10.30.03
 By
Lisa Picarille
It's the dot-com model updated for customer relationship management:
Offer users a free-hosted CRM service, but force them to look at a
slew of advertising.
Recently, CRM ASP launched its gratis service, called FreeCRM.com.
And while the rest of 2003 will cost users nothing and will also be
ad-free, beginning in 2004 users will have to deal with advertisements.
Denis Pombriant, vice president and managing director of the CRM practice
for the Aberdeen Group, says he's very skeptical about the business
model. |
"I'd like to be positive, but this is shades of 1999 and 2000, and
it didn't work then," he says. "This is software that fundamentally
impacts the way business run, and if I were a customer I'd be worried
about how they are going to monetize this service."
CRM ASP officials maintain it's a good business model and describe
it as "tried and true."
The privately held company is targeting small businesses with between
two and 100 workers, a different strategy from the current group of
ASPs that is beginning to make headway in larger companies and the
enterprise space.
"It might add value to a business that has two or three uses, but
there are plenty of solutions, including FrontRange, GoldMine, and
ACT!" Pombriant says.
The application offers contact management, sales lead automation and
follow up, task tracking, trouble-ticket tracking, call automation,
email campaigns and document management, reports, and analysis. FreeCRM.com
lets users import data from Act!, GoldMine, Outlook, or other contact-management
and sales-automation applications.
Users are limited to 5 MB of storage in the document repository, which
stores Word, PowerPoint, or PDF files. According to the company, it
will also offer vertical applications for the real estate and insurance
industries this spring.
According to FreeCRM.com, it uses 128-bit SSL encryption to protect
data and is also certified by TRUSTe, a nonprofit organization established
to ensure that personal information and identity is protected online.
This is not the first time CRM solutions have been offered for free,
albeit with some twists. Nearly a year ago G2X started offering for
free an unlimited number of licenses for its Agility Web-based contact
management application to companies that purchase a minimum of 100
user licenses. To participate in the G2X special offer, however, companies
were required to pay an 18 percent annual maintenance fee based on
the total number of users, and are required to make a minimum purchase
of the company's Level 1 Service package, which is priced at $25,000
for 100 users.
In addition First Choice Software, which provides add-ons and tools
that work with the Amdocs ClarifyCRM suite of products, also started
giving away software last February. For the duration of its offer
the company was giving away any of its more than 50 products, which
include applications and development tools, to anyone committing to
three year's worth of maintenance fees, according to David Sirkin,
director of marketing.
However, CRM ASP is not relying solely on a free CRM product. The
company also offers a Professional Version for $9.95 per month that
includes 100 MB of document storage, no advertisements, and live support.
*Originally published at destinationCRM.com.
About the Author:
Lisa Picarille is a 14 year veteran high tech journalist, who started
out as beat reporter with PC Week. She has also been a Senior Editor
at InfoWorld, MacWeek and ComputerWorld. Lisa also has extensive experience
running online high tech new sites. She was the managing editor of
CRN.com., the online site for Computer
Reseller News, before becoming the executive editor of TechWeb.com
and the night news editor for Wired.com. Most recently she was the
executive producer of TechTV.com.
In addition, Lisa has freelanced for many print and online publications
including Iconocast.com, Wired,
Rolling Stone Magazine, CNN.com, Schwab.com. A graduate of Northeastern
University, Lisa began her career as a sports writer and working as
a producer and voice over artist in Boston radio. Picarille can be
contacted at 415-642-1863 or lpicarille@destinationcrm.com
Read
this newsletter at: http://www.crmnewz.com/2003/1030.html |
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