For our final article in the series on CRM adoption, let’s take a detailed look at the difference Pipeliner CRM makes.
Comparing the CRM Industry to Others
First, let’s consider the significant differences between our industry—the CRM industry—and products outside that industry. This will provide a clue to the current paradigm shift of today’s constant change.
For example, when you purchase a car, you evaluate it, test drive it, and compare features and prices. You’re basically purchasing, though, a finished product. The product itself is more important than the service. Although you might compare vendors of the same product in terms of service, nobody buys a car because of the vendor’s service.
When it comes to CRM, it’s very different. In the CRM space, we are in the digital transformation. In the digital transformation, we deal with knowledge as a new resource. Knowledge is not carved in stone—it is constantly changing.
The Development Difference
This is why we at Pipeliner have focused on assembling the most advanced, complete, productive and efficient development team, and why we program more than any of our competitors. We are constantly optimizing the system, continually optimizing the process. We utilize the latest technology wherever and whenever possible because it is more reliable than humans—it doesn’t require vacations, sleep or sick time, and it doesn’t make mistakes.
Many of our competitors, especially the larger ones, make a single thrust at product development and then pool all their money into marketing and gaining marketshare. They end up with many dissatisfied and frustrated customers and a high churn rate. This is exactly the opposite of how we operate. We believe that what really counts is the innovation and the product itself.
For the Future
What does a CRM company need for the future? For successfully pushing forward, a company needs strength. What does that mean? Strength means intelligent people who perform their jobs well. A company doesn’t need thousands—only the right ones. As we know, a single person can change everything.
In addition to strength, a CRM company needs speed. A customer should not wait years for a requested new feature. Salesforce is an example, for it only has three releases per year—Winter, Spring and Summer. Their customers have to wait, full stop. Pipeliner CRM has a new release every month. We make sure too that, as we change, we keep the level of quality high.
A Complete CRM
As we have covered throughout this series, CRM is all about adoptability. Adoptability needs to be managed. It often happens with so many vendors that their solution doesn’t have what customers need, so the customer has to purchase an additional application.
Over the years, I’ve watched many of our competitors buying functionality from other companies, such as ticketing or marketing automation, and creating a “suite.” The real problem, though, is that they never fully complete developing the core of the CRM, especially for sales.
What does sales require? It requires lead management, opportunity management, account management, key account management, project management and other sales-related functions. We are the only CRM with a full-featured holistic approach to CRM sales functionality.
We do this because a business can become exhausted when CRM lacks necessary functions. If they have to buy and add other apps, they must add additional training for their salespeople, which costs time and energy.
Don’t misunderstand me—I’m not talking about creating a single solution suite for a business. It is not a correct approach to try and add ticketing into CRM when that is not what a CRM really needs. What it does need is perfect integration so that a ticketing system will integrate with the core product. When a vendor (such as SugarCRM) splits their focus between CRM, ticketing and marketing automation, they aren’t all of the same level of quality. Customers become frustrated because they constantly have to learn these other systems. This approach is not only distracting, it reduces salesperson efficiency.
The difference between the “all-in-one” approach and Pipeliner is we are including all necessary sales tools in one platform. We therefore lower the cost of entry and have an ongoing cap on spending. We eliminate the need for consultants and full-time additional CRM administration.
Examples
An example of functionality we did develop and include is scheduling, because a salesperson must be able to rapidly and accurately schedule appointments. Therefore, we replaced Calendly within Pipeliner with our own scheduling functionality, which has proven far superior to Calendly.
In another example, 80 percent of a business’s revenue comes from existing customers as opposed to new ones. We therefore created a highly efficient key account management function, which no one else has. Sure, a company could add another application, such as DemandFarm or Revegy, but this makes no sense.
For a few other examples, we embed an AI function for salespeople to create emails. We include multiple lead forms, multiple lead stages and multiple lead scorings. There are many more. We are constantly filling gaps so our customers can have all the necessary sales tools in one holistic platform.
Proof
What are the proof points of Pipeliner’s effectiveness?
- With Pipeliner’s completely visual interfaces for all holistically included functionality, the platform is very easy to learn. Training typically takes a few hours, minimizing onboarding costs.
- Our customers save money by not having to license additional software, gaining additional value for less cost.
Therein lies the critical Pipeliner CRM difference!
Start Your Free, No-Obligation 14-Day Pipeliner CRM Cloud Unlimited Trial.
To learn more, check out these ebooks by Nikolaus Kimla:
5 Artificial Intelligence Sales Myths Debunked
The Pipeliner Mission: Win Together
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