Sage CRM is a competent, unexciting CRM whose principal argument is that it sits directly on top of a Sage back office. If you run Sage 200 Evolution and want your sales team to see live credit limits, real stock availability and actual order history without an integration project, this is the shortest path to that.
Assessed purely as a CRM against Pipedrive or Zoho, it does not win. Assessed as the sales front end of a Sage finance system, it makes sense.
The integration argument
A rep quoting from the CRM sees the customer's current balance, their credit limit and whether the stock is actually on the shelf. An order raised in the CRM becomes a sales order in the back office without a synchronisation job that someone has to monitor. For a distribution business this removes a genuine daily friction.
As a CRM
Contact and opportunity management, quoting, campaign tracking, case management and reasonable reporting. Workflow customisation is available but generally needs a partner rather than an in house administrator. The interface is dated and the mobile app is weak, which is the most common complaint in our review set.
Deployment and cost
Available on premises or hosted, and sold through the Sage partner network rather than self service. Pricing is quoted rather than listed, per user, and implementation is a partner project. Expect a scoping conversation.
Who should buy it
Existing Sage 200 Evolution or Sage 300 sites where the sales team needs live back office data. If you are not on a Sage back office, there is no reason to be looking at this instead of Zoho or Pipedrive.
BR
South AfricaStellenboschSole trader
