Item: Capsule CRM
Rating: 9
Author: Rosi Muñoz

Overall Satisfaction with Capsule CRM

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Only those involved in business development have Capsule licenses (though as a supporting team member, I sometimes help them maintain and organize their information). It allows us to centralize our research on potential buyers, keep our sales pipeline current, and project what the future holds.

Pros and Cons

Pros

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.

Cons

I REALLY wish they had the option to list an individual as being part of more than one company. That is a pretty basic feature that should be included!
It would be nice to have a more flexible workflow option with Tracks ("if this then that"), or a very simple flowchart of tasks that are generated depending on which way the opportunity goes.
There are barely any Capsule videos on Youtube. A feature I would really love is a set of tutorials or webinars that I could use for learning and for training others.
It would be neat if they integrated with project planning software like Basecamp or Wrike.

Return on Investment

I don't have any hard numbers, but I can say with certainty that our sales pipeline is just in a completely different ballpark than it was before. Capsule has allowed us to take BD to the next level.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce.com,Insightly

Salesforce was a complete failure for us because it did way too much. The learning curve was too steep, it was too expensive, and it didn't fit us overall (we're a very small business).
Insightly was clumsy and didn't have the flexibility (and huge amount of integrations) that Capsule has. We've looked at other CRMs but Capsule won out in terms of pricing, flexibility, and ease of use.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you want a super robust CRM that does it all, Capsule is not the way to go. It's missing a lot of elements that more powerful CRMs have (though it makes up for it with many integration possibilities). But in my opinion, that simplicity can be a good thing if you just want a way to keep track of your sales pipeline. A lot of people don't have the time or mental bandwidth to learn a new system, and it's better to learn something simple than to barely use something powerful. Capsule is also great if you have to keep track of a lot of contacts--a small PR firm would find this very useful.

Capsule CRM Feature Ratings

Comments

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This review enCAPSULEates my favorite CRM...