Agile is a Fantastic Solution in a Crowded Market

I feel like I am becoming a CRM expert. I have used and suggested many CRMs over the years, and I feel like I have seen it all. When I look for a CRM in 2018, I ask myself 3 questions. Question 1: Who is going to use these features? If my team lacks tech savviness, if they are going to be picky about the UI, or if they are used to a different platform, you could run into problems. At the end of the day, a CRM should be invisible, and it should be as natural as using your body. If you team struggles to use their tools, you will run into problems. There's no point in blaming your team if the tool is hard to learn. The job needs to be done either way. (Keeping a mobile option in mind is a good idea as well. Don't underestimate the value of client's won at a bar.) Question 2: How quickly will the system be up to 100% functionality? Every day that you team has to track client data on Post-Its is a day that you're throwing information in the trash (and hanging your Marketing + Support out to dry). Expect a month to get set up, but anything over 3 months is too long. Even if you're an enterprise, you can't afford to fly blind for that long. Also, integrations, integrations, integrations... If the sales rep can't demo a tool you use daily running on their CRM, demand a "no commitment demo" period. Most companies will try to lock you into a one year commitment, but it is perfectly reasonable to know everything works together in harmony. Question 3: Is this the right price for me? The thing about CRMs is that there are hundreds of them. It's impossible to say which one is right for you because in reality, there are probably a dozen you will love. If you feel that you are down to 2 or 3 CRMs that seem identical, they probably are... Go for the one that is priced right and ready to scale WITH YOU. Agile is great on all these fronts. Easy to use. Beautiful UI. Easy to set up. Very affordable option. Love 'em. You won't be disappointed.

Pros

Agile is so clean. The UI is easy to use right out of the box.
Great for small to medium customer bases that use social media.
Quick and easy to set up.
Support is FANTASTIC!
Great automated features.
All the great things you would expect from a cloud based CRM: Customer + Deal tracking, notes and communication history, marketing analytics, scheduling, etc.

Cons

It's hard to call all of these "cons", but let's say "growing pains". Agile is still a young software.

We had some problems setting up links between our WordPress site. They were quickly resolved to 100% satisfaction, but they had my boss pulling his hair out for a few days.

We have run into a few other issues that I would call "buggy". Some graphical, some needing to refresh a page, but nothing has halted production. All have resolved themselves.

Amazing Complete CRM & Automation software: Great Infusionsoft or Salesforce alternative, for 10% of the price tag

As a small business owner, and founder of Bloominari.com, a digital marketing agency helping small businesses to grow their companies online through beautiful design, automation and marketing tactics I was in search of the best CRM and marketing automation software for a truly affordable price. After literally about 2 months of research of various CRM and marketing automation platforms I finally decided to take AgileCRM for a spin (It was easy to try it, as they have an always-free lite version). Immediately I fell in love with it's interface, ease of use, and easy-to-setup platform. I previously worked with Salesforce.com and Solve360 CRMS, and have also tried BaseCRM, SugarCRM and many others throughout my business life.

Pros

- Super affordable for the amount of tools, features and applications it includes. Starting at $10/user/month for it's starter version.
- Great user interface
- Easy to setup and use
- Lots of native integrations with lots of web-based (Saas) apps such as Gmail, Quickbooks, Twilio and many many others.
- Integration with Zapier, which basically let's you now integrate AgileCRM with 700+ other web apps, so this feature was a KEY for me.
- All your emails automatically load from your Gmail inside AgileCRM, no need to BCC some email address.
- Lots of sales, marketing, support, landing page, and amazing features added on at no additional cost.
- Now you can purchase add-ons such as user permissions, triggers, additional automation campaigns and others without having to upgrade all your users to the next subscription level (this is something I requested, and their team listened and did implement this).
-Their tech support is great, they care, they listen, and they modify/improve their system based on your feedback
- Their team update the app every few days

Cons

- Their standard subscription is $30/user/month if pre-paid for 2 years, otherwise $50/month, without too many added benefits for this level
- Their starter subscription limits your marketing campaigns (automation) to only 5 campaigns, with 10 nodes (steps) on each. The standard gives you 10 campaigns, with 25 nodes each (much better).
- Some updates happen without prior notifications to the user, and sometimes changes the User interface too drastically for some features.
- Their E-mail templates are limited, but you can still bring in your HTML templates or use their WYSIWYG editor.

Nice most-in-one CRM/Marketing engine for small biz

I need a place to store all of my interactions with contacts of all types. I need to be able to review a contact and know what stage we are in, last touch, next step, and simply who said what. Agile supplies all that. I want to improve my marketing outreach and I believe Agile will help me organize and systematize those efforts.

Pros

Agile CRM is purpose built (according to the makers) for keeping up with a growing start-up or small business. It handles the usual contacts, appointments, lead tracking and so on, but has a strong email and social marketing component. You can optionally tie in your email and telephony to Agile CRM to keep track of lead and customer interactions (though I have not implemented either at this time.)

They are fairly generous with the free level, there are enough core features enabled to allow a fair trial and limits on number of contacts, emails, even API calls are sufficient for a small business. Their free tier is actually not a trial, you can stay on free as long as it meets your needs.

One more thing, Agile has quite a few integrations available, among them Stripe, PayPal, FreshBooks, QuickBooks, and Xero. They have a functional API so if you are so inclined you can integrate Agile with almost anything, whether there is a widget for it or not.

Cons

There are a lot of moving parts, which is not necessarily a bad thing if they all help push your goals ahead. But it is more complex than many small business web applications, because it tries to do more. So it takes more of a time investment to begin to benefit from Agile. I am phasing into each component and I haven't reached some yet.

I have wished for a few more customization options, in display attributes - layout, colors, and also data - what fields are displayed in lists, what sort criteria,

Agile CRM is a Great First Step into the CRM World

Pros

I used this platform for a solid year and put in hundreds if not thousands of contacts into this CRM. I liked how many categories there were to define a lead or a contact, the system that you set up to see how much potential revenue you had to win based on your leads was helpful, and the price is unbeatable. I mean truly, you can use this platform for free for up to 50,000 contacts. That's pretty amazing.

Cons

There's a reason why I call this particular platform a good "first step." Agile CRM says it offers marketing automation, gamification, and project management - but this is a far from complete product. In the free version you can only create so many marketing automation blocks before it makes you pay, but even if I did upgrade I'm not sure the platform could handle the sales process I wanted to have set up. Something else to mention about this platform is there customer service. I'm fairly certain the CEO is their only customer service rep. Every time I had a problem with the platform (roughly 1-2 times a month) it was the same man who picked up the phone - and when my problem was solved he made me delete the Tweet I sent out when I asked for help, and then made me publicly thank him. I found that very strange. Overall you should try this platform out if you're just starting out, but upgrade to something like Infusionsoft if you're really looking to up your game.

Good overall system with a few glitches

We've got LOTS of information in here now, so at this point it would be more work to move than to just deal with the downfalls. Overall, my team has enjoyed the experience. I am a bit more technical so I am not as happy as they are. It has kept a great log of our consultants past and present, so in that respect - it has done it's job. I just feel like the cost (for 3 operators) does not justify the tool.

Pros

Tags make it easy to compartmentalize different customers and the path to completion.

Cons

Organization is a bit tough, and the separation of different features between Sales, Marketing, and Service areas is a bit disconnected. Creating a "path" for different actions can be quite confusing, and the fact that LOTS of actions (such as send an email when a certain tag is entered) do not happen. I think these run on cron jobs (say, every 15 minutes) and I feel like LOTS of the actions get missed. This is my biggest beef. The price structure is a bit nickle and dimey as well, and it seems like a big jump between I can do 3 actions and I can do 5 actions.

Feature rich, easy to use application that combines Sales Management & Marketing Automation.

We were looking for a solution that allows us to work out of a single system for both, marketing automation and sales management. We wanted to make sure that we don't have to piece that combination together using plugins and add-ons but wanted a natively integrated solution. We tried many CRM's and ultimately ended up with agile CRM and have been happy users since. As your confidence in the tool grows, you will be surprised how much it can handle and how configurable it is without becoming a too complex. The support staff has also been world class. Our requirements have always been tended to promptly. Last but not least, it is incredibly well priced, easily 50%-75% cheaper than other, comparable vendors.

Pros

- integrates sales management and marketing automation natively
- easy to use
- feature rich with a lot of add-ons
- very well priced
- great support team

Cons

- Small wish that I have: we have users that would be support users only, while others are sales users only. Would be nice if we could separate license fees on a role basis. But then the overall price we have to pay is still very low so that it really isn't a big issue for us.

The CRM that packs a punch and delivers the lead every time deserves some of the spotlight.

Pros

Agile is a diamond in the rough so to speak. It feels like the tech world is a giant popularity contest and the few formed a club and left some of the better players out. Agile may not be listed alongside the trendy inner circle but good for them they stand in a place of their own and the customer is made better for it. When I found Agile I was enticed by their Free plan- not trial but free plan with a good amount of flexibility for a startup to fully integrate the CRM for zero out of pocket. The product will scale with your growth and they have several paid levels so as you step up your monthly plan will step up with you and not kill your cash flow. I really appreciate the email automation and landing page builder inside the CRM. The landing page function is easy to use and makes quick customized landing pages. The other CRM systems are priced much higher and offer similar functionality to Agile and Agile is a fraction of the cost. Now, as with any CRM the learning curve may be high and indeed this was the case for my use of Agile.

Cons

Agile is not an easy product to just pick up and go. It will require some basic knowledge and a willingness to learn the program. The great news is that Agile offers webinar trainings and onboarding at no extra cost as well as they host a huge assortment of training modules and videos.

Easy to use CRM for mid -range businesses

To run our e-commerce business, we had to choose between a best of breed CRM (sales centrics) and one covering every touchpoint of the customer journey. After considering and testing solutions like Salesforce, Prosperworks, we finally decided to go for Agile CRM, more likely to fit with our needs regarding the size of our business and the ability to configure by ourselves. After several month of use, we integrated Agile with our CMS (WordPress-Woocommerce), Twilio (telephony and SMS services) and Clickdesk (Video and Live Chat). We've contacted the support team twice, each time issues were efficiently solved. Templates for Marketing Campaigns are usefull and watching video tutorials is enough to set up and personnalize the solution by yourself. By the way, there is a lack of integration between our products database (in the CMS) and Agile CRM : importing contacts and deals is easy, but surprisingly we are unable to import products. Products have to be filled manually : it's time consuming. Beside products management, we strongly recommend Agile CRM for its easy-to-use features.

Pros

- Many plugins available
- Suport team easy to reach and comprehensive
- Managing Marketing Campaigns with many templates and triggers
- Sales funnel is natively designed using deals in Agile : allows you to track and forecast sales in a few clicks

Cons

- Product Management to quote, complete deals or design reports must be improved

Extremely Worthwhile Investment - Time & Money || We tried them all, and picked Agile ||

Pros

FEATURES: Pretty much every feature under the sun for automation (even correlating user behavior on website into triggers for a campaign is an effective tool due to how well the cookies work).

ON-BOARDING: We've been able to schedule meetings with our on-boarding team who've been great in giving us real world usage scenarios and helping us settle into the product the right way and waste time looking for a way to do something or figuring out best practices from scratch. This is HUGE, very few solutions actually have something like this available to you.

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Top. Notch. The chat support is great, they're patient and will stick around answering your questions all day, they even pass suggestions to the development team who actually implement them as new features moving forward if it's something you really need. Which is mind-blowing.

OVERALL: It's complex and takes effort to learn what the product offers and how to use it. You're going to have to put the effort in, or it's going to be useless. That being said, once you put the effort in - Agile CRM gives you super powers compared most of your competition (because it takes effort, and requires learning).

BOTTOM LINE:
Imagine being in an iron man suit hovering above your competitors firing automated marketing missiles of lead-capturing/qualifying/scheduling sales quota destruction!

Cons

Very much a DIY experience, not enough 'sane defaults'.
Needs better testing/preview options for different campaign segments.

But these are something all these 'all-in-one' CRMs need.