Essential CRM for B2C, Mid and large sized, High customer churn businesses
Updated December 20, 2024
Essential CRM for B2C, Mid and large sized, High customer churn businesses
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is the central CRM (customer relationship management) system currently deployed by a major B2B client of hours. The client is the educational consulting segment where there is constant acquisition of new customers (1 time customer lifetime value). Bitrix24 empowered us the drive greater revenues through referrals as well as new customer acquisitions. The overall tactical uses are (1) addition and dynamic updation of leads (2) dynamic assessment of lead handling on both fronts - sales and marketing. It is central to weekly and monthly review meetings where aggregate pipeline data are available for tracking marketing ROI and individual, office-wise and country-wise sales handling (3) At a more strategic level, it also enables decision making on core products to focus on. A recent meeting clearly indicated a trend (backed by marketing investment sync as well) where certain service lines were clearly seen growing faster and accordingly a decision on investing was made within 2 weeks (4) It is also useful managing collection data and ensuring no missed payments (5) Overall a very flexible system that can be tailored to specific requirements
Pros
- Lead record management - A variety of pre-set fields are present with the flexibility to add more
- Sales and marketing performance tracking (as detailed in earlier response)
- Visual view of sales funnels is especially useful for higher management presentations and decision making
- Data security and access controls are also quite easy to handle with easy click-and-click options to grant or restrict or revoke access
Cons
- Email marketing: Broadcast and autoresponder features are present but we find very sharp learning curves there. Our earlier experience with getresponse for this specific requirement was much better
- Overall, too, the software does have a steeper learning curve. Bitrix24 could do well by now adding AI chatbots to quickly handle smaller queries and integrate them with human support for escalations
- Its has been a no-brainer on overall ROI. The system pays back for itself in less than a year
- On sales monitoring front, it helped us increase lead to sale conversion by a crucial 5%
- On the marketing budgeting front, it has been an indispensable tool for allocating budgets, monitoring ROAS (return on ad spend) and priortizing right campaigns and products
We use Zoho for our own firm and Bitrix24 for our client's firm. Overall, the key differences noted, so far, are 1. the user interface for Bitrix24 is much more visual 2. It has much better privacy and access controls 3. Customer service is faster 4. the mobile app is easier to use
Do you think Bitrix24 delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Bitrix24's feature set?
Yes
Did Bitrix24 live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Bitrix24 go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Bitrix24 again?
Yes
Bitrix24 Feature Ratings
Using Bitrix24
25 - Every employee right from sr. associates till the top management use this software. For sales and marketing logging in to Bitrix24 is probably third or 4th action taken at the start of the day. The whatsapp automation is especially quite effective and has empowered pre-sales and sales personnel towards more engaging and value-driven connects with prospects - thus leading to greater conversions and revenues
2 - 1. The Assistant to the head of operations controls the key access points directly 2. We also have a separate technical specialist (On contract) reporting to her for advanced / technical operations and requests related to Bitrix24 3. Key management personnel also contact resource 2. above for primary escalations and connect with further upwards only in case of necessary managerial involvement
- Whatsapp based funnel management and lead nurturing (Bitrix24 does very well here)
- Overall lead management and associated ops and decisions
- Marketing (Especially digital marketing) ops and decision support
- Knowledge management
- secondary accounting - especially w.r.t collections data
- Sales monitoring (even on the go)
- Authenticated Internal communications via chat - what is committed or written on chat becomes "documented" in many ways and boosts transparency and associated intra-organizational dynamics
- Monitoring of sales personnel, on the go and dynamically - often via initial chats and by referring to entire lead interaction data (Yes! It's so visible, all automatic messages sent, appointments done, appointment and follow-up notes, reason for further action or inaction - et all. A random check on a few delayed lead handling events is often sufficient to ensure desired sales alertness
- A similar approach is applied to the marketing function
- Knowledge management - key training manuals, Key sales and marketing docs and presentations and associated FAQs and processes are now in place - for fast handling of new hires or employee exits
- Email marketing - We are currently investigating this feature
Evaluating Bitrix24 and Competitors
Yes - We were using Zoho CRM earlier and the experience was good quite good for that scale. As the company began operating across borders, we needed a more responsive and secure system and basis the recommendation of an external consultant, a strategic decision (involving top management) was made in favor of testing Bitrix24. The initial pilots (As detailed in other responses) were quite successful and the shift was completed without major bottlenecks
- Cloud Solutions
- Scalability
- Ease of Use
Ease of use was the single most decisive factor - almost 50% weightage. Scalability was next (25% weightage). Furthermore, the setup for lead pipelines and the level of data access controls were quite impressive - and equally impressive was the ease with which it could be executed. We have a completely non-technical operations head who manages the system centrally - such is the simplicity once one picks up on the system
Considering the scale of operations, the evaluation process was comprehensive enough. However, in retrospect, I realize that using trustradius for comparison would have, probably, resulted in more alternatives and greater optimization of resources
Bitrix24 Implementation
- Implemented in-house
- Third-party professional services
We had a independent contractor helping us with implementation. Further our internal operations and IT teams also handled most of the throughput on that front. Deployment just needs time and some patience. Bitrix24 has enough supporting documentation and a lot depends on the capabilities of your personnel
Yes - Phase 1: Pilot testing involving IS (Information systems), IT (Infotech) , operations and leadership functions. A total of 6 personnel use-tested the application extensively. We also had an external deployment contractor (As mentioned earlier) Phase 2: Presentation to the CEO and senior management followed by use-testing by all senior and branch managers and their delegates. This went very successful and faster than planned since only 2 "live" functions - sales and marketing planning - were using it Phase 3: This was gradual and over the next 6 months, we involved accounts, finance and knowledge management as well. Phase 4 (Planned) is to integrate HR and training quickly and also explore deploy more features in marketing automation and sales
Change management was a big part of the implementation and was well-handled - Since it was approached in phases, both in terms of no. of users and no. of functions, there was limited friction on this front. However, It is still vital to account for this perspective since end users need constant motivation to adapt to the system. We designed Bitrix24 tests using AI and with some incentives for higher scores and it worked well. Furthermore, key leads and inputs were initiated on Bitrix24 as a practice and this caused all users to start using it extensively as a part of the day-to-day
- Sharp learning curves in digital marketing related tasks
- Some resistance from users who were accustomed to Zoho where interfaces are quite different
Bitrix24 Training
Using Bitrix24
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Lead pipeline management is excellent
- Individual lead records with lead handling events and statuses are also quite detailed making it easy to keep track of crucial leads
- Overall decision support data for tracking revenue (since we use it mainly for sales and marketing) is almost 9/10
- Email marketing is complex and activating advanced features needed us to leverage an external IS (Information Systems) consultant
Yes - 1. mobile app is mandatory since users need to authenticate their desktop logins often via mobile app. 2. Mobile app is ideal for basic use like chats and the like. It does have advanced options as well; however the user is better off using a laptop for daily usage. 3. The mobile app is not too resource intensive and performs well on cellphones with as low as 6 GB
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