What CRM Do You Use? Anyone Try ACT 4 Advisors?

Freddie · 08-22-2009, 02:59 PM

I heard from one rep that he loves ACT 4 Advisors which is ACT modified by another company. $389 for a single seat.

I think Frank Stasny also has a CRM. Any suggestions or ones you use and like? Thanks.
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I may have posted this in the wrong forum. My apologies. I am looking for a good CRM. I know this website has a banner ad for a CRM plus Frank Stasny offers one. I am not trying to offer anything or promote anything. Just trying to get ideas. Thanks.

al3 · 08-22-2009, 05:15 PM

Originally Posted by Freddie

I heard from one rep that he loves ACT 4 Advisors which is ACT modified by another company. $389 for a single seat.

I think Frank Stasny also has a CRM. Any suggestions or ones you use and like? Thanks.

Frank's YIO is probably the most popular in this venue. It is desktop based, not web-based like so many others.

Lots of people love ACT. Others like Salesforce. Some like AgencyPro. Do a google search on "insurance crm" and you will get lots of suggestions.

A lot of it will depend on your budget. If you want something customized for the insurance industry be prepared to pay $$$ for it.

If you want a "generalized" CRM, they can go from free to lots of $$$. One good place to look is here.

I good place to start is to play with the free hosted FreeCRM. I used to use it before I found SugarCRM... which has a demo here. Sugar's community edition is free, but you can get a hosted version for abut $45 a month with up to 5 users.

There is no shortage of choices. You have to decide what features are most important to you. For me, my hot-button is web-based and simplicity. Others like to use desktop software. Some folks are nuts about the campaign and email and lead tracking modules that various packages have.

Since I'm known here to only have 2 clients (am I right neos?) my needs will be different from the agent with many hundreds (or at least who claim to have many hundreds!)

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I would suggest that many of you NOT use SugarCRM's community edition because it is "community supported" via online forums and these are made up of mostly liberals looking for free software and there are a lot of poor, third-world users as well. There is also a fairly large gay community who uses Sugar (the name alone would suggest that!) You folks would be best advised to buy Frank's YIO as it is developed for neo-cons by neo-cons... and loved by every one of them on this board.

russelltw · 08-22-2009, 08:01 PM

I like act with northwoods sales automation bundle. I love northwoods. It can take some time to learn, but the automation your can do for emails, fax, letters are endless.

souldeux · 08-22-2009, 08:53 PM

Freddie, I reported your post in hopes that someone would see it and move it to the General Discussion forum where it'll probably get more traffic (since you're not selling anything yourself).

I've used SugarCRM in the past and loved it. It's very powerful, and the open source model is very free. Currently, I use Bento2 for the Mac. Never tried ACT or Frank's, which is Your Insurance Office (YIO).

VaDwayne · 08-22-2009, 08:55 PM

Originally Posted by Freddie

I heard from one rep that he loves ACT 4 Advisors which is ACT modified by another company. $389 for a single seat.

I think Frank Stasny also has a CRM. Any suggestions or ones you use and like? Thanks.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I may have posted this in the wrong forum. My apologies. I am looking for a good CRM. I know this website has a banner ad for a CRM plus Frank Stasny offers one. I am not trying to offer anything or promote anything. Just trying to get ideas. Thanks.

I use YIO

and you should too.

MedicarePlanSolutions · 08-24-2009, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by al3

Sugar's community edition is free, but you can get a hosted version for abut $45 a month with up to 5 users.

If you want it web-based with either a single user or multiple user I can get you setup on your own space with Sugar way cheap. Not that a desktop version isn't great because you don't need internet access to run it, but having something web-based that's stored on redundant servers with backup generators and 24/7 tech service helps me feel more comfortable that nothing will be lost and not having to use my backup files. PM or e-mail me if you want to get something setup way cheap for either a single user or as many as you'd like.

djs · 08-24-2009, 10:12 AM

Act for Advisors is great. Basically, it modifies the desktop to be based more on insurance and financial service sales than a company based contact manager.

It does have it's limits, so you need to make sure you want to use it as a contact management system, not as an agency management system. Everything else mentioned here has somewhat the same limitations, and except for YIO, nothing else comes close to the 'insurance agent' customizations that Act for Advisors offers.

You can still couple this with something like Northwoods Automation to make it a more robust marketing tool.

Dan

SportsNut · 08-24-2009, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by souldeux

Freddie, I reported your post in hopes that someone would see it and move it to the General Discussion forum where it'll probably get more traffic (since you're not selling anything yourself).

I've used SugarCRM in the past and loved it. It's very powerful, and the open source model is very free. Currently, I use Bento2 for the Mac. Never tried ACT or Frank's, which is Your Insurance Office (YIO).

Then according to als post above you must have latent homosexual tendencies. The world according to al... enough to make a sane person go HUH!!!!

David C · 08-24-2009, 02:58 PM

I recently purchased YIO. Easy to learn, functional, plenty of useful features for the life and health business.

Gulliver · 08-24-2009, 10:09 PM

Act is a very easy and powerful product. I like it and recommend it Sugar is also an excellent product.

Avoid salesforce.com because they are only looking for the large subscribers and will offer very limited customer service to individuals. They are also very slow to help. If you would be able to utilize their product without modification then it is very good but modification will very hard to get completed in a timely manner.

I have not used Frank's product but as you have already noticed his product is very well received by the board and you have to take that very seriously because this bunch knows their stuff.

Gulliver

the mayor · 08-27-2009, 03:40 PM

I do commercial P&C and have been playing with freecrm.
It is not really doing it for me....although I really should put more time (which I don't have)into learning it.

What are other comm. P&C folks using with success?

Freddie · 08-31-2009, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by souldeux

Freddie, I reported your post in hopes that someone would see it and move it to the General Discussion forum where it'll probably get more traffic (since you're not selling anything yourself).

I've used SugarCRM in the past and loved it. It's very powerful, and the open source model is very free. Currently, I use Bento2 for the Mac. Never tried ACT or Frank's, which is Your Insurance Office (YIO).

Thanks. Sorry for posting in the wrong forum. Thanks for trying to get it moved.