CRM Pricing: Open source CRM

CRM
tools, when used right, will pay off. The return lies in the details of
key account management. Customers must be informed, supported and
spoken to. Key function to do this is built in good CRM tools. The CRM
vendors have different user interfaces and a different approach to
getting work done. Yet, CRM is the same animal from salesforce.com to
sugarcrm.

The price range of CRM, even though tools are
similar, is surprising. Sure the loss leader CRM, like the cheap
salesforce.com which is limited in function, is cheap. Zoho is one of
these. I just took a call from a prospect that spoke to Zoho lack of
support. I listened yet had no comment. Customers do expect to be
supported even at basement CRM prices.

Where we are taking our
CRM practice is different. I do not see many companies doing this. We
offer hosted, supported, trained open CRM solutions;
Community Sugar for the big 3, marketing, sales, support; vtiger for
clients that desire order management, in addition to big 3. Both of the
open crms offered are affordable. Much less than the commercial
verisons of salesforce and others.

The question is why do people pay 125 per user and more for salesforce.com.
My thoughts bring me down the path to effective marketing. Salesforce
has great marketing. Ths must be paid for somehow, and the how is high
user fees. I appreciate and respect this. But I think, as I see
exponential growth in our open CRM business, the high user fees will not be sustained.