Salesforce Starter vs. Unanet CRM by Cosential

If you own a business that has complex selling processes or requires integrations with 3rd party tools/systems, you should look at Professional, Enterprise, or Unlimited editions. Salesforce operates very well across pretty much every industry, but not all sales, marketing, and operational processes are created equal. If your marketing process requires a long list of sendable contacts then I would recommend adding on Pardot or Hubspot. Always start small and scale up, to avoid boxing yourself in down the road.

Incentivized

Great for medium and large construction companies that have a specific salesforce.

Incentivized

• Tracking phone calls is extremely easy when using the app on the iphone. After a phone call is complete it prompts the user to enter in call details.
• SalesforceIQ also automatically logs emails for us. This has saved us time from entering in information manually.
• SalesforceIQ was easy to set up and allowed us customization for fields that were relevant to our business.

Incentivized

• Inputting of companies and leads who may become prospects.
• Creating specific opportunities for construction projects.
• Tracking opportunities through the entire sales cycle.
• Inputting detailed notes and activity by the Sales team.

Incentivized

• Price point for smaller startups. Not budget friendly.

Incentivized

• The open software is somewhat difficult to master as an administrator.
• Report writing could be more intuitive.
• The company seems to cater to larger users.

Incentivized

Cosential is very intuitive for the AEC industry and has the ability to be customized for your specific needs. The reports are especially helpful, with good visual dashboards.

Incentivized

My original trainer / implementation specialist was fantastic. That relationship has continued, even though I have been officially handed off to the customer service side. The customer service side seems to have higher turnover than normal, but in general they are also very supportive, although not as responsive as I might like.

Incentivized

Salesforce Starter is exactly what it says. It's specific to getting a small business up and running effectively, without unnecessary development or internal overhead required. It doesn't allow for a ton of customization, but it provides more than most other providers across sales, service, and integration/automating business processes. Some tools are more specific to organizations that want to focus on a specific area to grow or manage their business. That's where the other package types and integrations with specific tools come in

Incentivized

Cosential is specific to the A/E industry and is the most intuitive software we found for construction.

Incentivized

• We have noticed since we have started using SalesforceIQ to communicate items on customer account notes we have freed up hours of phone time between employees allowing us to better answer customer phone calls. This is especially true in our parts department where we have inside and outside sales.
• We tied in use of Salesforce to our bonus structure to encourage employees to use the software. It is the direction our business is going and we needed everyone to participate to make it work. The newer the employee the better they are about logging information and visits.

Incentivized

• Allowed for common tracking by business developers in different regions.
• Helped us quantify effort.
• Provides great reports for management.

Incentivized