Open Source CRM Software
Everything i found when hunting for open source crm software was too heavy for my tastes. I ended up having to write one of my own. If you’d like to try it out, you’re more than welcome. I think I’ll call it OpenCRM
When I got to TheCabinetFolks, things were pretty slow. The country was in a recession (4/08) and there weren't a whole lot of new houses going up. Thunderbird with some filters set up were plenty for me to keep track of leads and customers. Then we got mentioned in a popular newsletter, and all hell broke loose. I went from dealing with a couple people to hundreds, pretty near instantly. I needed a crm solution.
I couldn't find anything that fit my needs exactly (who can, right) in fact I couldn't find anything that even remotely did what I needed. I didn't have time to learn all the ins and outs of the bigger name CRM packages out there. I didn't have time at work to do much but tread water for a few weeks actually, and ended up deciding to code something in a hurry at home. The result is OSCRM. Pronounce it Oscrum maybe?
You'll find it here at the temporary OSCRM home if you're interested. Login name is joebob and the pass is frank.
TheCabinetFolks is a dead site now; we've stopped selling cabinets online. I knew all the while though that I'd like to release OSCRM to anyone who wants it. I've started setting it up on Sourceforge and giving it a bit of polish. Remember, it was for me primarily, and I didn't care how ugly it was. Hence the look. Here are a couple of things you'll want to know…
Customers are color coded. The redder the background is, the more attention they require. Someone who has only initially contacted you and hasn't heard back yet will be bright red. A customer who has already bought and paid for whatever it was you sold them will be a nice green. There are a few shades in between, depending on where they're at in the process.
Speaking of process, I broke it down into seven; you may want something different.
New: These were people who had filled out the contact form on our website, and I'd entered them into the system, but that was as far as I'd gotten. I had this status because I'd enter new people in batches, and didn't want to get into adding notes or doing quotes until I had them in.
Contacted: Folks got marked as contacted if I'd sent them any email or called them. The initial contacts were usually questions about the plan or list of cabinets that they'd uploaded. Most of the time, initial correspondence was "Do you HAVE a plan or list?". I eventually started asking that right off the bat if someone didn't send me anything to quote with, BEFORE I entered any information in the CRM. I got sick of typing stuff only to find that the people who contacted wouldn't respond to emails. When I got a reply, I then entered their info into the CRM and marked them Contacted.
Quoted meant I'd given them a price for whatever it was they wanted. We could be in this stage a while as changes were made to get the price where they wanted it.
Ordered: People marked Ordered had given us enough money to get the order going.
Done: Well, enough said.
Tabled: These were folks who had a car accident, whose children died (both happened) or had some other reason to put off a kitchen for some lengthy period of time but still wanted the kitchen. I had a "Contact Date" in the notes for when I could start the process again with them.
Contractors: These were builders around the country who had more of an ongoing type relationship with us. We never had anyone buy more than two from us (we didn't stay open long enough is my opinion) but I already know that the current setup was probably not adequate for that. If I'd set up some sort of subaccount scheme (with their customers' names being the subaccount job names), then it would be fine.
Lost: These folks were unfortunately not going to be doing business with us. I kept them for a while in the Lost category, but cleaned house every few months.
Let me know how you make out with it. You'll have to comment over here or shoot me an email; there's no way to contact me from within the app.
Written by:
Craig
