Sugar CRM rated last place according to eWeek?

[tholcomb]

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on this eWeek article. Just to be clear, my Sales team is using it, their manager loves Sugar and as people learn how to use what they got, they are asking for more features that could very well lead us to the Pro version. I'm not hating on SugarCRM - I'm interested in knowing what people think about this survey, what Sugar has to say in response to this article and whatever else folks want to toss in.

Here is the link:
Customer Respect Group Rates CRM Vendors
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1961569,00.asp

And here is a meaty quote to get the conversation started:

To Golesworthy's way of thinking, the way a CRM vendor treats its own customers is a "leading indicator" as to how well they understand the customer relationship.

The study compared services from on-premises and on-demand vendors, providing each with a Customer Respect Index score.

The companies include, in order of their overall CRI ranking: Salesforce.com (which rated the highest at 6.7 out of 10 possible points), RightNow Technologies on-demand (6.6), SAP on-demand (6.4), Maximizer Software on-premises (6.2), Oracle on-premises (6.1), SalesNet on-demand and FrontRange Solutions on-premises (both 5.8), Pivotal on-premises (5.6), NetSuite on-demand (5.5), Microsoft on-premises (5.2), AmDocs on-premises (5.1), Siebel/Oracle on-demand (4.9), Sage on-premises (4.7), and Sugar on-demand (4.5).

Customer Respect Group Rates CRM Vendors
By Renee Boucher Ferguson
May 12, 2006

I'd be interested to know if SugarCRM is getting better or stagnating on the customer service front? I might guess that they are getting better.

[stevec]

Hi,

Interesting - one thing to bear in mind is that the sugar version they compared was the on-demand version and not the on-premises version (some of the products included was on-premises so it seems a bit of a strange comparison). Sugar seems to be primarily used as an on-premises open-source application so the support / vendor levels are not compatible with the others.

It would be interesting to see what the score would be if it was attitudes to the application and not vendor support.

[Angel]

My 2 cents worth...

I agree with Steve's point about comparing apples to oranges and would add the following observations.

Most important observation for me is that Sugar is being lumped into the same group with the "big boys" of CRM, i.e. Siebel/Oracle, Sage and SAP. As far as I can tell, Sugar is the only open source vendor on that list. It is a clear signal from those outside the Sugar community that Sugar has arrived at the point where it is considered and identified as a major player. In my opinion, that's huge and was the biggest take away from that article!

Secondly, reports like these tend to be misleading and one has to know how to measure their value. For one, it talks about the responsiveness of a vendor as being a factor for gauging performance. While it is true that it is important to receive prompt responses, in my opinion, it is of more value to get a *correct* and appropriate response, even if it takes a little longer to receive that response.

I know I've had a number of experiences where I submit a support request to a vendor and immediately I get acknowledgement that they've received my request. Then I don't ever hear from them again, or I hear back from them a couple of days later with questions for which the answers could be found in my original request. In either case, both communications from the vendor are of little value to me.

Obvioulsy, without knowing exactly how the performance of each vendor was measured, it is difficult to ascertain whether such situations would be applicable or not, but my point remains that one has to know how to measure the value of these reports rather than accept them as is.

[george_bbch]

If I'm supposed to compare the on-demand and on-premises, then:
- on-demand shall be probably more stable, because it's managed by in-house skilled support people
- on premise shall be more available because it's involving a more reliable LAN connection instead of Internet access

It's understandable that the main focus stays on product development, yet support is also critical for the Sugar customer satisfaction. I am also a "Sugar fan", but I'm not yet happy with the support services: I'd appreciate both an immediate acknowledgement of a new support case, and a fast and competent reply. So far, none of these happened. Our system is no longer operational since almost a week, and if this were not a test system, it would be a HUGE problem. I've filed the problem as a Priority 1, yet it has been downgraded to P2; the support personnel reacted promptly, but couldn't help too much. Actually, the support services are described only for P1 cases - although these are not clearly defined. No mention about the other levels, escalation procedures, etc. I've also requested an offer for Extended and Premium support several days ago - so far, silence... In other (lower priority) cases, I've already repeated my request or sent reminders. There is definitely some room for improvement here.

[charrick]

I am obviously biased here, but one point we need to bring up here is the objectivity of the research. This report was written by the Customer Respect Group but under written by Select Selling, a Salesforce.com partner. You can see their associations with SFDC here:

http://www.salesforce.com/partners/s...00000019NOgAAM

http://www.selectselling.com/Strateg...sp/HomeForm.do

Custom Research like this is a dirty old trick when a firm pays an 'objective' third-party to trash its competition. In that light, last place can be viewed as a compliment.

Chris

[tholcomb]

Most important observation for me is that Sugar is being lumped into the same group with the "big boys" of CRM, i.e. Siebel/Oracle, Sage and SAP. As far as I can tell, Sugar is the only open source vendor on that list. It is a clear signal from those outside the Sugar community that Sugar has arrived at the point where it is considered and identified as a major player. In my opinion, that's huge and was the biggest take away from that article!

I'm inclined to agree with you. I think I could argue your other points one way or the other - but you know - one has to measure something in this kind of study.

Anyway, I hadn't thought about the "open" vs. closed source vendor angle - excellent point.

[tholcomb]

One point we need to bring up here is the objectivity of the research. This report was written by the Customer Respect Group but under written by Select Selling, a Salesforce.com partner. You can see their associations with SFDC here:

http://www.salesforce.com/partners/s...00000019NOgAAM

http://www.selectselling.com/Strateg...sp/HomeForm.do

Custom Research like this is a dirty old trick when a firm pays an 'objective' third-party to trash its competition. In that light, last place can be viewed as a compliment.

Chris

Excellent observation. I knew I'd enjoy the eWeek article more by getting comments here

[clint]

As some of you may know, I've got executive responsibility for the customer support department here at SugarCRM.

To be completely frank, I don't give this survey much credence at all. We were never aware that it was happening, none of our customers have ever claimed that they participated in it and we haven't been able to get any more details behind how they came up with those magic rating numbers.

As Chris mentioned above, we have decided to not give this survey much thought other than to smile that we are now included with the "big boys" as Angel put it.

George, I'm sorry to hear that you have been less than satisfied with your experiences with my support team to date. I've sent you an email to arrange a phone call to discuss this with you in more detail at your earliest convenience.

Regards,
Clint

[palmtree]

Agreed. The sole fact of being mentioned is good news right there.

[tholcomb]

Agreed. The sole fact of being mentioned is good news right there.

Of course - this doesn't mean that there isn't room for improving the customer support process - right?

The way I see it, if someone doesn't purchase a support package - that is, if someone isn't a paying customer, SugarCRM's not really obligated to provide support.*

But if a customer has purchased a support contract, or purchased some form of SugarCRM product, I think Sugar should have clear expectations in place so the customer knows what is and is not included et cetera. And Sugar may already have this...

I'm not a paying customer so I wouldn't know - I'd be curious to know, from an "objective" source (as well as from some at Sugar) how Sugar grades on support & customer service. Especially since I can see a time when my company might need the benefits of a paid product.

Clint, does Sugar keep support stats? Can you share more on Sugar's support methods and how your support staff is measured (internally) to be doing well or not? Do you measure customer satisfaction? Case resolution? et cetera...

____________________________________________

*A quick end note: While Sugar isn't obligated to provide support, a certain level provided for the SugarCRM OpenSource users might be useful for Sugar (the company) as a way to up sell users who's needs are not met by the OS product. Such an approach might also generate a higher level of good will that leads to a wider adoption of SugarCRM which will only help the synergistic benefits of scale that the best open source products/projects enjoy - in the end, still driving up sales for SugarCRM. At least - IMHO.