Disclaimer: employee opinion may or may not coincide with RegionSoft Developer Studio . Company names are booked, all ads are real.
Hello, Habr!
If these networks were marketing! They are sometimes just designed to get information about the client (lead) by driving him to the landing page. And then you can huddle, catch on social networks or just don’t call back (as some heroes of our review did). Before plunging into the abyss of advertising CRM-systems, let's decide who gives this advertisement and who it is intended for.
Why do you see ads?
You are looking in Google or Yandex for “crm”, “buy crm”, “what is crm”, etc. The search engine offers all companies that have ads in Yandex.Direct or Google Ads (ex-AdWords) to participate in the auction for the right to be shown to you. Depending on the size of the bid and the CTR of the ad, at the top and bottom of the page you will get various CRM advertisements (or rarely those who have managed to give other advertisements for this word - an insanely expensive undertaking) and you can click on it. If you do this, you will fall into the remarketing (retargeting) lists of the advertiser company and now they will show you and everyone else from the list such as ultra-personalized ads on sites (on the Display Network). If you don’t click (and if you click too), it’s too early to rejoice - the search engine will remember you and now various announcements will run after you on all sites. Well, that is, it’s not a secret for anyone that you took an interest in CRM, which means the game has started :-)
https://*****.com/ru/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=type1_search%7Ccid_40424975%7CEkshtein&utm_content=gid_3664236016%7Caid_6926784727%7C15614453365%7C&utm_term=crm%20&source=zen.yadnex.ru®ion=%20_47&device=mobile
https://cloud*****.ru/?utm_source=yandex&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=rsy&utm_content=8072165963&utm_term=%2024%20%20®ion=47®ion_name=%20.mobile.%20..none&block=none.0&yclid=5954618054675816680
These UTM tags know everything about you and pass your identifier to the ad network. By the way, there are users who do not click on the banner and do not cut it with the ad block, they look at the name of the company in advertising or on the banner and manually go to the site. Such paranoia is in vain: the site will still remember you if you do not go through an anonymous browser or VPN.
But that is not all. If you searched for CRM and were logged in from the same device on Facebook or other social networks, wait for ads there too. Well, if you looked for “crm” in social networks to, for example, see what people write, that's all - you're in focus.
Who can advertise?
Everyone who has a minimal website or landing page of the declared theme (there are exceptions when the website is not needed at all, but this is a special case).
- The vendor company is the developer of CRM systems, which implements implementations directly (for example, we advertise RegionSoft CRM in this way). Such announcements with a trained eye can be distinguished from the general mass - they have a restrained text and well-thought-out images on the CCM, because the vendor values ​​its reputation and does not risk placing something that could violate the rules of Yandex or the Federal Law “On Advertising”. Although there are “creative” exceptions among young vendors. Advertising leads to the official website or landing page in the same domain.
- Partners, dealers, distributors - companies affiliated with vendors who try to broadcast their policies (which does not always work). Their ads are more “impudent”, sites are often just business cards or one-page landing pages.
- Referrals are companies for which CRM is not the main activity, but if it burns out, why not get a percentage and money for training and “implementation” (read - the simplest setup). Most often found on social networks, advertising can lead to a landing page, chat, page on a social network or just a form for sending data. Among the referrals there are info-businessmen (okay, we are on the Habré, frankly - info-gypsies), we will come back to them.
Who is the advertisement for?
If advertisers knew this ... :-) In fact, of course, we all dream that the decision makers (decision makers) would definitely watch the advertisement, they would see the advertisement, be impressed and contacted, leaving the exact name (and not My Lord), the exact mail (not hrenvam@iditenah.ru) and the exact phone number. Of course, we count on them, but we understand that we end up with students with graduate students (a student wrote to us once, who wanted to take our texts from Habr to a diploma, but at the same time replace the name with another popular CRM), to employees who need find out what CRM is and what they have to do (although partly for them we are blogging on Habré) and just those who want to clarify what CRM is.
Based on this calculation, advertising should be accurate, honest, relevant request and lead to a site that can sell. So we will analyze what it is and what is behind it.
Where can I find advertising with CRM systems?
- On search - in search engine results.
- On sites and services - in search partners of search networks (for example, Yandex.Zen, Weather, Maps or any other site connected to search engines).
- In mobile applications.
- In social networks (advertising is placed including through their own advertising offices sites).
- Well, even though this is not about content, being on Habré, I can’t but mention two more types of advertising that works fine - this is actually quality content (the formula is simple: from 80% of the benefit, not more than 20% of PR) and banners that are purchased directly at the site and placed with a hard target.
This is general, brief information about advertising that runs after you on the Internet. And now is the time to go to specific examples and parse them in order to understand whether they promise us too much? And then roll your lip to a free CRM with training and a textbook as a gift, and then - come on.
And blogs of the companies on Habré - advertising?
Definitely yes, this is advertising and PR. But this type of promotion is somewhat different from classic advertising activities, this is the so-called win-win situation. You read interesting and useful (not always, alas) company articles and pay for it by advertising, and whoever needs it receives important information about the product. For example, our blog. You are guaranteed nowhere in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet you will not find so many detailed materials about CRM - we actually upload everything we know ourselves (excluding company cases, because there are NDAs, approvals and nerves). We have written 100 articles on Habré and they are all honest, reflect our experience, help hundreds of readers navigate the CRM world. And it seems to us justified advertising inside such articles. The same can be said about about 70% of the blogs of companies on Habré.
We watched the advertisement for you - there are miracles!
Sales and profit growth
The biggest lie in advertising CRM systems is the various statements that the CRM system will do something for you, increase something for you, or that you can increase something thanks to CRM.
No vendor can guarantee you that after implementing their CRM system your sales will grow by 10%, 2 times, by an order of magnitude, etc. Of course, sales automation most often leads to process optimization and, as a result, to sales growth, but for each company these indicators are strictly individual and depend on many factors. Therefore, having met such an advertisement, you can safely ask for guarantees and terms for such growth. But it’s written cunningly about increasing profits - up to 30% (well, that is, from 0 to 30%), but what if the profit decreases during or immediately after implementation?
We will increase sales by 2 times, increase profits up to 30%. Disproportionate, don’t you? Will sales margins drop?
This announcement has become a "zero patient." It was after him that the idea of ​​this article arose. Increase sales several times with quality software - this is an infinitely false promise. By the way, I left a request, but no one called me back.
Modest, but also a lot
Right here: 40% growth thanks to implementation. Where do they get these numbers, interesting?
No I do not believe. And I’m not going to make sure, because the growth in sales, the change in their quality, average check and sales cycle is very individual. In no case should such obligations be assumed.
Rates are rising, guarantees are increasing. Profit growth in the first month? And if the fall due to the fact that managers will learn and master in the CRM-system?
Total
No CRM vendor can guarantee sales growth, especially on time and at an exact percentage. The effectiveness of CRM implementation and the impact of implementation on business indicators is determined by a huge number of factors that are individual for each company. In addition, an increase in profits may not occur at all due to sales growth, but due to the optimization of processes and lower transaction costs.
Implementation in 15 minutes, hour, day, etc.
We have a new wonderful project - cloud helpdesk ZEDLine Support . When we introduce it to customers or write an article on Habré, we say - start in 5 minutes. And we are responsible for the fact that the start of this service will take exactly 5 minutes adjusted for the connection speed. Because it is a simple web application in which you create a questionnaire for applications and start the work of supporting your customers in a new convenient interface. Here's what it looks like:
ZEDLine Support cloud helpdesk interface . By the way, you can register and see how the profile is configured and tickets are easy to start - we ourselves really like it :-)
And here is the CRM-system interface and the client card in it. Do you think its implementation is possible in 15 minutes, an hour or a day? It is the first time to review and test it purely in functionality - it’s already about 3 hours, and then if you know what CRM is and understand how to perceive its interface. But it is, a bit of irony. In fact, the problem is that in advertising, the word “implementation” means anything: registration in the system, initial setup, “run” with hints (tips) on the interface, etc.
Main window (desktop) RegionSoft CRM
RegionSoft CRM Client Card
For an ordinary person who runs a business and first encounters a CRM system, implementation is an abstract story and most likely looks exactly like installing the system on a PC or setting it in a browser window. In fact, implementation is a complex, long-term, step-by-step process of putting a CRM system into operation. It includes the preparatory phase (analysis of business processes, consultations, process optimization, formation and collection of requirements), the actual installation and training phase, and the gradual commissioning. To appreciate the depth of this process, look at the diagram we developed:
Download and print the diagram - it contains a detailed plan, or rather, a complete algorithm for implementing a CRM system (the download will start immediately, without viruses). If you have questions, read the details about the scheme .
Mastering CRM is a separate topic, and it also cannot take 15 minutes. First, the employee plunges into the interface, learns the basic functions, then enters data and learns to use modules, then gets used to settings and setup wizards (for example, calculators and business processes), builds reports, learns to use mail and telephony in CRM, interacts with colleagues. During the development of the CRM-system, users get acquainted with the documentation for the software, which a real, experienced vendor takes not a couple of hints and not three sheets. It is a large well-developed manual for several hundred pages - in 15 minutes it is impossible to read for sure, not to master. For example, the manual for our RegionSoft CRM 7.0 takes 300 sheets - you can download and see , it introduces CRM in the most detail.
If CRM development takes 15 minutes, this is not a CRM system, but a contact manager
These guys are almost record holders on promises. “CRM of the new generation” (from the new generation there is only that it, apparently, was developed by the representatives of the new generation) is understandable at first glance and does not require training - this is what the landing states. On the one hand, this system is not so simple, on the other hand, what kind of automation is it even for sales (not to mention operational work!), If it does not require training.
Actually, here it is and the truth is “basic implementation”. In essence, setting up a web application and allowing employees to enter it. After that, “non-basic” begins, as a rule, for most vendors it’s paid. It’s also cunning, but it looks more honest than the examples listed above.
Right But it is not exactly :-)
CRM will write directly for you, on request
At this point, my right eye began to twitch and was overwhelmed by the memories of how one of my first leaders in a medium-sized business offered not to bother buying CRM, but to write my CRM on my knee. They started to write - there is already no company, but the system was never written. Because it is unrealistic. It’s realistic to write a simple solution that will store information about customers and transactions, display reports and send reminders from the base calendar. This is not a CRM system, although it is called that. The development of a normal, acceptable for work and automation CRM takes several years and costs several million rubles. Why do you need this when there are dozens of ready-made solutions for every taste and even for any budget?
If you look at the sites of companies offering the development of CRM systems, you will see that the interfaces are similar, the architecture is similar. The fact is that now there is a Symfony framework (PHP), on which these CRMs are written - this is the most popular option. Although there are solutions on Laravel and even on Yii. Well, besides, there are open source projects that can easily be turned into commercial ones, not forky, but simply repeating part of the code.
The problem is that you get CRM with an acceptable interface, everything will work fine for you, but as you use it, so many errors, bugs, problems, security holes, etc. will come out that the only thing you want to do is quit CRM and buy a ready-made one solution (tested, with support, refined features and best practices on board).
The manufacturing process of CRM is scary to imagine. Concerned about whether there is firing or, for example, honing? What if there is cracking?
Sometimes by “writing” we mean the standard vendor CRM, which the partner modifies or configures to your requirements - but this does not mean that the CRM is “written” for you, it is finalized and redone for you.
This is absolutely fantastic. If something else can be done with web-CRM, then development under Windows is difficult, long, expensive. And it’s stupid when there are good solutions with proven implementation experience, a history of failures and successes and with stable versions.
I do not repeat twice, do not repeat. It is interesting to ask to meet deadlines at least six months.
Do not pay everything!
I’ll make a reservation right away, we are talking about a free tariff, when all the rest are paid, we are not considering open source now. Free of charge - perhaps the most common marketing tool. The calculation is simple: to introduce the user to the CRM-system closer, attach it and then withdraw it to a paid subscription. I will single out several types of free.
- Free CRM is essentially a demo version with a limited validity period (usually 14 days, less often 30). You study it, enter the first transactions, test, leave your data. After that, honest communication takes place regarding the purchase.
- Free CRM of the old release - CRM is available to the user with or without restrictions, but of the old release (see the current version number and the free version). As a rule, it is delivered as is (as is), is not supported and is suitable for single entrepreneurs for basic accounting of clients and transactions. Legacy is Legacy, nothing good.
- Free CRM with time limits, users, functionality, disk space, etc. - Sort of like a “full-fledged" CRM forever. The most tempting trap: you begin to use it actively, enter data, and after 3-5 months, something starts to miss you, and this is something found in the paid version. It’s a pity to drop data, change CRM and choose laziness again, you just switch to a paid subscription.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with this - be sure to find out the full restrictions, specify the validity of the free tariff. I take this opportunity to remind you: free cheese is only in a mousetrap.
Here, both free and sales take-off in 15 days. Should I look further?
CRM simple, free selling boost
This is a special case. Try to understand what is wrong here without looking at the caption below the picture.
As a result, it’s not free. Do you know why? Because "implementation for 0", i.e. the setting will be free and an hour of training, no one spoke about licenses / connections. But one more not very honest trick “Only 1 day!” Of course, not one, I caught this ad for a week (I suspect this is retargeting.
The same story: 7500 instead of 20,000, or even for zero - for implementation . What is included in it - xs.
One hundred million customers
How is the purchase of software? First, a potential user registers on the site and gets access to a free or demo version, tests it and only then makes a purchasing decision. Not all leads are converted to clients. But, in principle, no one bothers the company to call the client of everyone who left the data on the site. Actually, therefore, customers can be counted by registered leads, first payment (with a good deal, about 8-10 times less), regular customers (usually below 10%). But all means are good for marketing, so there are companies with millions of customers on the market. In principle, this is an indicator of the level of the company, but you should not trust the numbers blindly.
Everything is fine here - and the perfect order in sales, and 15,000 customers. It’s amazing: from such orderly sales are those terrible sales departments of the companies you turn to ...
By the way, in one of the advertising materials of the partners of the same company, the figure is not 5 million, but 2 million, 2017. It would be nice to sync ad templates.
There is also a version of “For 0 rubles we will show CRM” - a pure ploy. All decent vendors conduct an online demonstration of a CRM-system absolutely free, there is no advantage.
Other magic
When you create advertisements for Direct, sooner or later the creative cynically begins to break out and you want to write something like “RegionSoft CRM - we have been keeping the market for 15 years” or “Hyper CRM for your exciting business”. These ads are bad: they carry no information load. However, somehow you need to stand out - which some companies working with CRM systems do.
For example, they give out ordinary things for their competitive advantages or beat facts that, in essence, a particular CRM does not have.
Almost everyone has long been talking, all the prices are open without registration. Well, then everything is simple: you want x CRM for CRM, you set the price x + 3000, you give an announcement. Marketing Organization, 1 course. But in fact, these guys are just those who offer you to get a price list for answering 3 questions, and not go to a direct link to the site - thereby they will get more information about you. Tricky, and in principle, not very obvious to an inexperienced user.
Well, this is a classic of the genre: "do not buy CRM until you look at ours." Clickbait clean water.
Behind this advertisement there is no ERP system, we checked, but again - no one bothers to be called such. And it looks and sounds solid, like two in one.
By the way, about ERP, more precisely, about the not entirely honest content of what is behind the click on the ad.It happens that industry CRMs offer - but in fact, you get demo access to the same CRM system, and your indication of industry affiliation helps the sales manager to choose the most suitable script for communicating with you. During the tests, there was one company directly with a canonical approach: the ad is given on "CRM for ...", the site lists industries, but in essence you register in the same interface - even entities and directories are not named for the sake of decency.
By the way, CRM lawyers are particularly cool for a number of reasons, including safety. Not to mention the fact that they do not have dozens of business tasks, they have very specific processes, and they prefer to combine Excel and shelving with paper archives.
-3 — (-3 — , -3 CRM — , -3 - — ).
And of course, where without robots, neural networks and artificial intelligence! Again, the point is in the definitions of these concepts. First, let's decide on robots. Most robust CRM systems have robots, but not everyone guessed what to call them. In most cases, robots in CRM are software triggers that trigger an event. For example, you created a deal, set yourself the task to call three days later - one day, one hour and 15 minutes before the call, you will receive a reminder. This is essentially a robot, not a human being. There are more complex robots: they start and transfer business processes from stage to stage, make calls, make backups and synchronizations at night on a schedule, and so on. No science fiction - ordinary program code (well, not ordinary - good, well-thought-out program code).
Fair announcement, robots on the spot, doing the routine. But still, a robot is more of a marketing name, even if it doesn’t produce a WOW effect on you and doesn’t take
With neural networks and artificial intelligence, things are more complicated. Indeed, in the world and in Russia there are several CRM systems that use these technologies, and this is remarkable from the point of view of development and engineering interest. And it’s quite remarkable from the point of view of a very large company: based on the analysis of closed transactions and / or behavioral patterns of clients, the result of relations with a new client is predicted (, , — . 3-4 . , ( ), , . , . , , - — , ) So, if you have a small amount of closed transactions (less than 3-4 thousand transactions at least), then such a CRM as a software package with artificial intelligence is useless: it will have nothing to learn, not enough data (well, that is, nothing make a conclusion about the probability of an event). Do not fall for beautiful terms!
Violation of the Federal Law "On Advertising"
To begin with, a quote from the Federal Law “On Advertising” (Article 5):
3. An advertisement that contains information that does not correspond to reality is deemed invalid:
1) about the advantages of the advertised product over goods in circulation that are produced by other manufacturers or sold by other sellers;
This includes the superlative degree (the best, the strongest, the fastest, etc.) applied to the product if there is no evidence of the above statement (Forrester recognized Camomile CRM as the best in terms of speed); here, everything related to “number 1”. Such ads are disrespectful to competitors and users. You can safely complain about them to Yandex / Google and the FAS. However, we will not do this - do they do this with research samples :-)
Who said the best? According to whom is she like that?
Number 1 and this is not number 1 at all, even from those that we hear most often. By the way, 100% reliability is also a so-so statement - even with super fault-tolerant servers 99.6-99.9%. And here is an external data cloud, backups, the application itself, ping ...
However, some vendors have the right to declare that they are number one. For example, you can order a paid study (from about 1-1.5 million rubles) in the context of a narrow industry sector and get No. 1 there by some criterion (indicate details under the asterisk on the site). It’s not hot and cold for you as a user, but, firstly, you can easily entrust No. 1, and secondly, the cost of such research will fall on your shoulders through an increase in the cost of software.
Mystical coincidences
There is nothing special about this ad listing CRM functionality. Everything would be fine if it weren’t for an advertisement ... like RegionSoft CRM, a letter in a letter, but at the same time a completely different system. At the same time, this is our rather old announcement, which I am proud of - we were very able to express the idea of ​​functionality.
Here is an advertisement of a certain partner company of one of the well-known CRMs:
And here is a screenshot from the interface of our Yandex.Direct with this same text:
It is difficult to assume that this is a coincidence, especially since there are no business processes in the CRM system promoted by the partner company KPI (and this is neither good nor bad - they just have their own CRM philosophy, we have our own philosophy, in which there is a place for a complex KPI system, business processes and other business bells and whistles).
Infobusiness
Large CRM systems strive to build their affiliate network and therefore make joining the ranks of distributors as simple as possible, and sometimes even offer exclusive conditions for coaches, business trainers, who are often information businessmen. Therefore, be prepared to pay money to a sales coach or teambuilder, and for the same money get an advertisement for the CRM system and its further imposition in an aggressive form.
There are other ways: information businessmen sell books and manuals on CRM, offer you checklists in exchange for data, according to which you will then be able to do what? That's right - to sell a CRM system. However, often regulations, checklists, etc. super important files will be sent to you for free, but again - in exchange for your phone and e-mail.
From what I caught during the study, they sent me: 2 checklists, a training manual by Captain Evidence, demanded by phone details about my company in exchange for a checklist and - a cherry on the cake - sent a full manual to the famous Russian CRM for 2017 year.
No, friends, to send something in 2019 in exchange for user data - this is not a gift, we are essentially selling it. And this must be treated responsibly.
One of the masterpieces of infobiz, which came to me on CRM requests, but did not shed light on automation. With the end of minutes and the perpetual counter - a long time outdated tool, but what about the PDF, of which there are only 3 ... Out of stock or what? Why did not one of the CRM-shchiki guessed to use the formula "Only
And not even CRM
It happens that instead of CRM, I come across something different in its logic and purpose: I came across two help desks, one sales coach, two marketing systems and a bunch of IP-telephony of all stripes and types. Below is the most unrecognizable and harmless example:
I have been preparing this article long enough (to collect ads and get into remarketing, retargeting, etc.). During this time, I found out the reason for this positioning - one of the help desks decided for some reason to join the camp of simple CRM systems, which was reported on Facebook. Nevertheless, this is more of a mini-helpdesk than CRM, but since there is no industry standard as such, everyone is free to be called as he sees fit.
This, too, is not CRM at all, but a connector for connecting (you can call this integration a stretch) heaps of different services. In general, roughly speaking, a crutch connector for the zoo of corporate software.
By the way, during the test (about a month and a half), announcements of lead generators, various software a la contact manager, business trainers and coaches, sales courses and so on were worn behind me. So for every poor fellow looking for CRM, the hunting season is open. In some other areas as well (try to start choosing a car or a driving school), in some better ones (as a rule for specialized goods and services).
And now here on Instagram come such subscribers as on the alert below.
Babki are coming. Where CRM is there and babki.
And how are they?
Five years ago, I promoted software that pretended to be CRM in the international market (it was another company, not RegionSoft). And I noticed that the attitude to CRM systems abroad (Western Europe and the USA) is completely different: this is the right working software, to which there are requirements and which must be. Nobody accuses the company of imposing, everyone is interested in the possibilities of new products, small business is active and open to communication.
Therefore, ads are boring, without a twinkle. Whether business with us!
And in general, the ads of Russian companies on Google were much more boring than on Yandex. I have several versions where the same companies make such a difference, but I’m almost sure that these are the components of one big reason - reluctance to contact Google Ads:
- Google’s audience in Russia is less interesting
- campaign settings are much harder and longer
- Google’s advertising requirements are tougher.
By the way, if you have never come across the disabling of ads in Google Ads / AdWords, I can share my impressions. You get up in the morning, log in to your account, there is a lot of red and it is clear that advertising does not work. You call support, you are persecuted by specialists, then you write letters and get pretty cool answers. If there is no personal manager, the lock can last a long time, so the secret is simple: get support, dream about it and everything will be fine. The guys are terribly bureaucratic, but adequate.
This music can play forever - while I was writing this post, playing, grouping and drawing conclusions, the fanciful and not so advertising of CRM systems and business services of all stripes and types continued to fall on me. Each advertiser seeks to stand out, thereby often crossing the line of lawful, honest and reasonable. Each buyer has the right to choose. Learn to read the advertising of companies and you can choose a worthy automation partner whose business approach is read in the announcement.
Our arsenal for comprehensive business automation:
RegionSoft CRM is a powerful desktop CRM system for small and medium-sized businesses.
NEW! ZEDLine Support is a cloud help desk with a user-friendly interface and high speed.
Write, call, contact - we automate to the teeth! :-)