OStatic

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) applications are emerging as some of the best available applications for on-demand use. There are few applications that you can access within a browser that are more immediately useful. While many web workers use fee-based applications such as Salesforce.com, there is a growing crop of free alternatives. In this post, I'll round up two of these that are worth looking into.

CRM (customer relationship management) software has exploded in popularity in recent years, and there are probably many web workers who have already used popular applications such as Salesforce.com. However, Salesforce.com and other on-demand (Web-based) CRM applications cost money, even though there are some perfectly good applications available for free.

Once you've figured out how to store your contact database, now you have to manage it effectively. Can you open your address book right now and pull up a name of a client, co-worker or vendor and at a glance see a record of every communication you've had with that person, including phone calls? Do you remember weeks later that you left a message that was never returned? Do you know whether or not you owe that person a phone call or note? Do you have a record of the fact that you sent them a package of materials last month? Do you link your business contacts together, so you can visually map relationships between them?