My experience implementing Sage CRM
Updated April 29, 2015

My experience implementing Sage CRM

Luis Brea | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Sage CRM On-Premise

Modules Used

  • Sales and Marketing

Overall Satisfaction with Sage CRM

I had the chance to implement Sage CRM from scratch for a company I used to work for in the past. I didn’t have any previous know-how in Sage CRM, so it was a challenge for me, but also a very rewarding experience. The application is very user friendly, very intuitive, so anyone with no previous knowledge in the tool can easily deploy it and customize it, with a little help of the IT department in order to setup the application and the dB on the designated server. Of course, it is recommended that the CRM administrator should have a proper understanding of the sales, marketing and support processes in his/her own company. Clear concepts and well defined processes led me to a clean implementation in less than two months. The application has a good out of the box basic configuration that may allow starting working as soon as possible, provided that basic parameters has been properly defined, such as global and local settings, sales territories, company profile and users security levels. However, to take advantage of all the features and benefits of the CRM, it is advisable to customize the tool and add new fields, workflows and templates to begin with, as well as to set up the product list. Sage has a very good help guide to learn from on how to do and customize the application, as well as how to manage users and data, and how to build and develop reports and dashboards. Standard reports are useful, and creating new reports from existing ones was really helpful. All reports could be exported to different formats, especially to MS Excel for further data manipulation and analysis. Reports could also be exported and printed as PDF’s in its original screen format.

The user graphic interface is very well designed and very web oriented; it takes you to the exact screen you are looking for, and makes it easy to search, find and display the requested information. Sales quoting, Pipeline management and Forecast are easy to deploy and configure. Exporting a sales quote to a customized MS Word template was very convenient and easy to do by any user. I created different templates and mail merged all data from selected records with no problem. Also, CRM allows to collect and storage all documents and information related to a single lead, prospect or customer. Uploading reports and documents from other sources was a very quick and easy procedure that any user could do. I implemented the application on the company’s servers, so it was available through our local network. However, Sage allows online access too, with the same look and feel through a Web portal, so once the Web access was activated any user within my organization could access Sage CRM from any computer around the world. I had the chance to compare CRM Sage with other CRM in the market, and my conclusion was that Sage had the same standard features and offered pretty much the same benefits that other CRMs application from other vendors could do, at a fraction of the cost. It is a very good tool for any small and even medium size company.

  • Sales Quote
  • Opportunity management, pipeline and foreacasting
  • Product list
  • Reports configuration
  • Integration with MS Outlook was not that great at the time
  • Support from Sales Channels (sales distributors)
  • Multi pricing - selecting different price lists (Incoterms) and multicurrency (online currency rates exchanges)
  • Onsite training and certification on the application
  • It is very affordable in pricing, compared to competitors
  • Lead management and convertion into prospects is also a very easy process
  • Lead capture from web pages should be available, and better ways to capture leads from tradeshows by uploading directly from scanned business cards
I have evaluated and implemented MS Dynamics CRM from a business perspective, and more recently Salesforce.com CRM as an administarator. Sage was more intuitive than Salesforce, and also less expensice than both of them. At that time, I used Sage CRM because the company I was working with had purchased Sage ERP. However, they never implemented it, but I did implement Sage CRM almost by myself. It is a great tool to manage sales process and marketing campaigns.
It is well suited for small and medium companies, mainly for domestic operations with no overseas operations or subsidiaries.

Using Sage CRM

I would renew it if I were still working with my previouss employer because it is very easy to use and affordable.

Sage CRM Implementation

  • Implemented in-house
Instalation was very straight forward, and customization and design of templates, screens and workflows were done by me, as Sales Administration Manager of the company.