Greetings!
For today’s Tech Tip, I’m going to start by advising you what NOT to do. Specifically, using WordPress plugins for customer relationship management (CRM) purposes.
Yesterday I spent almost 4 hours investigating 3 different plugins (I won’t name them, except to say, none of them fit my purposes) and unfortunately the same issues emerged:
- Installing password protection on them was wonky in more ways that I can describe, using both free plugins and even the otherwise amazing Wishlist Member (I still think Wishlist is amazing; it’s probably the CRM plugins that were wonky).
- When I ran tests to see if I could access sample client data without being logged in… I could. All too easily. (How can I share necessary candid observations with my team if that’s the case?)
- I wasn’t convinced they weren’t Google-spiderable even though I used just about every “block search engines” protocol known to mankind.
At the same time, I really didn’t want to spend a ton of money on an expensive CRM that only three people need access to that I just need to collate contact information and contact notes. I’m not miserly, and my clients know I get visibly and verbally annoyed when hairs get split over pennies at the expense of smart investments in progress, but CRMs are usually very expensive.
I’m not ready for Infusionsoft either since my current shopping cart works just fine – so that wasn’t an option for us either, not today at least.
After doing some homework and taking a few trials, we’ve landed on a resource called Highrise that meets all of our needs – ease of use, ease of sharing information among the team, ease of keeping a record, ease of tagging and sorting, and most of all, security.
Their $25/month plan (which has a 30 day free trial) is loaded with features. We just created the account today and my team has been all over it like a cat on Temptations kitty treats.
I’ll apprise you in about 30 days on how it’s working out for us and what we come up with as some of the best benefits from implementing this. Once we fully get our internal process down, I’ll shoot a quick vid on it. In the meantime, if you have questions, I’d love to have you bend my ear for a few minutes and I’ll throw in a few tips to help your website convert better.
Emancipate The POWER Of INFORMATION!
All good things,
- ARH
P.S. Tuesday Tech Tips are for YOU! Please ask your internet marketing technology questions below in the Comments area, and we’ll answer them in future editions.















