Free
CRM
Free CRM
(freeCRM) is a highly scalable Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) system, designed to be extremely flexible, highly functional,
simple to use, yet very affordable. Free CRM is 100% web based -
accessible across an intranet, extranet or even the internet. Free
CRM is based on a unique business model that benefits both customers
and partners alike. Take equal parts of User Group, Developer Forum
and Software Marketplace and you have an idea of what the Free CRM
network is all about. For a limited time licensing of the Core Free
CRM module is available absolutely free! To find out more about the
Free CRM licensing model, visit: http://www.freecrm.net/licensing.asp
Free CRM uses
128-bit SSL encryption to protect data. Stone said the Free CRM is
also certified by TRUSTe, a nonprofit organization that was
established to ensure that personal information and identity is
protected online. Stone said that the TRUSTe certification is
crucial to his operation because many users are skeptical of a free
service. Adding to that skepticism is a rather extensive
registration form that Stone said is necessary to help build
aggregate demographics for advertising sales. Early users were also
concerned about the safety of their contact files. "People were
concerned that we were going to steal contact lists. We would never
do that. That's why we joined TRUSTe", says Stone, a company
representative.
Free CRM is
hardly the first Web-based business to try to make a go of it as a
free, advertising-driven service. Stone maintains it's a good
business model, one he describes it as "tried and true." Perhaps,
but the company isn't betting that is can live by advertising alone
-- companies such as Intranets.com and FreeDrive would agree the
free life is a difficult one. Free CRM also offers a Professional
Version for $9.95 per month. With that you get 100 MB of document
storage, no advertisements and live support.
The company
will also offer vertical applications for the real estate and
insurance industries this spring. The company will layer
industry-specific workflow and other best practices features based
on those industries. The company this summer plans to offer
"application devices" that customers can install behind their
firewalls, basically, Free CRM packs everything on a server and
ships it to the customer.
The Web-based
applications pf Free CRM offers contact management, sales lead
automation and follow-up, task tracking, trouble ticket tracking,
call automation, e-mail campaigns and document management, reports
and analysis, among other features. You are limited to 5 MB of
storage in your document repository (where you would store Word,
PowerPoint or PDF files, for example), though you can enter an
unlimited among of contacts. You can have as many records as you
want, you can have a million of them, Free CRM lets you import data
from Outlook, Act!, Gold Mine or other contact management and sales
automation application.
