Gainsight CS vs. Salesmate

There are a couple of tedious areas that can give CSMs double work, like when they fill out details in a text form field, but if they don't click save for each form field, they have to retype everything. Overall, I think this is one of the better CRMs to use for companies that are enterprise. It's fast, intuitive, and easy to use.

Incentivized

Salesmate gives us everything we need as a small business, with a clear interface, and can adapt to any business. If I was being ultra picky, I would perhaps suggest the ability to remove or hide certain modules not applicable to our niche, e.g., we are a B2C business, so the company module is not really useable for us, but this is not a negative by any means.

• Ability to capture all customer information in one spot
• Gantt charts for overall success plans to map out TAM deliverables
• Automatically integrate feeds from sources to build reports as needed
• Ability to capture customer follow-up tasks so I'm not trying to capture the list of actions too repetitively (e.g. using the "Tasks" section of an entry)
• Ability to use the plugin to automatically add emails to timeline; ability to use calendar integration to automatically add meeting minutes that will sync up to Gong notes

Incentivized

• For each client, it tracks emails, text messages, activities, files, calendar events, phone calls, to-do items.
• Customization is quite good -- you add fields you need. Like was discovery received, full payment, partial payment, etc. You can later run reports.
• Integration with other apps is good; I use QuickBooks and DocuSign.
• Customer service is very good.

• Quite time consuming from a system admin perspective. It can do almost anything but does nothing without a system admin building it. Example, I wanted to identify accounts in Gainsight that didn't have any contacts (people) records. It's possible, but requires creating a custom field and a rule in the Rules Engine, and then a report.
• Customer Goals and Success Plans feel like they should be tightly connected but aren't. My impression is that these were two separate features developed at different times that have never been properly reconciled.
• Need better customer facing features. Hoping that the new Spaces functionality is a good answer to this.
• Connection between CTAs and Tasks can get confusing. Some follow up items are so simple that I want to just create a CTA without any tasks, but the flaw with that approach is that it won't show up if I have any views that are based on Tasks. So I have to toggle between views of CTAs and Tasks and understand them as sometimes the same thing and sometimes different things.
• It's nice to be able to send a Timeline entry via email, which we WANT to use for sending meeting recaps, but there isn't a way to have an email template in this area. Our CSMs send many, many meeting recaps via email and we haven't been able to identify a good approach that gives us both a fast process for CSMs and a professional customer facing email.

Incentivized

• The search feature can be buggy and does not allow for highlighted text to be typed on. You must clear the box or hit backspace before typing. The only app in my life that does this.
• The dashboard button is pointless if it still makes you choose between legacy or classic.

Gainsight offers a level of support that I've not experience before. They will work with you to come up with a solution to a problem - or help match you with another client that has a similar setup as you to get their feedback. Also the functionality that we have built within the software works for us. It's 'easy' to use (once you get the hang of it) and our users rather enjoy working in the software.

Incentivized

Very happy with the customer service and the overall functionality of the program. With new features always being launched and discussed I'm looking fwd to growing with them

Incentivized

Reiterating that yes, it is one of the major players, and has for many years been a pioneer in driving customer success tooling, but is lagging behind with what you pay vs. the agility you want and need these days. Rather, OK to adopt internally, but CS members feel it is too administrative.

Incentivized

It's so easy, and the support is top notch and I love Salesmate. Seriously the best CRM on the market right now, which I was able to customize exactly the way I needed to, with their support with me every step of the way. I will be working with SalesMate for a long time if not forever.

Rarely any issues with availability or outages. When they do occur, there is excellent communication and consistent updates. Bugs are usually addressed in a timely manner, and communication around those issues is also extremely good

Incentivized

There are some times when it can take almost a minute to load some of our reports or the rules engine. Within a rule it can also take time to load the actions as they each load one at a time when scrolling. The ability to scroll without waiting would be ideal

The CSMs are very hands-on and helpful, both Elaine and Lane have provided a lot of guidance and value over the years. Support is responsive and will jump on things as needed. The thought leadership and community is probably the most valuable part of our support from Gainsight.

Incentivized

The support team at Salesmate is top-notch. They provide live chat support within the platform and answer typically in under a minute. They are always incredibly quick to respond to questions and provide insightful information. Getting started on the platform is easy as you always have support nearby.

The online videos are very good for basic tasks in the platform, but it isn't very descriptive or helpful trying to make your own specific variables fit the simple example that is typically used. Typically, I'll watch a video, try on my own and still have to get help from support or Customer Success team

I was not part of the implantation (I took over later). However, based on what was passed to me, the tool was not well implemented at our org. I think this had to do with complexity, wrong person assigned in our org, and org buy-in. I think it would have been very successful if we had a better assignment process internally.

Incentivized

No - All very straightforward and simple.

Gainsight has always been the leader in the industry, in my opinion. While a lot more expensive that their competitors, the tool seems to have a better UI and functionality that support the CS organization. My prior employer had a very good implementation of Gainsight and it's a tool I used every day. Some from the Sales org also wanted access based on the great data I was able to monitor from the tool. When talking to customers, the graphs and trends helped me tell a story of activity that was very helpful.

Incentivized

Very similar in overall layout and user experience...but the features blow these others out of the water. Where alternative solutions had features either lacking or as an upgrade (ie having to spend an extra $10-$30/month/user) Salesmate has these features out-of-the-box

It can lean a little heavily toward Customer Success, but the ability to customize many areas based on specific user or account characteristics allows you to make it work across many different roles. This also makes collaboration within the tool across teams possible. It a flexible tool if you have a skilled admin to help guide your process building.

Incentivized

• No metrics yet, but we have improved our at-risk customers by identifying risks earlier via our automated health score and with our Gainsight approved mitigation workflow, CSMs and leaders have better discipline with mitigation efforts and sharing at-risk customers across the org so other teams can step in and assist

Incentivized

• It saved me so much time following up with leads. I move them to the next stage, and Salesmate does the rest.
• It does a whole load of outreach for me. It's seamless.
• I get a lot more responses from people in my pipeline - especially using SMS to follow up.