Cosential Software

Cosential has streamlined our processes and has the potential to help us streamline even more. The company needs to evolve it's development staff to be able to address bugs in a timely manner.

Pros

Cosential has streamlined many of our processes, and has the potential to help us automate our proposal process even more. The potential is amazing.

Cons

Glitches! We seem to be always taking three steps forward, two steps back. Cosential isn't easy to set up or implement. There is a ton of up front work and training to be done. After overcoming all of that to be faced with modules that stop working and aren't fixed timely we are left hanging.

Two years in, as we are ready to deep-dive into more of the Cosential functionality we are being besieged by glitches that are impeding our use of the system, which is extremely frustrating.

The big weakness is in fixing bugs in the system. The customer service team passes glitches on to the developers and nobody can, or will, tell you when to expect the problem to be resolved. We have been waiting for 3+ months now on one issue, which is unacceptable.

We are so far in at this point that it doesn't make sense to change systems now, but the thought has crossed our minds.

Pros

Completely transparency of our customer opportunities and interactions between all our divisions for all customers. We have robust reporting where we can understand our pipeline, hit rate, and more data than we ever had in the past. The process is simple and we have the power as the admins to make changes/updates without having to wait for the resources at Cosential. We feel very empowered!

Cons

The time between request (issue or bug with system/enhancement suggestion) to the sprint where the improvement may occur. At times you are waiting for the developers or the request sits in the queue between submitting the suggestion and update for quite some time. We have learned the process of a bug or enhancement but at times we wish we could influence more of the speed to updates.

Pros

I like most the Outlook add-in which makes it very simple to add and manage contacts which you establish throughout your respective industry. Good software for managing and tracking leads and relationships as well as managing marketing blasts and info out to clients and prospects.

Cons

Steep learning curve and you really need someone on your team to have used and have a good understanding of how everything works in order to "on-board" newer people working in this program

This software provides a snapshot of our company, our projects, our employees past and present and of course our work, and teams we have worked with.

Pros

easy access. online. quick. It is a thirll when i am looking for information about a project, or a person's title and the info is there. Linkedin is good, as a back-up, but my database is better for me.

Cons

the reports creation can be tricky. sometimes i pull in inactive or unknown and sometimes people seem to disappear and need to be pput back. sometime hard to find where to add a company.

Pros

Cosential helps us standardize the information we track, being able to output reports in a consistent format.

Cons

We use InDesign for our publications. The Publisher module currently forces us to export resumes and projects one by one, vs. being able to select projects we want to use and exporting all into a single file.

Pros

We now have one central data depository for all of our offices contacts, project info, personnel, resumes etc. The ability to create custom reports, update project data and track prospects across many users has improved our communication and reporting tremendously. The ability to update personnel, project, contact information in one spot and have it populate throughout any report or resume is a big plus. The Widgets are great for a graphical representation to management that accurately represents current pursuits, hit rates, wins by market, etc. The ability to turn on and off modules for user groups is huge! It keeps people from being overwhelmed when they first start to use the CRM, especially if they never have used one in the past or are skeptical. Integrations with other programs continue to be developed and improved by Cosential - this is a huge plus! Business Development/Marketing people are mobile - the iPad is a tool, just like a laptop. Being able to enter client info in Cosential and add it to an individuals Outlook contacts with just a few clicks makes it easy to have centralized client data. We will be implementing an integrations with Vista later this year. I am excited for the potential that will bring live project and personnel data to our CRM!

Cons

It's still a little 'techy' and driven by IT/Developers from the end-user perspective. But it's getting better every month we use it! When a bug is identified, or an issue occurs, for the most part Cosential Support is responsive. Sometimes, however it seems like it takes months to fix an issue. This is especially frustrating when a function (say a mailing list) was working correctly and then stops working. Because Cosential manages literally mountains of company, contact, personnel and project data, it can feel overwhelming to new users. Customizing the training and 'easing new users into' the program based on their needs is the only way to get good buy-in from apprehensive or skeptical users. The mobile app has it's limitations on the iPad and as all of our Business Developers use iPads, they would like to see the app developed further. Right now, it's better than nothing when they are on the road!

Amazing and organized CRM system with Trackable data. Integration with Procore to reduce double entry in new job setups. A great marketing publisher that if used correctly will update resumes, brochures, and all marketing material

Pros

Houses all our CRM information, ties in with outlook, easy to update, marketing tool to keep resumes and brochures updated is great

Cons

Very tedious set up process - but staff very helpful setting it up and keeping it organized and weeding through all lists and data and dulications

Capability to start stream lining the resume and project sheet process.

Pros

The ability to produce resumes and cutsheets from cosential in indesign format. The process to store project information and customer relations is quick and easy. Ability to customize your dashboard.

Cons

That it will not round the Dollar to millions when producing a resume or cutsheet. You must go into the indesign file and edit the Dollar value.

Pros

Data management, a Full snapshot of sales/marketing Ease of implementation. Our specialist is professional, efficient and beyond supportive

Ongoing Insight into our marketing and business development efforts.

Pros

The integration with Outlook is hands down a great feature. We do not have to reinvent the wheel and can continue using software that we know and understand.

Labor hours saved is huge. Access to information from one portal extremely helpful.

Pros

My favorite feature is the resume generation tool. The ability to produce multiple resumes tailored for specific pursuit types automatically updated each time they are created is beyond wonderful. Coupled with their availability to all team members 24/7 at the push of a button from any internet enabled device makes the resume generation tool peerless. Another great feature is the opportunity tracking, once again keeping all the pieces of a pursuit in one handy place and available 24/7 is brilliant!!!!

Cons

Although a minor issue I do wish that users other than administrators could upload templates for use in the publisher module as administrators may be busy/unavailable for periods of time making updating the templates a longer process then it should be.

Pros

Web-based, seamless integration from legacy system. We spent about three months transitioning from ACT! to Cosential. The customer support was fantastic and after the on-boarding, I was given another excellent customer service rep (a real live person!) who returns my calls! The dashboards give me immediate data to share with CEO and CFO. I can also get custom reports written for my data.

Cons

Mobile App and e-mail marketing could be better. The e-mail blast program is a little clunky. The mobile app has limitations and this is going to need to be addressed. But overall the program is fantastic.

Pros

1 year after purchase: This has easily been one of the wisest investments our firm has made. The ability to track customer information (CRM), their experience, past performance data, and leads/opportunities all from one simple application and dashboard makes my 1-man marketing team feel like 3. The capability to routinely pull data from our accounting software reduces duplication in both content and time. I no longer spend hours "looking for *stuff*" (put politely) during proposal preparation due to the full featured project and ‘knowledge’ database paired up with the advanced reporting functionality. I still have only scrapped the tip of the metaphorical iceberg of features that are included with the package including the ability to automatically survey clients, a built in email marketing tool, card scanner, countless plug-ins, a customizable RESTful API, Outlook and Exchange server plugins, and soon a full blown Zapier integration. Additionally, the support both during install and throughout my journey have been absolutely wonderful. They have made the ins and outs of using the software a simple, and surprisingly enjoyable, experience!

Cons

There are some issues with the knowledge base section that I would improve on. I have a lot of issues it the mobile application on my Android device.

Great CRM system for the A/E/C Industry at extremely competitive price. Training process takes time as the CRM comes fully loaded with features. No additional costs for add-ons.

Cosential is like food to your body.
You have to eat to survive.
Cosential helps me to survive my daily tasks and functions of my work.
I don't like to go hungry! And I don't with Cosential.

I love how easy it is to access and analyze our information. Cosential has a home for every data point you can imagine -- and the flexibility add new ones as needed -- so you can store and recall information about all of your pursuits and projects.
Our biggest problem prior to using Cosential was that knowledge about our projects, clients, past pursuits, etc. lived primarily in the heads of our people. That's fine as long as no one leaves and no one forgets...but that clearly isn't reality. Cosential is a robust, interconnected database that allows us to have literally everything in one place, and we can view that information from multiple perspectives.

Pros

A place for everything.

Cons

Load time has been a factor, but it has improved significantly over the past 6 months and I know their developers are actively pursuing even greater speed.

Advice to Others

Be sure to work VERY closely with your implementation specialist. This can be an intimidating software package and needs to be populated and launched by someone who fully understands the system.

The support staff was very attentive to the many questions I have. My recent encounter with Lisa Pitts was exceptional. She went out of her way to help me solve a couple issues I was having and helped me create a report that saves me time. Thank you!!

I appreciate the timeliness of the Cosential staff in helping our firm achieve our goals with a CRM Database.

Cosential is a great CRM solution. Their implementation team made data import from multiple different sources an easy to understand and execute process. Any questions I have had along the way we're responded to very quickly.

Pros

Data organization is great. Unlike other CRM solutions you do not need an outside programmer to customize. In fact the software is so robust in pre-loaded features implementation is more of subtraction process to hide modules your firm may not need or use. Field customization to match our firms processes and terminology was pretty straight forward.

Cons

Some newer modules (marketing e-blasts) are in their infancy, and work like their in their infancy. Generating reports and automatically generated reports (workflow) are not as intuitive to create as I would have liked and can be difficult at first. Mind you my implementation specialist Amy was always there to help me get the reports to do what I needed. It just takes some time to learn Cosential' s interface for this.

I was first introduced to Cosential in 2010 and began to research and push for the software at my previous company. After a long inside sales process, the company decided not to move forward with my recommendation which was a major factor in my leaving that organization. One of the main goals of my coming onboard to my current company was to implement Cosential as our marketing database software, and see what other tools are available that we can utilize in other parts of the company. We are full-service real estate company that provided construction (at the time), development, financing, tax credit syndication, facilities maintenance, and property, asset, and investment management services. We ended up implementing across all marketing groups in the business in the construction, development, investment, asset and property management, and in our justice division. Different groups adopted it more quickly than others, and some we ended up just removing entirely as they were not utilizing the system. Currently our marketing groups across the business still utilize Cosential for business development tracking, current project and property data collection and maintenance, and personnel resume maintenance.

Pros

Because Cosential was designed by marketers in our industry, they know what information is important to collect, track, and analyze. The organization of the information and ease of use of the system is unparalleled to other CRMs/databases. Cosential is constantly updating and enhancing the system, so there are new, and improved, features being released to its users constantly, and I always hear what's going on - I know it's the top of the line database for information junkies like me. The reporting and template publishing tools are also incredibly helpful. Tracking our proposals and showing our win/loss ratios to senior leadership has been crucial. Also, the ability to store less-than-popular data for possible future use is highly beneficial.

Cons

I wish the reporting module was a little more user friendly - it can be daunting to new and novice users causing it to go unused and frequently used incorrectly causing frustrations. I am now in the Commercial Real Estate industry (more so than what would be termed AEC), I would love LOVE to have more information/modules relating to development of projects, property and asset management - understanding the high-level of property and information turnover for these types of services.

Advice to Others

It's the best in the industry, but implementation (as with any software), can be very time consuming and overwhelming. Depending on your level of implementation, I would highly recommend a dedicated employee to this endeavor, and then can become the go-to Cosential person/administrator for the system ongoing. Even after implementation, you need to understand any database is only as good as the information that goes into it - so constant maintenance is imperative to keep the system updated and accurate.