Saloob, Inc.

Background

Our client needed to ramp up their internal processes, data management, customer, partner and staff management.

They had a dormant account with Salesforce that they requested us to continue using.

We got them to contact Salesforce to get the previous Admin's account re-sent to the new Admin.

We said that CRM was an imperative - and needed to be set up immediately.
We assumed we would get access within an hour or so.

Here is how this played out;

Password Request - After one week with no reply from this CRM! SaaS provider (Salesforce.com) - our Client had to send another email urging them to move faster. After another day or two, one of their staff replied to our client and requested they send a form to request this. This was done.

After another couple days, our Client contacted them again asking where the access was. They replied showing the email - they had in fact used the wrong email account to send it out to the Client. After that they got the email correct and we got access.

We hadn't accessed Salesforce for over 2 years as we had been focused on SugarCRM. It was a real surprise to see how "normal" it was. Just normal and nothing striking about it except the multiple limitations.

We knew exactly what we wanted to do and the features needed - as CRM modelling for our Clients is one of our key points.

We fixed some old staff accounts and soon hit a user limitation. We tried a few links here and there to try and find a page to upgrade or add users - but it took us to some page offering a completely un-related package and no mention of user count, etc. Oh well, we needed to move along, so we planned to just start modelling and add users later.

At first we were happy to see a number of FREE? modules that can be installed into your account. We added the Google Docs/Contacts/Calendar sync module. We then realised this needed a paid Google Business Account to use. No worries - will do that later for at least one account. Onto the next.

Went to install another FREE? module to manage Employees. Installation failed! because we had reached our limits on the number of FREE? modules we could install. One?! Hello. Is this a scam?! Anyway, we looked for the module count upgrade page or link and could not find it anywhere. We didn't have time for this, and needed to move forward so we sent an email to the Salesforce staff for explanation on the above points.

You can guess it - no reply in a few days. We were starting to wonder whether they actually used their own CRM solution to manage their customers (us). If the individual staff are responsible for when to reply and are allowed to take many days or even a week to reply to a customer's request to order more - then there is a real problem in SF processes and staff sales ability. If SF does in fact expect their staff to respond within the hour - which you might expect from a service that offers 99% service 24/7 and takes a fairly reasonable fee for it - then they need to fire their staff - or themselves.

So, a few days on, I told management that this is not looking good and recommended we try again and still if no good to move on with SugarCRM. They left that decision up to us - as we are the professionals in this field. We sent SF another email - actually a reply of our own non-answered email - with a little bit more of a stronger request for not only a reply, but information and answers.

These emails have been provided below for you to see what you think - start from the last one and work your way up.. we hope you can see we were pretty reasonable and deserved the proper courtesy of a reply. Keep in mind that our Client kept their SF account dormant for about 2 years but still paid 10 users' fees for 24 months (maybe about $2000!).

It is now 12th March - 10 days since our first fax and email was delivered. I sure hope a Salesforce manager sees this and sends a boot up someone's klushturfinktur over there!

BTW - Fax? Come on! This process somehow reflects the inherent legacy within even a supposedly modern SaaS service. Legacy mentality.

Needless to say, this experience, which could have turned out to be great for SF, completely turned us OFF Salesforce and we will not even consider it again nor will we recommend it. The reality is that it doesn't really provide any substantial benefits over SugarCRM in features. In fact, it rates worse. Go figure!

(But we are glad we gave SF a very fair go)

So, with SugarCRM...

 We have now set up SugarCRM with the following;

• UNLIMITED users with;
  • Fine-grained permission-based roles to access;
    • Leads
    • Opportunities
    • Projects & Tasks
    • Clients Accounts & Contacts
    • Documents
    • Campaigns
    • much more...
• 10+ FREE Modules
• Our OWN domain
• Integration with Drupal CMS for leads and campaigns
• Synchronisation with FREE Funambol for Outlook, iPhone, Blackberry, Thunderbird, etc
• Imported 70+ Staff
• Imported all current Clients
• Synchronising all Staff Contacts and matching to Clients
• xGB Disk space on our own server - no real limitations

This - all in one day!

Bring it on SugarCRM!

Email Exchange #10 (After No Reply, Still un-answered)

Hi YYYYY,

I haven't received a reply from you regarding my email below. We are now ramping up everything and need to move on this asap. I just went over Salesforce, here is my overview;

* It works well - normal.
* The module installation system is well-designed and a decent number of modules are available, however;
I couldn't demo them (kept sending me to the login page with no password but this email: XXXXXX)

It wouldn't allow FREE module installs with a message stating we had hit our limit of FREE modules! (SF trap) - when we only had one (Google) - which we couldn't use because it required a special Google Business Account to activate.

There was no clear way to increase the limits of the FREE module install count (you will lose potential revenue);
Is there an automated way to do this? Do we need to "negotiate" with a human (like I am, now)?
One module install failed because we didn't have the "campaign" module installed - but I could not find this anywhere..where can this be found or installed from?

We need to manage;
* 10-15 core people (maybe more later) and
* Up to 100 staff  - these will have minor activity, but would be good to allow them to add notes, etc. Paying a full user license for them is too much - is there another way to do this? Would the Employee Module allow them to access (not as a User) and manage basic info?

* Can Contacts get access to SF and update their own info or access data we want them to see?

* Is there a limit on number of Accounts and Contacts we can add?

Please let me know what $$ you expect for us to get 15 core users, 100 employee/note-updaters, 1-10 FREE modules, etc.

I am really tempted to drop this, but if you can come back to me with something reasonable, I will consider staying with SF. It seems;
* Your replies so far are inadequate in speed
* Adding things to SF requires too much messing around, and
* The eventual cost traps you have in place may make it not a feasible option

Please get back to me by this evening Japan time.
(Also with replies to my previous email regarding SugarCRM, etc)

Thanks in advance.

XXXXXXX
 

Email Exchange #9 (Internal)

Understood. I will hammer away at the Salesforce guys again before we decide. We don't want to wait much longer on this - we need the information working asap. Will keep you updated.

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXXX [mailto:XXXXXXX]
Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 XX:XX PM
To: XXXXXXX
Cc: XXXXXXX
Subject: Re: Salesforce/CRM

I do not have any allergy for any open source as long as the security and cost are contained. Also as long as it serves our needs I am easy. ------Original Message------
From: XXXXXXX
To: 'XXXXXXX'
Cc: XXXXXXX
ReplyTo: XXXXXXX
Subject: Salesforce/CRM
Sent: Mar 9, 2010 XX:XX PM

Email Exchange #8 (Internal)

XXXXXX,

The current Salesforce has a limit of about 10 accounts as you know. There are other restrictions in place that limit us also;

* Adding "free" modules - limit of 1-2 per account - I found a few that I thought we could use, but the system said I had already reached the maximum after just installing Google! I am not sure how far they can help or add value or meet our needs - because I can't install and test. Such as;
-> Employee Management - we need to provide "some kind" of system for
-> 60-100+ employees iPhone/Blackberry mobile usage Timesheets
-> Others

The above may become expensive - I can't see the Salesforce pricing for this - and their staff are very lazy in their replies.

I would be inclined to consider Open Source which has no limits at all, is quite flexible, free and don't need to bother you each time we need to add something. We don't want to start loading data into the system unless we decide to use it full-throttle. This really comes down to how much you are willing to invest in the Salesforce as an expense..

A nice solution, keeping local (not difficult to maintain at all) is as follows;

Virtual Server
  -> SugarCRM = free and unlimited (Staff, etc)
      * Many modules - most free
      * Google docs requires businees
      * Can develop own or use SOAP API - not so tricky
  -> Funambol (with SugarCRM connector for mobile and outlook) = free and unlimited
  -> Openbravo ERP = free and unlimited
      * Many modules - most free
      * Can develop own or use SOAP API - not so tricky
  -> VOIP - connect with multiple cheap, free and paid providers (including Japan PSTN)
  -> Other

Note: We have an idle virtualised server which we could use immediately to set this up and have it running within a few days. After set up - don't really have to touch and would be secure behind our firewalls - and some staff could get access to it from outside. This is using Parallels' Virtuozzo for Linux.

* Google Docs Account - requires a paid Google Business Account. Maybe only $50/year for one account - I am checking to see if we can use ONE - and create multiple calendars for each employee - and relate that back to the Salesforce account.

* Salesforce mobility is not as good as open source - it appears to be only web-based - whereas open source method syncs directly to the device contacts & calendar.

I will check some more things out, wait for SF staff to reply - if ever they do - and your comments on the above.

XXXXXX

Email Exchange #7 (Finally - access & first request for Info)

Hi YYYYYY,

Thank you - we have access now.
I am checking it out now - we will decide whether to continue the contract or not after my review. We are considering using either;
* In-house SugarCRM (We have HEAPS of experience with this)
* Hosted SugarCRM
* Salesforce.com (We have some experience with this)

Issues will be; price per user, overall TCO, synchronisation with mobile, Outlook, Gmail (docs, calendar, wave, etc), ability to use 3rd party modules/addons (and their respective costs if any), etc.

We might like to discuss our contract with you and if we are to keep it going - a better price agreement and even added features that can meet the above requirements.

Please let me know what your ideas are for the above.

Best Regards,

XXXXXX

-----Original Message-----
From: YYYYYY [mailto:YYYYYY@salesforce.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 XX:XX AM
To: XXXXXXX
Cc: XXXXXXX; XXXXXXX
Subject: RE: Case XXXXXXX: Change System Admin - Fax [ ref:XXXXXXX:ref ]
 

Email Exchange #6 (Password re-send by SF)

Hi XXXXX

I apologize for this delay due to the misspelling. I have made this change and reset the password for the sysadmin user record.

YYYYYY
salesforce.com
E-mail: YYYYYY@salesforce.com
 

Email Exchange #5 (Notify SF of WRONG email address)

YYYYYY,

Thanks for your email. Unfortunately, the email address of XXXX is wrong and it should be CORRECT EMAIL Please can you resend the email to the above address as soon as you get a chance? Also, please can you copy XXXX (email address is above and XXXXX is XXXXX's manager) as well. Thank you in advance.

Best regards,
XXXXXXXX
 

Email Exchange #4 (Password re-send with WRONG email address)

------Original Message------
From: YYYYYY
To: XXXXX
To: XXXXX
Subject: Case XXXXX: Change System Admin - Fax    [ref:XXXXX:ref ]
Sent: Mar 8, 2010 XX:XX PM

Dear XXXXX,

I have again reset the password to the system administrator user record and this email has been sent a second time to XXXX to allow him to login. Per the below email, he will need to login using the previous username of XXXX and the temporary password included in this email. H eiwll then be able to change the username and modify any user data as required.

As part of the procedure when changing the system admin email address, we have also reset the password to the user record.

Once the password has been reset, the new system admin will then need to either click the link provided in the temporary password email or login with the username and password provided in the email.

Upon  logging into Salesforce  the system admin  will  be asked to choose a permanent password and after saving the password, the system admin can access the application.

If you have any further questions please feel free to contact me via e-mail at YYYYYY@salesforce.com.

Thank You!
YYYYYY
Associate Technical Support Analyst
Salesforce.com Customer Support

Case Details:
Change System Admin - Fax

Email Exchange #3 (Internal)

XXXXX,

XXXXX said he did NOT receive this email.
Can you send me YYYYYY's email and phone number - I will try and contact her. I think their system may still be sending it to the previous guy, XXXXXXXXXXX.

Cheers!

XXXXXXXXX

Email Exchange #2 (No update after 1 week)

XXXXX,

I hope all is well. We would like you to know that we have not received any update whatsoever despite the fact that we asked you for an administrative password change request more than a week. We are getting impatient with the slow response from Salesforce. Please can you expedite? I copied this email to XXXXX  who is supposed to receive all the details from you. Please feel free to contact him or his supervisor, XXXXX if you have any issue.

Best regards,
XXXXX

Email Exchange #1 (Legacy Fax goes missing?!)

XXXXX,

Yes, we did send the letter by fax. Please can you acknowledge by return mail. It was done March 2nd your time. In addition, I am attaching the faxed letter (scanned copy) for your reference. Please can you expedite the request and respond to XXXXX as soon as you get a chance.
 
Thank you in advance for your support.

Best regards,
XXXXX

President & CEO
 

From: XXXXX [mailto:XXXXX@salesforce.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 XX:XX PM
To: XXXXX
Subject: Case XXXXX:How can I login as a System administrator? [ ref:XXXXX:ref ]

Dear XXXXX,

I hope you are doing fine.

Were you able to send the fax to request change of the system administrator's email address?

I would really appreciate if you send me a copy of it, so I can proceed with the request. 

Thank you,
XXXXX
salesforce.com

------ Your Question/Comment ------

I need to login as a system administrator.