Overview

Customer relations are critical to a business’ success… and doom. Therefore, it is necessary for enterprises to foster and forge strong business relations with their clients. The advent of CRMs, or customer relations management software, has significantly changed the way businesses handle and manage their relationships with clients and potential customers.

In the CRM landscape, there are many CRM systems that have provided users with the customer relation tools and features they need. Two particular platforms, Infusionsoft and Salesforce, are among the leading names in the CRM software market.

With each of these parading its own sets of advantages, it is quite intriguing to see which one would come out on top if both are pitted against each other.

Pricing, Features, and Packaging

Infusionsoft comes in three price plans: Standard, Plus, and Premier. Here’s a breakdown of Infusionsoft’s price bundles:

• Standard – $199 per month for 2 users. Can hold up to 5,000 contacts and 500,000 emails monthly
• Plus – $299 per month for 5 users. Can store up to 20,00 contacts and 500,000 emails per month
• Premier – $499 per month for 10 users. Can hold up to 100,000 contacts and 500,000 emails a month

Among the features that you get with Infusionsoft are automatic lead scoring and listing, depending on their potential to convert; automation of manual marketing tasks, and monitoring of lead prospects in various areas such as web activity, lead purchases and custom scoring based on various criteria like demographics and a lot more.

A 30-day kickstarter package is also available for $1,999.

Salesforce has two very popular editions: Professional and Enterprise.

• Professional – $65 per user per month. The most affordable version of Salesforce today
• Enterprise – $125 per user per month. Costly, but this version is loaded with advanced functionalities designed for enterprises with complex CRM needs and specifications.

Some features that are available in the Professional edition are not offered in the Enterprise version, including customizable dashboards and quotes. An offline access is offered in the Enterprise package but for an additonal cost. Workflow module is offered exclusively in Enterprise edition or higher. A Group Edition is also available and ideal for organizations with up to 5 users.

Winner: Infusionsoft has more cost effective packages and boasts more features per price plan. Also, Salesforce has a lot of hidden charges and feature gaps.

Mail Merge and Document Handling Management

Infusionsoft makes it easy for users to merge mails. Information from contacts can be segmented into various categories for specific targeted communications. Demographic information can be fused with details from activity trackers and purchase history to create very particular lists of contacts and allow users to send out ultra targeting emails.

Salesforce, although it provides mail-merging functionalities, makes the process tedious and almost a manual task. The standard steps for creating a mail-merge within the Salesforce system is: 1) produce a CSV file, (2) send it from Salesforce.com, (3) perform the merge in Word (no history generated in Salesforce.com), (4) and individually send the merged documents back into Salesforce.com.

Extended mail-merge features can be acquired but these need to be activated via Salesforce customer service.

Winner: Infusionsoft

Sales Pipelines and Opportunity Management

Infusionsoft lets users gain access to their clients’ information from one place, which significantly eliminates the hassles that stem from juggling through multiple access systems. With customer management features like lead source, marketing and sales history, past purchases and more, you can easily see trends, produce reliable reports, and know your contacts better, thus enabling you to produce more customer-centered and improved products and services.

On the other hand, Salesforce also offers an array of opportunity management tools and sales pipeline services. Its features also include the Quoting Function. However, some features are only made available to the Enterprise version and above. The Product Catalog option is also a limited feature only available to the Professional version.

Winner: Infusionsoft

Mass Email

Everything is almost automated with Infusionsoft including marketing processes like emails. Infusionsoft streamlines email-related tasks and lets you send out mass emails to targeted clients and engage them in other forms of multimedia communications. Infusionsoft also takes pride in delivering emails to your targeted clients’ inbox 99% of the time, thanks to its integrated spam scoring setup.

On the other hand, Salesforce provides users with various options in sending emails. First option is to send emails using the Outlook Send button. While the process is very familiar, this method does not link your email to Salesforce’s records. The second option involves sending emails using the Send and Add button. Emails are delivered via Outlook and copies of the emails are added to Salesforce folder.

Winner: Infusionsoft

Conclusion

In almost every category, Infusionsoft decisively beats Salesforce, from Knowledge Base, Dashboard Management, List View Organization, and Third Party Integrations. It would be sensible to pick Infusionsoft over Salesforce if you are to choose between the two. However, Salesforce is also an effective enterprise CRM solution if managed right and implemented well.