Commence CRM Reviews & Product Details

Feature rich product Easy to use Rapid return on investment Very good customer support. We looked at many CRM programs and we felt that Commence gave us the best bang for the buck for what we needed it to go. Happy with what the program allows us to do and the reports it allows us to create. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We sell an amazing product to large educational institutions. The sales cycle can be quite long which requires us to capture and store a significant amount of data such as, notes and history, activities, documents and e-mail correspondence. We had been using multiple systems to manage our business and were simply fumbling every time we needed a complete historical profile of customer information. In addition it was almost impossible to maintain. Commence CRM has been invaluable to us. We now have one consolidated system for managing our customer relationships and since everything is stored in the cloud we have access to the most up-to-date information anytime and anywhere. We are pleased with the product and Commence customer service has been excellent. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We have been using Commence for over 20 years and although we look at other apps from time to time, we have yet to find anything that is as complete a solution.

Our business is optimising workflow processes for our clients, therefore our own foundation revolves around strict processes and Commence can easily be moulded to meet these.

The synchronisation is excellent and the best of both worlds by allowing 100% functionality when away from the office and also when offline.

We recently upgraded to the latest Microsoft offerings and Commence just carried on working without modification. If only all apps did this. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is a web hosted version of Commence called OnDemand which is excellent but not as powerful as the RM edition which we use. The RM edition works great on Windows tablets but we would also like it to offer the same functionality on Android and Mac devices. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We have used Commence RM Enterprise Edition for 17 years. We have hosted the Commence server on our network this whole time and did not use their Cloud based solution. The best aspect I think is the ability to customize it to our needs. I have developed it from scratch and designed integrated modules for customer interactions, sales call reporting, sales lead handling, expense report submissions, marketing campaigns, project management, catalog fulfillment, etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Client-server synchronization and connectivity to other databases have been issues ever since we started using Commence. Commence is a distributed database, which means that each client has its own copy (as opposed to centralized database, which only has a single copy that each user needs to connect to in order to use it). The distributed database is great for a situation when a user needs to access the data in remote locations without good access to Internet. The local database can be used regardless of the connectivity. The down side of this solution is that the client databases must be synchronized with the server database regularly. If you have a large database, this probably needs to be done daily and the process may be slow and prone to glitches. I get a call every week to fix someone’s synchronization issue. If you go with the Cloud solution, you won’t have the synchronization problem but each client has to connect to the server (via Internet browser) in order to view information or make changes. Second weak point is the connectivity to other databases. While it is available, it has proven to be temperamental. I maintain a separate system for manually updating the system for when this happens – but it is time consuming for our (relatively large) database. I inquired with Commence about moving our current database to their Cloud solution, but I was told that we could not keep the current database. We’d have to switch to the out of the box database they provide. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We found Commence CRM to be that perfect balance between low cost solutions that offer basic functionality and the mainstream offerings like Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce.com that offer the world, but are expensive and cumbersome to use. We like the user interface of Commence which is very intuitive and you can tailor the solution quickly and efficiently using the built in administrative tools. Other strong features include a customizable dashboard and excellent reporting including built in analytics. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

So far we haven't found much to dislike about Commence CRM but, as with all cloud based solutions, continuity of service is dependent on our internet connection. Thankfully in our area connectivity is pretty stable though. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

In addition to contact management and sales opportunity management you can add modules for marketing, customer service and project management and at a fair price. Customer service has been excellent and the staff is friendly and knowledgeable. We have found the system to be very intuitive and easy to use and we plan to add other modules shortly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have no complaints. Commence CRM meets our team's expectations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

On the topic of CRM and SFA, the functionality and architecture of Commence has shown me time and time again that not only are there no boundaries when it comes to functionality, but it has also proved to be a platform that can be owned and managed on my own (without the additional need and additional cost of constantly going back to a vendor to add/modify/tweak). Sales today is an open platform where the need for timely information dictates success. Other CRM systems I have used and managed present barriers as it relates to ownership and data. Because Commence is a neutral platform I can add/modify/revamp my system as needed and have the changes and workflows transmit themselves throughout my company without having to go through some vendor or third party. I can do I want without limits. I don't have to pay a special charge or a service fee. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface could use some modernization and it would be nice to have better data mining tools (say, through Excel) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Commence provides all the capabilities required for managing our customer information. It is easy to use and training new staff on the basics is done very quickly. We are able to easily make Commence suit our business processes, tracking all customer information. Commence is also tightly integrated with our Outlook implementation, seamlessly tracking emails in and out for each contact. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We need to be careful not to over-use the flexibility and properly manage changes - to avoid ugly colour schemes and data tables that get too complex. This simply requires a little management, and use of the permissions system to ensure only authorised users can make system changes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The powerful syncing capabilities, works on- and offline, very rich functionality, easily tailored to different and changing needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The interface of the desktop product is a little outdated but that is absolutely no issue if you take into account the extreme power for the end-user as well as they IT department in tailoring and adding custom functionality in no time Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.