This is not to say that we couldn't customize other products. Epicor and Microsoft offer some codeless customization, though both require programming to really extend and customize their systems. Microsoft also provides some basic layout capabilities and a browser-based method of removing and adding fields. ACCPAC offers similar customization, including a way to add new fields to tables, add them to existing entry screens or create custom screens.
The beauty of these products lies not in their ability to manipulate fields, however; it's hidden in the way each database's linking mechanisms connect customers to products, orders and data sources such as e-mail messages and even chat sessions. Despite the difficulties that arose from these complicated database schemas during the data-import phase, we appreciated the products' abilities to make sense of such tangled data webs.
We found CRM systems' primary support for B2B relationships frustrating. The B2B terminology often can't be modified, which means that we were stuck choosing "account," "contact" or "people" to describe what we call "customers." Our sales and customer-service staff could adjust to the jargon, but it would require time, training and a temporary decrease in productivity. We'd like these applications to offer some level of light customization, to enable a smoother transition for our users.
When the smoke cleared and the last echoes of our swearing had dissipated from the lab, we chose ACCPAC's CRM solution for NWC Inc. We were impressed with its customization and general functionality. Its feature set provided everything we required at a reasonable price. The customer-service portal was more than acceptable and required fewer modifications to our infrastructure than Microsoft's product. ACCPAC also supported our B2C model better than its competitors. The only software more flexible in this regard was Soffront's, but the base product does not include a customer-service portal--an unfortunate Achilles' heel.
With its easy customization, painless installation and well-rounded feature set, ACCPAC CRM handily won our Editor's Choice award for midmarket CRM solutions. This product starts off on the right foot by including all the required software. Unlike Microsoft's CRM, ACCPAC required no preinstallation software or configuration changes before we began.
Customizing ACCPAC CRM was a pleasant experience. We could extend tables and customize screens to include company-specific fields from within a browser. These capabilities greatly influenced our choice of ACCPAC, because no business will align perfectly with the database schemas a CRM vendor supplies. Industry-specific fields or ones necessary to the organization's business process are inevitable. Only Soffront was more flexible in this regard, as it let us completely define our data schemas without losing anything in the translation.
