Salsa CRM Software

Great training and very friendly customer service. It was very easy to make our transition from our old CRM system to the new system. We love that Salsa CRM is affordable and it meets our needs.

Pros

Quick system, easy to navigate, affordable, great training materials, syncs with Constant Contact

Cons

I wish that we could upload contacts and donations from an excel spreadsheet into the system.

Pros

Has a lot of features that deliver basic needs for CRM

Cons

There are other options that are more customizable that can one obtain for free or less money;

Our staff all agree it's easier to learn, easier to use, and we have all really liked our Customer Support, and Customer Success Coach. They have helped grow to really thrilled with this CRM!

And the price is a wonder factor, also. Great ROI.

Pros

I initially looked at Salsa CRM because we were fed up with Raiser's Edge, and I had faith that better, and more affordable option exist! Salsa is that software for us. This CRM is user friendly, looks great, super intuitive, and the seals people were really kind and patient with my five zillion questions! This CRM has buit-in Analytics that are user friendly, the mail merge integrates with Google Docs, making our thank you process, simpler than ever! We have already grown our lists, and increased retention in the 6 months we've been using Salsa! The other HUGE factor for us, it integrates with Salsa Engage.

Cons

Change from one database to another. that's all.

I’ve been with SALSA now for several years. In the beginning I kept trying to make it Network for Good - which I left because they were so non-responsive, but they do have good interfaces and options, and their donation processing is a breeze. But the reality is, that I left NFG because I couldn’t get what I wanted. From my first day with SALSA, though, the team behind the product stood out and they jumped through hoops and turned somersaults to make me happy and get me the training I needed. I even got a call from the President of the company to talk about what I was experiencing and to make sure I was getting what I needed. I can’t imagine any other company with a “the customer comes first” culture that reaches all the way to the top.

No matter what I come up with that I want to do, I find that there’s a way to do it in SALSA (except around the donations!). I would recommend this product to anyone and everyone without reservations!

Pros

Since 2003 we have purchased, leased, been granted and explored too many databases to count. Until we finally found our home with SALSA. The team is constantly upgrading and adding features, the customer support is absolutely unparalleled, and their dedication to the end-user is obvious in the features they have and those that they've added over the years we've been with them.

Every software CRM has issues. One of the things that sets SALSA apart from all of the others is their customer service team. They go the extra mile and then they just keep going even further to work with you, fix any issue you're having, suggest new features to the development team based on your needs....they are just the absolute best.

Cons

I'm not as fond of their donation processing partner. For example, if a donor wants to increase their giving amount you have to cancel their old donation and they have to go in and create a whole new donation.

Some of their training material leaves a lot out, but the responsiveness of their support team more than makes up for that.

As a small nonprofit organization, we have used Salsa from the beginning to organize and build our donor data base. We’ve used what we’ve needed but there is so much more to learn and optimize. We just don’t have the time to stop and review more videos regularly.

Pros

I’ve likes the functionality of the program. It fits our needs.

Cons

Wish they offered the option of in person training. Perhaps a regional training conference. The videos are thorough but extremely time consuming when first learning the programs and functions.

Inputting data. Earmarking donations. Following metrics. Pulling reports. Sending out timely thank you notes. Sending out monthly newsletters. And I am probably using a small percent of Salsa's capabilities.

Pros

The ease at which you can store and retrieve data. I love the reports! I love the help desk - they will answer any question and stay with you until the issue is solved. I particularly enjoy working with the executive - he is very knowledgeable plus he recognizes my voice which is a nice personal touch.

Cons

As a nonprofit animal shelter, I would love for some kind of discount. However, I believe Salsa is a worthwhile CRM for all our needs.

Wonderful!

Pros

The customer support and ease of use is a dream. Such a great way for a small non-profit to streamline and maximize our resources.

Cons

None - they are always working to improve with constant updates!

I am very happy with the product.

Pros

Very easy to use and it has a lot of options.

Cons

I do not have any problems with the software.

Pros

With Salsa we were able to compile the information that lived on spreadsheets into one database that is very functional. The ability to look at the history of our donors and to pull reports has enabled us to make better decisions. We were able to implement a major gifts program after purchasing the software.

Cons

It took a few tries to figure out the word processor, but it was worth the effort. The individual letter editing saved lots of time.

Not much. It was too clunky and complex for us to learn and use.

Please note, you should not be using my LinkedIn profile because the main LI profile is for a company I'm working with not for my non-profit. Using a LI profile simply doesn't work for people who have multiple roles at different organizations.

Pros

On the surface SALSA looked to have everything we needed in a modern user interface. Email program. It was relatively easy to create

Cons

Salsa, as it currently exists, is an integration of three separate solutions. The CRM and the Engage products actually use separate databases that need to sync with each other.

The fundraising module was a completely different and much older interface.

The support was friendly and knowledgeable but with no experienced IT/CRM person on staff Salsa was simple too complex to learn and remember, especially since we used it only one per month.

We decided to cancel our contract and move to something simpler and more manageable for us. Salsa management declined to return the unused portion of our contract. I don't believe would have been a great sacrifice to return to our non-profit. But they chose not to.

Similarly, the merchant services account we had to sign with Salsa was for a three-year period, even though our contract with Salsa was only annually. We're now paying a cancellation fee for that service.

I'm certain that Salsa probably works well for larger organizations, but it was simply too complex for our small team.

We didn't find many benefits to this program, only disadvantages. We changed to a different CRM for our non profit.

Pros

Admittedly, Salsa is a robust program with lots of options and capabilities. The queries were details and you could typically find the information that you needed for a report.

Cons

The program was clunky and not user friendly at all. It was not intuitive and it took a great deal of time to figure out how to make it do what you wanted. Ultimately, we changed to another program.

Easy to set up.

Pros

Very easy to get set up. We were getting on the platform after using only excel sheets. Canned reports are also helpful.

Cons

I think it would be great if there was a user group or community of users available to exchange ideas.

This is night and day vs. the software we used to use. I think we're only using half the features we probably should be using, so we can grow into this.

Pros

I love that I can customize so much. This software has ALL the features I was looking for and then some

Cons

Because it has so much functionality, there is a learning curve, just like any CRM. Just plan for time to learn the software and take it in stages.

Pros

The program is easy to use. I like the browser interface versus the desk top version as it is more modern and you can work off site.

Accuracy of information. Able to research donors to determine how often they give, amount of gift, etc. Most important support from Salsa staff.

Pros

Salsa is much better than our previous experience with another vendor who will remain un-named. Generating reports is easy and the database is easy to work with.

Most important to us is the support provided by Salsa. I am able to reach them during business hours and they spend the time needed to solve any issues. They are clearly customer oriented. Many others I researched charged extra for this level of service. With Salsa it is included.

Cons

Does not link to other email providers. It would be nice to be able to use Constant Contact or another email provider and have it link directly to the program. Engage is nice, but is some cases not as easy to use as are the other email service providers.

Having said that we are very satisfied with our use of Salsa overall and have no plans to go looking for anyone else.

An updated, easy to use database system.

Pros

I like the ease of the software. It is very intuitive which makes navigating easier. Most questions can be answered by using the online help, but if a phone call is necessary the staff is very easy to work with.

Cons

Our database system prior to conversion was subpar. I new the conversion would take work on both parts (salsa conversion team and my own). There was little to be done about some data, however one request made was only partially completed. I requested additional work to be done on it and was told that the system went live and there was nothing they could do about it. I don't there is an easy way of fixing it without starting from scratch with an excel spreadsheet.

Pros

It can do practically anything you want it to. We chose it over others in part because of the event management functions. Also because of the Salsa Engage

Cons

The learning curve - but this would be the case with any new software. It takes time to learn - you have to build in time to learn the software incrementally over a period of many months.

It is too early to tell.

Pros

The intersections of email, word processing, data entry, and other functions appear to be easy to use. But remember, I am VERY new to this and haven't tried any difficult functions, and haven't created anything in Engage, so cannot really comment on that part yet.

Cons

It is not totally clear to me what the Engage vs CRM functions are as yet. The conversion process from Raiser's Edge to this is glitchy and we had to track down pieces of information in Raiser's Edge that were not converted. For example if there was no date of death for a donor or spouse, the fact that they are deceased was not converted automatically. The training path was not clearly laid out. It would be helpful to have a flow chart of critical training and the order in which it would be best to receive that. For us linear thinkers, it feels like the training options came at us from different directions and we became confused on what to do next.

At this time, we haven't been using Salsa CRM long enough to record any marked benefit. We're still in the problem-solving phase of post-conversion. As the Development Director, I did receive an immense benefit from sifting through the 2.5 million data fields from our conversion templates, however. I now have intimate knowledge of our constituents and our data that I didn't have before. It's given me a better view of our donor base which has allowed for the placement of fundraising strategies. If CRM and Engage would ever interphase properly, Salsa could probably make my life a lot easier. But right now, it makes it more difficult.

Pros

Customer service is awesome. I appreciate that I can call and get help instead of wading through hours of online instruction videos. Everyone I've encountered has been helpful and knowledgeable. I appreciate the ability to categorize constituents into groups. It's proven very helpful on directing messaging to appropriate constituents.

Cons

Frequently used items, such as notes and address and phone edits, aren't where one would think they would be. When learning the system, it causes a lot of frustration trying to find things. Also, there are lots of drop down menus without explanations on how each category affects the larger picture. For example, under "Edit Address," there is place to check is the address is "Home," "Business," or "Primary." (You can check more than one.) Then across from that, there's a drop down menu titled "Reason." No explanation of what this category means. The choices are "All Correspondence," "Bad Address," "Non-Solicitations Only," "Primary Address," or "Solicitations Only." How does this relate to the "Preferred Contact" drop down found under "Constituent Information" which also features "Solicitations Only" and "Non-Solicitations Only"? Isn't that overkill? What's the logic behind that? It would be nice if there was a printed user's guide. Sure, there's all sorts of information online to sift through, but who has time to watch videos? Give me a searchable .PDF with general instructions that include an overview of the drop down menu choices and their best uses. Finally, conversion is NOT easy. You get what you pay for. We paid for the basic conversion, and I had to manually process over 2.5 million data fields from our previous software to Salsa's templates. It took me 6 weeks. We're still waiting for Salsa CRM and Engage to interphase properly 2 months later.

Ease of use, lower cost.

Pros

The ease of use is what I like most about the SalsaLabs software. The software is very, very intuitive.

Cons

I've experienced a few glitches with the software. The upside is I called customer service and the problems were addressed immediately.