforms e.g. salesforce, dynamics, the thing that strikes you is that the cost of these is prohibitive for an SME with @30 light CRM users. RSS is different. The bottom line is that they offer excellent value for small businesses. I would view this as their USP.

They have a responsive team and have constantly improved the CRM over the years.

Key features I like are the permissions system which lets us give bespoke access to the teams in our business with everyone given the access to the client records that they require.

The integration with Kashflow (accounting) is incredibly useful and reduces unnecesary duplication in our business processes.

The marketing module has been a significant driver for new business, and again is very cost effective.

The activity section enables us to keep good records of client contacts, as does the ability to bcc email comunications into the client record.

The layout of fields is very easy to modify to your business requirements, adding extra fields with dropdowns as required.

Document storage is straightforward with drag & drop functionality.

Nachteile

Nothing to complain about, happy. Maybe preferred the earlier version which let you know the last time a record was updated and by who.

Vorteile

The freemium model is enough to get anyone new to CRM started quickly.
It's all "pay as you go", and you can bolt features on as needed. I wanted something that tells me what, when and how I did something, to whom and when, what the outcome was, and will then nag me to do the next thing.
And, for me, RSS does all that perfectly.

They also run free webinars which are also recorded in case you can't make it on the day. These are worth watching - I found I was missing several tricks and now get even more out of the system. I'm particularly impressed with the email integration which saves the whole endless copying and pasting debacle. It really is simple, but perfect at what it does.

Nachteile

All of that said, yes, the interface does look a little tired. However, I've seen the new version which should be launched by late summer 2016 and it's really impressive.
They've rewritten it with a responsive interface which works much better than the current version on a mobile.

Because the underlying functionality won't be changing significantly, they're going to let users initially choose whether to be "early adopters" of the new interface, which is a nice touch as change sometimes scares people!

Vorteile

We selected this software for the ease of use. In addition, there was little required for our employees to access immediately. After using this for half a year, it continues to meet and exceed those expectations.

Logging in is done through a browser and does not require additional software. Sharing contact information, outstanding tasks for clients, and client specific documents are all easy tasks that are quite intuitive.

Also adding new users requires very little effort since there is no software required for to install on an employees computer.

Nachteile

There are several activities that are a bit clunky/annoying. When adding revenue, it is treated as an opportunity instead of simply entering the revenue for a client. Several apps within the program will also mark this revenue with the British pound instead of the U.S. dollar despite the fact that our settings are on USD.

Additionally for reminders you have to use your google calendar instead of the system sending you reminders. When setting these reminders in Google calendar, it always incorrectly translates the date/time to GMT despite the fact that our calendars are on EST. So you have to be careful to reset the correct day/time when entering in to your Google Calendar. We would greatly prefer a reminder system within the program itself instead of the current clunky process.

Vorteile

It was the simplest CRM system I have used compared to a long list of CRM systems used over the last 15 years, it is modern and I can use it on any device I like and web browser effectively.

marketing functionality built into the CRM database beats those that need to use 3rd party applications like Mailchimp, everything thats needed is in one system that is evolving and improving over time

Nachteile

The data conversion and bringing in data was a challenge trying to get it to work, but the support team simply imported the data for me when it was required, data import/export functionality has been improved.

Vorteile

Its very easy to use and being able to tweak fields and add extra boxes is very beneficial in a small business as our needs are constantly changing. Support is great - always reply or sort within 1-2 days.

Nachteile

It's a shame that the tasks aren't linked with outlook possibly to give you an active reminder instead of you looking at the task list. Also, items that have gone red in the opportunities list - if these could be visible on the front screen with the urgent tasks reminder, this would be good.
As we use the service & support mainly - its good but it could be really improved if it had a planning tool for jobs i.e. Engineer site visits linked with the cases and so you could capture response times, first time fix & feedback. We use another software called Workmobile that contains our onsite engineer service reports - if it could link with this and send reports directly into the cases, this would save us time with manual attachments. As we use the opportunities fields for assets, it would be good to separate these out so the opportunities can be used for our prospects. Have you ever thought about adding a quality management section?