Salsa CRM Erfahrungen

What I like most about Salsa Labs is the ease of use. Although as the administrator I am in the database daily, everyone on my team can easily find what they need and update donor profiles, and find out information about donors. The robust queries is also huge for me. The fact that I can easily segment out multiple layers of donors makes my job much easier. So far there has not been an output that I am looking for that I can not get through Salsa queries. The integrated emails and unlimited donation pages are also wonderful and have reduced the number of platforms we have to use.

I do wish there was a little bit more integration between the CRM and the Engage side of the systems. Currently if I send out an email blast it does not add a note or activity to the donor's profile on the CRM side saying this was sent. Currently I have to add them to a group and then add a note to their profile. There are a couple of other little items that are more wish list items rather than items I have to have in a CRM. Also, the customer support, although they are always helpful, it is sometimes hard to get ahold of them. Emails usually take a good 3-7 days to answer (sometimes mores) and if I call I am on hold for a good 15-30 min sometimes. It is nice that I can call anytime, but frustrating that it can take awhile to get ahold of anyone.

The Engage portion is ok, email integration, but still doesn't push info into CRM, or CRM does not push to Engage.

The CRM does not work for Canadian organisations with regard to receipting - big fail! It also doesn't automatically process direct debit donations, big fail! TERRIBLE response from support team. Reports are flawed, have holes, there are more workarounds to make sure that the right things are included and excluded.

The customer support is excellent. It is fairly easy to learn and use.

Engage

There are some inconsistencies with email set up. I HATE the way the email series set ups are, the scheduling is horrible, it should just use a calendar like a regular blast.

When exporting any report from engage id like some options for what I info is included in report.

I love the dashboard features that give you a quick glance across the board, ease of targeting list members, and the new event functions. Running our events through Salsa has made a huge fundraising difference for us.

I realize these are small things, but for our organization, would be tremendously helpful -- the ability to embed RSS feeds and videos into email would make this an ideal tool.

the huge body of information that can be stored; the tech help that is available with a simple phone call

learning curve can be difficult to get through. the page face is overwhelming (why all of the brown space?)

Salsa is much better than our previous experience with another vendor who will remain un-named. Generating reports is easy and the database is easy to work with.

Most important to us is the support provided by Salsa. I am able to reach them during business hours and they spend the time needed to solve any issues. They are clearly customer oriented. Many others I researched charged extra for this level of service. With Salsa it is included.

Does not link to other email providers. It would be nice to be able to use Constant Contact or another email provider and have it link directly to the program. Engage is nice, but is some cases not as easy to use as are the other email service providers.

Having said that we are very satisfied with our use of Salsa overall and have no plans to go looking for anyone else.

Salsa CRM is user friendly and easy to learn. After using similar products this one is the best I have seen and so is their support team! The team goes above and beyond when training and that great service even extends even after training is complete. I always recognize familiar names and voices when I call/email with questions. The also offer online help and training videos so you can stay up-to-date on new functions that may benefit your organization. Salsa CRM offers a fantastic product and the support to meet your needs. They communicate with their customers well and are always updating information for the customers and asking for feedback to make the experience better.

There is no one thing I would change. If there is something I think may have an idea or have a suggestion, I can submit to Salsa CRM. They always respond to customer feedback and review to see if in is something that can/should be implemented.

*Helpful and responsive customer service - Clay is wonderful!
*Reporting provides fantastic and detailed snapshot

*Need training to understand how to use product; Not extremely user-friendly initially
*Rather dull display

I like the event module. It makes keeping track of quests pretty easy without needing to also track in an Excel file.

It is easy to get your query results into Excel.

I find that many things in Donor Pro are hidden or just not intuitive. There is not a lot of help once you get past the basic training. Here is a direct quote from Tech Support: "I encourage you to experiment with this tool. It is a little "hidden," so I am not surprised that you were not aware of it."

I am disappointed that many query fields are only available with certain queries (donation versus constituent), so if you are looking for two different pieces of information, you need to run a query, save your results, and then run another query just to get basic information.

I am also frustrated that there is no "key" to decode query fields. There is no way to know the difference between First Gift and First Gift Ever if you don't ask. I have also found fields in canned reports that have no explanation of what they are pulling.

I appreciate these features: donor cultivation, tasks, custom fields, finance summery options (batches etc), custom appeals and campaigns. The custom campaigns and appeals are perfect for businesses that have multiple and/or ongoing events.

The Salsa Labs Email product needs some serious updates. Such as E-Mail themes and easy to use forms. The forms are prehistoric compared to other email marketing products (such as constant contacts).
Because of the merge of Donor Pro and Salsa, I have to manage three separate accounts (including merchant services) which can take a lot of my time.
The help site offers some good training videos but does not always cover the specific questions or topics that I need. This requires more time watching videos in hope that I get my answers.
I have usually okay customer service but often get referred to a manager to get my answers.
There needs to be more customization properties to the event form to tailor to certain events (individuals vs. teams) and integrating payments according to the sign-up forms.

With Salsa we were able to compile the information that lived on spreadsheets into one database that is very functional. The ability to look at the history of our donors and to pull reports has enabled us to make better decisions. We were able to implement a major gifts program after purchasing the software.

It took a few tries to figure out the word processor, but it was worth the effort. The individual letter editing saved lots of time.

I love that you can store queries and easily edit them to run a completely different report in just a few clicks. Queries are easy to create once you get the hang of it.

I'm not too keen on the event module. It's just never been something that has worked for our organization. I know many others who love it, but it's just never really worked for us.

Quick system, easy to navigate, affordable, great training materials, syncs with Constant Contact

I wish that we could upload contacts and donations from an excel spreadsheet into the system.

There is a lot of functionality. We seem to be able to do a lot of different things with it. It seems to integrate well with our other platforms.

It's a little complicated. Short training was sufficient to get us going but I think in order to use it in a more in-depth way, we would need more time on training.

I like the things I can do - like go into a file and have a wealth of info. Again, the Help Desk -- that I like best..

That there are many, many things on it that we do not need or use. If we could just have our needs, it would probably be more cost efficient.

Salsa CRM consolidated our record keeping into one online platform. We can now do event management, donation tracking, donor communications and so much more with this one solution. Since it is a new merger, it is extremely affordable for all of the functionality.

The transition to the new software was a bit rocky but we were transferring information from several other platforms.

Ease of use, reports robust, ability to ask donor to cover fees, custom fields in various areas to cover what the database doesn't.

Cost per person instead of range, no user forum or place to add suggestions for improvment in an easy and transparent way, password functionality misfunctions, would like to see Salsa Engage more user friendly like Constant Contact in terms of creating a newsletter or fundraising page from template, linking membership to gifts, no automatic save function, or reminder to save;

Variety of uses, easy to use basic functions, wonderful experiences with customer service, essential to my job everyday

Not knowing all the ways to use it, challenging to produce reports that require multiple steps, difficult because I do not know a lot about the program or Excel