Epicor Kinetic is a customizable, scalable, product-centric cloud ERP designed specifically for manufacturers.
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VanillaSoft
Score 4.1 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
VanillaSoft is a lead optimization platform designed to assist fast-response sales teams in maximizing their conversion rates. By providing a structured and efficient approach to lead management, VanillaSoft aims to ensure that every potential customer receives the attention they deserve. This platform is beneficial for sales teams that operate in high-pressure environments where timely follow-ups can significantly impact sales outcomes. The primary audience for VanillaSoft…
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Pricing
Epicor Kinetic
VanillaSoft
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Epicor Kinetic
VanillaSoft
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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VanillaSoft offers several add-ons to use in conjunction with our base platforms including:
Auto Dialing
Call Recording
VoIP
SmartCaller ID
SMS
Epicor is an excellent system for most manufacturing customers and offers several features previously only offered on the very large (e.g. Oracle, PeopleSoft, etc) level platforms. Yet the pricing is mid-level, and the expandability through additional modules provides a great opportunity for future business growth. The architecture is easily scalable, fast, and offers great options for both on premise and hosted systems. Epicor is flexible, and large enough that regular updates and enhancements continue to be adopted to improve functionality and effectiveness. It is however, not for everyone. Competition in this sector is very good, with several mid-level systems being available at a similar price point. If you are considering adopting a new ERP system and are in the plastics space, you also owe it to yourself and your team to consider IQMS, which is becoming a de-facto standard in this segment. Also, for specific medical sectors, you will find that Epicor software validation for CFR Part 11 compliance can be quite costly-- although the software is capable of supporting this with modification. Overall, Epicor is a solid choice. Ultimately, it will be up to your team to determine what works best for your needs. You won't be disappointed with Epicor if you do the due diligence and take the time needed to properly review and demo the product. Remember though, demos are typically "best case" staged, so be sure to throw several curveballs at your vendor and bring out the unique requirements of your business.
VanillaSoft is well suited for any marketing operations or sales operations team looking for a tool to help them efficiently reach prospects and engage with them through a streamlined method. This can be a great way to manage that engagement, measure it, and keep track of various aspects of prospects.
Epicor has the best product configurator that I have seen on the market. This was one of the main reasons we went with Epicor, and have not been disappointed at all.
Epicor is also one of the easiest ERP system to learn, and has many ways for users to get training. Epicor University, on-line courses, or class room settings, also user conference every year, and user support groups.
The Enterprise search ability in Epicor is great, can find parts, customers, suppliers, etc. so easily. And if you can't remember where a report or task that you want to do is on the menu, you can search for that also.
Our employees love it - very user friendly, easy to grasp, very little down time to learn it. They feel very confident immediately.
Great technical support - I can get solutions to customer problems that make our company look more responsive to our clients. Our clients appreciate our solving their problems immediately.
Because of the real time analytics - we can address immediate issues with marketing campaigns to make our client's personnel look great to their superiors.
Because of all the functionality - we can provide a turnkey approach from a small company with big company capabilities.
It really needs an "undo" button. I can't tell you how many times I was typing notes etc and hit a wrong button and all was gone so I had to start over.
This may be the way we have it set up....we have term codes which are how the callers terminate a call they were on. They finish the call, then type notes in the notepad section of what happened, then they terminate the call. But there are times that I need to go onto a record and just leave a note but don't need to terminate it as anything. If there is a way to do that, it would make my life a lot easier.
We have no reason not to renew. VanillaSoft has been the best CRM (for us) that we have ever used. The value is great, we love the system, and it's easy to get assistance from VanillaSoft team when needed. Our team is so used to the calling and admin functions there is no desire to change.
It is easy to use and can be used by multiple departments in our company. However every so often something goes wrong with the system and nothing runs. When that happens, a lot of works stops because we need the system to be re-booted by our IT department. Also sometimes managers want a specific type of report that Epicor Kinetic does not have. Therefore our Epicor Kinetic trained employees have to create the report and need help and they will have to contact technical help at Epicor Kinetic and that can take a bit of time.
The entire system is set up so perfectly. It makes training callers much quicker, and admin tools are so easy to navigate when you get used to using it. Also, if there is ever something I cannot figure out, I can get support from VanillaSoft very quickly to resolve and get my task accomplished.
It is very rare that we have system issues. Maybe a handful of times over the years, we had to contact support about being unable to access. It was always a quick response from the VanillaSoft team, and they would clearly explain the issue and usually give time frame on fixing, or have it fixed immediately.
I work on all aspects for VanillaSoft for our company. The pages overall do load very quickly. Reports are amazing, I can get quick report, customized reports, and anything I may need to present to client in very little time. It has made my job so much simpler. As far as I know, integration goes smoothly as well.
If the answer to your problem is not readily available in an answer book, your response or solution will take months, if you get one at all. Problems need to be sent to support and duplicated by them before they try to fix it. This is extremely frustrating because you have to prove to Epicor that you are having an issue. If by some miracle you get by this barrier, your problem is submitted to development for review. You can't speak to them or communicate in any way directly. This group appears to be completely unconcerned about user issues or customer service. Our experiences have been negative across the board.
It was very thorough. VanillaSoft team did not rush us. They explained the various functions clearly and were open to any and all questions we had as we began to learn the system. Also, once training completed, if we encountered anything we could not figure out, the support team was fantastic in helping us out.
Everyone at our organization really appreciated "made 2 manage" because of all of the quick access and some of the capabilities in accounting. So far, Epicor is much more advanced but the two can stand side by side. These two programs cannot really be compared just because it's just not fair to compare an on-site server ERP system to a cloud-based one.
VanillaSoft stacks up against Microsoft Power BI very well by allowing the data visualization in a more effective way, Power BI has positioned itself as one of the more robust and intuitive tools for business intelligence and data presentation. VanillaSoft and Microsoft Power BI are a great bundle for the report and analytics team.
The software is pretty easy to use. Things are pretty clear on how to do them and if you don't know how to do something they have instructions on how to do them or you get an error code telling you exactly what to do. I have been satisfied with my overall experience.
VanillaSoft has been great. The flexibility of the system is wonderful. The scalable software options are impressive as well. I would strongly support VanillaSoft's capabilities in this area. You really can do just about anything to get the setup and or integrations you may desire for your company needs.
The ROI can be hard to quantify. We spend more time setting up and entering information up front, but we spend less time than before trying to track project costs so that evens out. Purchasing the system and implementing it was very expensive, but the benefit is the the better information can save money on projects as we know where best to spend our time and identify potential problems earlier on a project. We believe it will have a positive impact, but I'd say it will take a few years (3-4) to be worth it.
The ability to save my correspondence and notes on each interaction allowing for the appearance to the customer that I am very engaged when we are speaking.
Increased sales from the calendar setting and saving my notes.
