Small Business Blog from Atlantic Canada

I am "CA" Atreya (PMP, MBA), the author of this blog. I help businesses in Atlantic Canada achieve their BHAG successfully. You may subscribe to this blog using a feed reader (RSS).

Going into the third generation of CRM systems, we all know what a CRM’s purpose is. Simply put, CRM is a database where your marketing, sales and support team store information on your clients; information such as contact details, lead source, sales activity & contact history, purchase history and sales projections. Ideally, such systems must help reduce your costs while boosting customer satisfaction.

CRM Perception

I have met a number of small businesses who either use memory or a paper system to keep in touch with prospects or use a spreadsheet. They think they do not need a formal CRM solution. If you are such a small business and think you do not need a CRM, think again. Your small business is at a great disadvantage if you do not employ a formal CRM system to track your customer information. You cannot rely on your memory to deal with customers and prospects. What if you hire a sales or support person tomorrow; how will you pass on the customer history to them?

Of a number of CRM solutions I have used and tested in the past, I think Relenta Contact Manager is a very user-friendly small business CRM tool.

Relenta Contact Manager

If your small business needs shared contact management, shared calendar software with emailing capability then Relenta CRM may be a great choice. Did I mention it is web-based and it is free (1 user, 20MB server storage, 50 contacts)! You can access this tool from anywhere in the world as long you have an internet connection and a browser.
It has a fairly good contact manager with comprehensive user-defined Categories and Groups. Custom Fields can be used to store information unique to your clients (though this section was disabled when I was testing it). I particularly liked the attachment section for each contact. I can use it to store contracts, agreements, etc. for each client. There is also a separate Notes section for each contact.

Use the Shared Calendar to ensure things do not slip through the cracks. It would be great to have a reminder section on the dashboard though, instead of the user having to navigate to the Calendar area to view tasks. You can also add follow-up tasks right from within the Calendar area. A real time saver.

You do not need an email client to use it. You can use the Team Email to retrieve emails within Relenta CRM, all you need is your server address, username and password. You can also use it to send emails. Emails can be assigned to groups or categories (it would be great if groups could be automatically be assigned based on the contact email address). You can also create and send your marketing email campaigns (sales, newsletters, support and more). I am hoping as the product matures, they would include capability to track email click-throughs too.

Other features include a Files section to store in-house files. A great place to store marketing collaterals and support documents.

I would rate Relenta CRM 4.5 out of 5. For a small business this is a great application. Review their pricing here and sign up for a free account. You may want to check out their blog; it contains some detailed information on how to use the tool.

Note: The review on Relenta is a paid review.