The customer relationship management (CRM) market can be a confusing place to navigate. There is a raft of tools available - each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Some will prioritize the tracking of sales pipelines; others will focus on workflow management. These nuances make it difficult to say with certainty what the best CRM software is. But Sage is certainly up there.
Sage CRM is part of a suite of solutions manufactured by Sage Group - the UK’s second-largest technology company and one of the largest suppliers of enterprise resource planning software in the world. It covers many of the bases that business demand from CRM tools - email, sales, marketing - and there are a huge number of companies that are happy to choose Sage CRM as their CRM software of choice.
Sage CRM Review: Snapshot
There’s much to admire about Sage CRM. The platform is an effective solution aimed at the SME market. It comes with a decent range of features and integrations and a thorough range of support documents to help with any challenges you may face. Given that it’s not the most user-friendly CRM tool on the market, these challenges may be more common than you’d like.
Sage CRM’s pricing, which some may find a little steep, is perhaps the main factor preventing this software from achieving a higher score. Overall, it’s not a bad CRM platform - just not a great one.
Sage CRM Review: Plans and pricing
Of course, price is a huge factor for organizations comparing CRM solutions - or, in fact, any kind of business software. If, say, you were evaluating the best cloud storage tools, the various pricing plans available to you would certainly be a major factor in your final decision.
As it is, Sage CRM’s pricing is pretty straightforward. Although you’ll have to contact the vendor for on-premise pricing (which will likely depend on your number of users), most will probably opt for Sage CRM cloud, which is priced at $39 per user, per month.
While it’s true that Sage CRM’s pricing can appear a little steep, prospective users are advised to contact the vendor directly to find out the best price available to them - and what functionality they will receive.
Sage CRM Review: Features
Sage CRM is used by over 15,000 businesses all over the world - with many of them drawn to Sage’s impressive range of features. One of these features is Sage’s reporting and forecasting functionality, which enables users to make predictions regarding their sales pipeline, cash flow, and revenue. Particularly noteworthy, is the way that Sage CRM lets individuals create their own “what if” scenarios. This introduces a predictive element that can serve as a big boost in an organization’s decision-making.
Sage CRM also now comes with native MailChimp integration, which means it is easy to create your email marketing campaigns and track message open rates. Workflow automation is also available so your teams can more efficiently manage their tasks. In that sense, Sage works well as a productivity tool as well.
Another useful feature is something known as Sage University, where individuals can find product templates, support guides, training modules and more. These are all available across a variety of languages, so users can get to grips with the software at their own pace.
Sage CRM also comes with all the other functionality that you’d expect from a modern CRM solution, including real-time analytics. The company has a number of satisfied customers - and is not afraid of showing them off. For instance, the Australian Grand Prix Corporation uses Sage CRM to manage corporate customer data. Prior to working with Sage, the organization was making do with legacy CRM tools and old-fashioned spreadsheets, which often led to processes being repeated unnecessarily. With a fully integrated CRM like Sage, the Australian Grand Prix Corporation benefits from greatly enhanced efficiency and more accurate data, allowing it to better meet strict financial reporting requirements.
It’s not all positive when it comes to Sage CRM however. Sage CRM could be improved when it comes to competitor analysis, for example, as most other CRM tools allow you to track your competitors’ performance. There have also been more than a few complaints about Sage’s mobile functionality and the state of the support on offer. Having said that, this is still a pretty robust CRM tool and - as long as you are willing to pay for them - includes the majority of the CRM features you need.
Sage CRM Review: Ease of use
It’s true that Sage CRM is not the most user-friendly tool on the market. Salesforce Sales Cloud CRM certainly has the edge where ease of use is concerned. For individuals that are struggling to use Sage CRM effectively, however, the Sage University provides a major helping hand.
For instance, it’s not especially easy to move between tabs when using Sage CRM. In these cases, if a user wants to go back a long way, they are forced to exit the entire platform and trawl back through the system record. That can be a frustrating process - and is the sort of thing that Sage’s development team could easily rectify.
Should you find yourself encountering an issue that you need further help with, Sage CRM’s customer service is pretty good to be fair. It comes with case management for ticket creation, routing, escalation, and resolution, as well as call center management for call routing, recording and monitoring.
It would be nice if Sage CRM’s home screen was more customizable but that’s not a major issue. Overall, despite a few complaints circulating online, Sage’s support team is regarded as being pretty responsive.
Sage CRM Review: Final Verdict
Sage CRM could have better support, cheaper pricing plans, and more integrations, but it’s a more than serviceable CRM. The fact that the platform is manufactured by the Sage Group, with its suite of other business tools could be a real draw of organizations that like to work with a small number of vendors. Overall, Sage CRM is a very respectable CRM tool that is certainly worth your time.
