SugarCRM Community edition has been a great daily driver for my music business. It's reliable, and has enough functionality to enable me to record all the key data that I need. The ability to self-host the platform is fantastic, because it helps keep costs down, and when you work on a small-scale, you don't need all of the processing power of a paid hosted solution. Definitely a great option if you have the savvy to install and maintain your own instance on your web server.
Pros
I used the self-hosted community CRM for several years for my own music business. It has a ton of functionality that matches a lot of the basic features you find in Salesforce Classic. It's a great tool for keeping track of client data, deal tracking, etc. It's also nice to be able to self-host the platform as well as it's a lot more affordable than using a paid SaaS solution.
Cons
SugarCRM Community Edition looks pretty dated. If you don't have a lot of experience with the typical CRM data model concept, it can be hard to figure out how to use the system. The interface could be modernized to make it easier to navigate and find your way around. Another downside to being the Community Edition is that you need to know how to install and maintain the platform on your own server, but this is also a plus if you do have these skills.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
Overall my experience with this CRM is great. I am using it daily and I can say that my daily work is incomplete without it. It is so simple to use and provides amazing results for reports and dashboards, their customer's support team is very responsive.
Pros
I am using it for more than three years and like almost everything about it. This CRM is very easy to use because of its simple design and easy to use user interface. I like the way SugarCRM provides reports and dashboards which is very easy to understand. SugarCRM provides secruity of data and information and now I can handle the different campaigns, create a different campaign for anyone and even get a complete picture of it very easily.
Cons
I would like to highlight one thing that I dislike about it which is its overall cost. A small organization may not afford this CRM but overall it is worth to spend on it.
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 10/10
We have been using Sugar for several years, but only in the past six months have we really dug down to fully utilize the software. The tool is fairly simple to use, I like the reporting functions, but the feedback I get from my sales team is that it is just 'clunky' to use. I'll give you one little example. For the Opportunity 'Actual Closed Won' date, I found through coming across some bad sales data for the month, that if you close a sale in January, and that same month you mark it as Closed Won. But lets say in March you want to go in and add a note to the description. Once you edit that note, (thus changing the Modify date) you autimatically changed the 'Actual Closed Won' date to March. Really messes up sales reports! When I contacted Sugar, there really wasnt an easy fix. We found SierraCRM (third part software) and Bill Convis from there helped with a solution to this problem. We have now purchased this software and believe that this will help take us to the next level of using Sugar. Sugar Support via email is usually pretty prompt, but as far as hearing from our 'Account Manager', just 2 weeks ago was the first time I heard from someone regarding our account. At that point, I had already reached out to SierraCRM, so I did not need anything from Sugar. To summarize: Great tool, though a little clunky, but the price is not bad. Customer service could be improved, especially for companies like us who are invested in the process, and just need some help taking our sales process to the next level. Thanks!
Pros
I like the Online (sugar on demand) that allows Sugar Support to get into your software and look and something you may be struggling with, like reports...
Cons
Design is little clunky. Think with some improvements, it might be easier to convert leads, update opportunities. Need less clicks!
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 7/10
It is an OK application, Sugar has stood still in time and, when you consider the app out of the box, its pretty much standard. Sugar has divided its stack into various products for marketing, for sales, for support only making it a very expensive when you consider other options in the market
Pros
Very stable, solid
easy to use, administer
Easy to implement and deploy
Reporting is good and allows fro complex reports to be built
Cons
It has not changed in a looong time (perhaps years?)
For the functionality, it is expensive - better options exist
Marketing is poor (unless you go for Sugar marketing apps which are expen$ive!)
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 2/10
Overall, I really enjoyed Sugar and think it would be a great fit (especially for the lower price point!) for marketing and advertising agencies that are looking to build out custom flows. Their customer care team was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable, and I really enjoyed working with them.
Pros
The SugarCRM team was incredibly helpful and supportive during our decision between various CRMs we were testing out, namely Salesforce and SugarCRM. They were flexible, accommodating and had amazing customer service throughout the process, even willing to develop new APIs to integrate with our proprietary billing system 90% of our clients were on. I really enjoyed the visuals of Sugar - as all the bells and whistles were there, but it didn't seem overwhelming (as Salesforce can) and it's geared more towards marking service teams, like my division of the business. I also really find the dashboard visuals to be superior to Salesforce. Overall, the price point was better than Salesforce, too.
Cons
Since Sugar is geared towards marketing and sales teams, it wasn't a great fit for the other teams within our organization (i.e. one-time products like printing, etc.). Though workflows are cleaner and more intuitive than Salesforce, there wasn't quite as many bells and whistles (i.e. it was difficult to build in processes that involved external teams that we outsource to).
Rating breakdown
Likelihood to recommend: 8/10
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