Watersidewest produces bespoke lifestyle magazines that are independently published covering entertainment, sport and other local content. The magazines cover a wide variety of locations from small coastal resort towns to London itself.

With over 40 years of publishing experience, Watersidewest provides local franchisees with the support they need in design, content and advertising to become sustainable fixtures of their communities.

Before RealtimeCRM there was Salesforce and Act!

Maurice and his team had previously tried many different applications to manage their business, such as Salesforce and Act!, but nothing they tried fit them as they needed, and often came with a high price.

A common complaint was that they found themselves tied to long, expensive contracts which promised much, but disappointed in service. With Salesforce they found the application complex and clunky to use. With Act! they had many technical issues, such as long downtimes after an upgrade, problems integrating with Outlook and Linkedin, and the Act! desktop client being resource intensive and causing slowdowns.

They would have left Act! sooner, but were prevented by a lengthy contract. Although unhappy with the product, sunk costs and familiarity kept them hooked, but it was not an ideal situation and Maurice was looking for an alternative that was more cost effective, simpler and reliable.

Getting the reliability and support they need

Maurice signed up for RealtimeCRM. The price point was attractive but even more so the fact that he wasn’t tied to a long term contract. Better still, with no hidden extras or catches he knew what he was paying for. With Act! he was used to paying for customization and extra features, so enjoyed the unlimited free trial of RealtimeCRM.

With access to the full system and everything included at one price, he had confidence to move forward. There were no extra charges for integrations such as VoIP which enables dialling contacts out of RealtimeCRM itself which Maurice loves. It’s convenient, simple and saves time.

The team love how simple the system is to use. It doesn’t require a massive investment of time upfront to get to grips with it, and certain tasks are done by RealtimeCRM itself. For example, he now just takes photos of any business cards he receives from potential clients and RealtimeCRM does the hard work of creating a new contact record.

Plus any questions he has no matter how small are answered promptly by RealtimeCRM’s developers who take the time to understand his needs and provide a solution that really fits. It’s a big change from previously having to just work around issues that would crop up whereas now Maurice feels listened to and that the team at RealtimeCRM are doing their best to solve any problems and keep him up to date so he doesn’t feel forgotten or taken for granted.