Customer Relationship Management software and applications today are evolving, and many of them incorporating a whole host of 3rd party applications to integrate new functionality and other tools, but social media is for the most part "left out." Yes, many of them link to a customers social account but that is the extent of it. Today, CRM systems are pretty static, meaning you can just enter in data and review it for a particular contact or account, but it is not interactive and especially not integrated into the entire social ecosystem. Well, Nimble is one such company that is changing the way we know and use CRM today.
Earlier this week, I had the honor of interviewing CEO Jon Ferrara of Nimble, a Santa Monica-based company changing the way CRM is conducted in the SMB sector. Essentially, Nimble combines contact management, activity and calendar management, messaging, and social all into one platform or tool. The exciting part is it brings in all social interactions a particular contact is engaged in or with including the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, and others. So take for example, you go into your CRM system and look up John Smith...along with contact information and pending activities, you also see his Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter feeds/posts and activity. The beauty of this all, is you learn more about your customer all in one place instead of going out to the web and exploring their social profiles, and you can even interact with their Social Networking accounts all from the Nimble tool. Nimble also allows you to follow and add friends all from the Nimble platform, instead of having to go to each social platform.
About 6 months ago Nimble underwent their public launch, and about a month ago rolled-out its beta version of the Nimble CRM tool. Mr. Ferrara states that, "Nimble has roughly 40,000 unique visitors a month with about 8 percent setting up trials." Nimble also currently has about 40,000 registered users, with a large active user base who spend almost 3 hours a day actively using the software. The primary target market for Nimble is the 20 million+ SMB segment of the market or specifically businesses with up to 25 CRM users, whether the company has 25 employees or 250 employees. Nimble is also opening up its API and will continue to add 3rd party tools and add-on features, in addition to the ones it is already partnering with including MailChimp, WuFoo, and Hubspot just to name a few.
You can take their product tour by visiting here: http://www.nimble.com/how-it-works/contact-management/
Jon Ferrara is very passionate about his new business Nimble, and has had extensive experience in the CRM space having previously co-founded and sold Goldmine Software back in 1999. I will definitely be setting up Compass Intelligence with a trial to test the Nimble solution out!
The bottom line is, Social Media is being intertwined into our business lives at an increasing rate and it only makes sense to be able to connect, interact, and manage these social interactions along with existing traditional CRM functionality. For SMBs today, it is all about simplicity, productivity, and improving the customer experience, and Nimble is definitely providing these benefits today.
Stephanie Atkinson - Managing Partner at Compass Intelligence, High-Tech Consultant/Analyst, Mother, TX Aggie, Dallas native, TX hillcountry resident, Interests: Tech, Telecom, Mobility, M2M,and the use of Tech in business. You can reach her at satkinson@compassintelligence.com or follow her on twitter.
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