Method Community

So I've been using Method for a while now, and I like it's capabilities....it's one of the few that interfaces with Quickbooks, and it seems many are running from the QB interface....hopefully Method keeps it up...

Few things I'd really like to get more info on as these have had me actually looking for another CRM...

1.) Interface - the classic is old, but very powerful, and I know Method new is coming out.  I am running Method New Beta and it looks promising but still lacks some functionality and is a bit cumbersone....Some CRM packages have dashboards that are very easy to navigate and create tasks, email customers, etc...  For example in Method - to send a quote to a customer contact, I can't just click on the contact's name and send an email or quote...can we potentially change the way this is done to make it more simple and streamlined?

2.)  Social - would really LOVE the ability to chat with other users in real time.

3.) Email interface - one package I was looking at actually synchronized with Google Apps email, and put all emails related to a particular customer contact into a very neatly organized tab for each customer - this is a huge feature to have and I'd love to see it if at all possible (Affinity Live is the package I am referring to)...

4.) Speed - it's very slow compared to many packages out there...it makes for an unplesant experince.  Method New seems to be a little better, but still slow in comparison....  Is it just the type of servers Method uses or the code that dictates speed?  Zoho, Salesforce, Sugar - they are very fast in comparison...

So, that being said, is there a chance we could see social collaboration between users via some chat engine, possible better email integration and email handing?  I'd really love to stick with Method and these things are super important to us.  Speed - any improvements on the horizon?

Hi industrialrobotix,

1) What you see in the Method New beta is going to be very close to what you see after launch. We are in beta, so it will not be exactly the same, but most of the changes will be bug fixes, minor tweaks and some additional apps. 

I’m not sure that I understand how you would like to send a quote. Since the quote (estimate) you create in Method will be synced to QuickBooks (QB), you will first need to create the quote before emailing it.

2) Adding chat would be an enormous undertaking for us. Is this something that is absolutely necessary to have built into your CRM? If you’re using Google apps, you can already do this using hangouts or you could subscribe to a business chat service such as Slack.

3) We already sync with Google calendar and we have a gadget for integration with Gmail. Have you tried using the gadget? If so, what features is it missing that you would like to see? Is there a link that you can send me that explains this feature for Affinity Live?

4) We have already made some significant speed improvements since we launched the Method New beta. This is certainly an ongoing effort and we are constantly working to improve the performance of Method New. We promised you speed and we want to deliver!

You do have to keep in mind that Method isn’t just a standard “one size fits all” CRM. We are building a customizable platform. One of the cons of this is that it is extremely difficult to keep up with the performance of these other standard CRMs. The pros are that you can customize your workflow to make it as efficient as possible and that you eliminate double data entry by having it sync with QB.

You may be able to resolve #1 using this customization. If you have a standard quote that you send out to most of your customers, you could customize a workflow that would allow you to create & email this quote with the click of a button.

-Audisho

Esssentially when I send a quote, I'd like to be able to select the contact I am sending it to.  Right now I can't select a particular contact if there are multiple contacts for an account....  It would be great to have a drop down to select the contact for the account when sending an estimate.

A good example of the email would be Affinity Live  https://www.affinitylive.com/products/crm/

Hi industrialrobotix,

By default, Method will send transaction emails to all of the customer’s contacts that have the “Opt-out of Billing?” box unchecked (set to ‘No’ in Method New). All of this is processed by the screen when you select the send email button. Creating a workflow that allows you to select the contacts that you want to send the transaction email to is certainly possible through customization and there are a number of ways that you can accomplish this depending on your requirements.

One way I can think of immediately is using a grid for the Contacts table filtering for the contacts for the customer that the transaction is for. You could check a box for each contact that you want to email the transaction to and build an action set on a button for processing and sending the email to these checked contacts.

I did take a glance at affinity live, but I am not familiar with their product. They appear to have a Gmail gadget as well. Are there any specific features that they offer with their gadget that we do not that you would like to see?

-Audisho