Over the years I have used numerous CRM systems, but the two that have worked well for my business are – Pipedrive and Capsule. Here are some comments about both platforms.

Pipedrive

When I first heard about Pipedrive I was super excited. Guess what, it was developed by Estonians!!! But once I got over the initial giddiness, what appealed to me, was the simplicity of the app. No ‘bells and whistles’, just a plain, simple design with a custom fields option. It has a clear(fully customisable) labelling system as well as a ‘glance at once’ interface.

It has the usual features for a CRM like integration with e-mails, calendars and e-mail marketing tools. And as the majority of CRMs, Pipedrive has been evolving over the years and introducing new and new elements (e.g. Projects function). I was drawn into different pipelines. Essentially, before Projects, I used a pipeline of Deals to manage my sales process and customer journey.

One thing that annoyed me with Pipedrive is the mobile app, which is not fully ‘mobile friendly’.

Why did I move away from Pipedrive? The ‘down and dirty’ answer is – it became too expensive for me. At that point, I had to consider and evaluate my monthly running costs and it just became too much. That was it!

Capsule

The cheaper, but at the same time similarly simple option is Capsule. It has quite a slick interface, where you can see all data at a glance. However, the big change for me was twofold – Capsule integrates with Xero. This allows me to see at a glance any outstanding invoices or the sum of all transactions.

And the second thing which I like and which makes my life so much easier is that I can add contact details and store conversations from my Office 365 inbox directly, without moving away from that window. E.g. If a contact e-mails me, I can either create a new contact right then and there or store the conversation under existing contact.

What I find challenging, is the lack of formatting options in note-taking. I started using all caps to distinguish some important information, however, the platform could really do with even using only bold, italic and font size functions.

However, Capsule has a great mobile app, which makes taking notes ‘on the go’ and checking info super easy and slick.