Customer Support tools |
VTECRM |
VTIGER |
SUGAR |
| Tickets/Cases
module |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Customer
Portal |
yes |
yes |
no |
| Bugs
module |
no |
no |
yes |
| Timecards
module |
yes |
no |
no |
| Asset
module |
yes |
yes |
no |
| Service
contracts module |
yes |
yes |
no |
| Trouble-ticketing
tool (chat between CRM and Customer Portal) |
yes |
yes |
no |
| Service
Level Agreement timings |
yes |
no |
no |
| Tickets
acquisition by Customer Portal and email conversion |
yes |
yes |
no |
| Shortcut
between product rows and assets/service contracts |
yes |
no |
no |
| Tracking
of service used units by related tickets |
yes |
yes |
no |
| Tracking
of service used units by related timecards |
yes |
no |
no |
The post-sales management is quite relevant because we need to keep the customers satisfied after all the efforts we made to acquire them. VTE and Vtiger provide a complete support area but Sugar has only a few modules.
In VTE and Vtiger I find Tickets, Assets, Service Contracts; Timecards (a deeper level of Ticket) is available in VTE only. In Sugar I find Tickets and Bugs, but no one of the following features.
Customer Portal: a reserved area where customers can open new requests and share documents, directly communicating with the company via trouble-ticketing (a sort of chat).
Email-to-ticket: both Vtiger and VTE allow the conversion of email accounts into tickets.
Tracking of units: I keep track of the usage of a contract (for example the progress of a technical assistance) through Tickets and usage units. The same with Timecards in VTE (more timecards add up in one ticket).
Service Level Agreement timing: only VTE manages it, it's very important in order to provide an effective support service.
Another little trick which VTE offers is the shortcut between product rows (on Sales Order) and the related Asset/Service Contract.
| Marketing tools
|
VTECRM |
VTIGER |
SUGAR |
| Campaigns
module |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| Newsletters
module |
yes |
no |
no |
| Target/Target
list module |
yes |
no |
yes |
| Recipients
lists based on filters (accounts, contacts, leads...) |
yes |
yes |
yes |
| ROI
tool |
no |
no |
yes |
| Newsletter
sending and scheduling |
yes |
no |
yes |
| Post-sending
statistics (received, opened, clicked, unsubscribed…) |
yes |
no |
yes |
| Statistic
summary per recipient |
yes |
no |
no |
| Newsletter
templates (editor, HTML, variables) |
yes |
no |
yes |
| Fax
module |
yes |
no |
no |
| Sms
module |
yes |
no |
no |
VTE and Sugar provide more marketing features than Vtiger. The latter allows to create generic Campaigns with recipients list, but not Newsletters. In VTE and Sugar I have the possibility to send (or schedule) Newsletters (even if only VTE has a specific module), read the statistics and, of course, create newsletter templates with variables (strings of code automatically replaced by CRM content: for example, the Contact's name or the unsubscription link).
Only Sugar provides a nice ROI tool about campaigns, while VTE provides the statistic history per recipient (Contacts, Leads…).
In VTE also Fax and Sms campaigns are possible, by configuring these services
The comparison work is based on
SUGAR 6.5 COMMUNITY
VTIGER FREE 6.3
VTECRM COMMUNITY 15.05
All three the versions are free and downloadable from their official sites.
