Capsule CRM vs. SharpSpring (discontinued)

It is difficult to beat the simplicity of use and design of Capsule CRM. Add to the fact that they offer the best free plan which is great to sign up our clients with so that they can see how valuable having a CRM is. Getting newbies to use CRM with ease helps us with our CRM projects and to sign up more clients seamlessly. Hence, it is perfect place to start with for a small business. Based on feedback from clients, who already have some premium apps to manage their sales and work orders, it can get tricky to integrate them with Capsule CRM and hence it's not that favourable in the complex IT solution use case for specific clients. Support is through messages only and it can get a bit frustating if one is in a hurry to get the setup done. It's preferred to take your time and raise support tickets as and when necessary.

Incentivized

SharpSpring is great for creating and tracking campaigns that span multiple channels. With the Salesforce integration, we are able to keep our Sales team focused inside Salesforce without them needing to learn a new tool. Our Marketing team uses SharpSpring to nurture leads before handing them off to the Sales team. Though the features are available, SharpSpring would not be suitable for social media management or blogs; our third-party tools do a better job at that.

Incentivized

• Capsule is very easy to use. You can just jump in and learn as you go. There are advantages to really learning the ins and outs, but for those who aren't sold on a CRM to begin with it's good for just getting them started. It is what you make of it--you can use the most basic features or really dive in to the many functionalities.
• The UI is clean and intuitive. We don't get easily overwhelmed while using it.
• Capsule has a very robust contact management system. It allows for the generation of very specific lists within existing contacts, which is good if the user has to keep track of thousands of individuals and companies. There is a tagging feature that is great for further organizing contacts.
• I like that there is a simple workflow option. I encourage the sales guys to make use of this "Tracks" feature, and they often do (but if they don't, it's not the end of the world, which is nice). It provides custom sets of tasks that are created as soon as you start an opportunity or a case.
• Capsule has a LOT of integrations, which is great if you're looking to expand what you do with your CRM. We got Capsule just to keep track of the sales pipeline, but now that everyone's on board with the concept of a CRM (they weren't sold at first!) we can look into implementing more robust programs that can "talk to" Capsule.

• Their Emailers are very easy to construct and user-friendly. It takes your Newsletter and sales emails to the next level, especially with the action groups and trigger functionalities.
• The life of the lead functionality allows you to see when leads get warmer, so you know when to send them what. Helps improve conversions.

• Its integration with Mail chimp is not smooth. Also, it does not allow to list contacts alphabetically which is a great downside of this tool. It does not contain some essential marketing features.
• It needs to improve the user interface and make it more productive especially on the calendar view.
• The contact sorting is quite disappointing. It would be nice if it allows users to set screen filters.

• The landing page builder is a bit hard to use. Doesn’t have much flexibility.
• Sometimes confusing between types of workflows to use. Opportunity versus visual.
• If you imported contacts that weren’t formatted correctly. It is hard to delete a bull amount. Need to type DELETE for each one manually. No bull options to make changes.

Incentivized

We have been very impressed with all aspects of this software and the potential for it to radically change how we operate is huge! Support has been exceptional and we have discovered many extra uses for the software than originally thought. Not only will it give us benefits for our company's growth, but for our client's growth as well.

Incentivized

As a well-rounded business tool, Capsule CRM is an excellent choice. It fulfills our requirements and aids in the operation of our business. One of the most effective tools for managing our business solutions and supply chains is adding this tool to our system to see the fantastic results of effective management. Capsule CRM could try and see what they're offering to get the best results.

This rating is coming from an administrative perspective. With so many features, workflows, dashboards, and more, there is certainly a lot going on, and even the most savvy software user can get a little overwhelmed when trying to decide how to best implement and utilize the platform to its full potential. That being said, the SharpSpring platform is well-implemented and well-organized, with most solutions being fairly intuitive, once you have a grasp of the software. It is fairly easy to learn, but difficult to master. Just like any powerful platform, however, the complexity is worth it, and once you are comfortable navigating and problem solving within SharpSpring, it becomes a great marketing and sales tool which can do virtually anything you need it to.

Incentivized

Capsule CRM is the best application in allocating the problems and reasons for any project drawback. Your solution will be there within seconds. It controls business empowerment with its authentic approach and we can use this application without any problem. Our employees are on a single platform and we can decide and implement things at once. There is no need to wait for any meeting, as everything is just a click away. Our promotions are technical and easy to understand for clients and they can communicate well to deliver their ideas.

Incentivized

The support is great which really helps overcome challenges if you become stuck and the training videos are great too. Same-day replies are great and I even got some help with some CSS code on the chat. Not many organizations would do this or even respond.

Incentivized

Overall I would say to be patient and bring everyone who will be touching the platform to the onboarding sessions. The Virtual Classroom lets you onboard as quickly or slowly as you want. Sales, marketing, design, account management, get 'em all in on it. For the most part, they will be happy to use this platform. I recommend getting as many people as possible to see the SharpSpring demo.

Incentivized

We chose Capsule CRM over Zoho CRM due to the various modules that it would take for Zoho CRM to work for our firm. Additional Zoho modules would have been needed (Zoho CRM and Projects) to make it work for us which in turn requires additional management. With Capsule CRM, there was only one app that needed to be integrated within our app ecosystem

Incentivized

We use different CRMs for different clients, mostly due to budget and other requirements. SharpSpring from Constant Contact is in the middle, price-wise, but is slightly more user-friendly than ActiveCampaign when it comes to certain things, such as drip campaigns and workflows. Though the price can be prohibitive to some clients, it is extremely robust. I definitely prefer the list-building, the ability to send smart emails and the WYSIWYG editor.

Incentivized

• It's enabled us to have a cloud-based live database, rather than living off spreadsheets or an antiquated Access database
• It's hard to really quantify ROI on a small startup, but it's been very helpful to have a small scale but powerful CRM as we grow the company.
• Since we don't use it entirely as it's intended, the terminology and shortcuts are a bit confusing.

Incentivized

• Streamlined Processes - sales and marketing are now all in the same place.
• Reduced Number of Platforms/Tools - CRM/lead management, email, automation, landing pages, forms, etc are all in the same place rather than using multiple tools.
• Time-saving - sales pipeline is very easy to use for sales. For marketing, we have dozens of workflows that eliminate much of our manual processes from the past.
• Return on Investment - We're more focused on moving the building the business than ever before because SharpSpring has simplified so many of our business operations and we're seeing massive results!
• Lead generation - Up SIGNIFICANTLY (between 3x & 4x) since setting up SharpSpring.