What is NetSuite CRM?

NetSuite CRM is a cloud-based software that provides businesses with a comprehensive, real-time view of their customers. It enables them to access vital information about opportunities, sales orders, fulfillment, renewals, upselling, cross-selling, and support. This seamless data flow empowers businesses with a 360-degree perspective of their customer interactions.

The platform offers a range of powerful capabilities, including sales force automation, marketing automation, partner relationship management, quotes and order management, and sales forecasting. This diverse set of functionalities ensures that businesses can efficiently manage their sales processes and customer relationships from end to end.

One of the key advantages of NetSuite CRM is its ability to cater to businesses of all sizes and across various industries. Integrating with existing e-commerce and ERP solutions eliminates the need for multiple applications for each business unit, streamlining operations and reducing costs.

NetSuite CRM is a flexible and scalable solution that empowers businesses to enhance customer engagement and drive growth by leveraging a centralized platform for all customer-related activities.

Difference Between NetSuite CRM and NetSuite ERP:

NetSuite CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and NetSuite ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) are distinct technologies that complement each other to enhance overall business efficiency. While they serve different purposes, they integrate seamlessly to optimize various aspects of business operations.

CRM: Customer Relationship Management focuses on improving customer service levels, marketing efforts, and sales generation. It gathers and manages customer information, automates customer-centric processes, and facilitates data coordination among internal teams.

ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning technology targets internal business operations, including inventory management, finance, human resources, and more. ERP streamlines processes by leveraging a centralized data source that spans the entire business, encompassing finance, inventory, procurement, HR, and other functions.

NetSuite and Its Classification:

NetSuite is an integrated business management software that serves as a CRM and an ERP system. It combines CRM functionalities, allowing businesses to enhance customer service, marketing, and sales, with ERP capabilities, streamlining internal operations such as finance, inventory, and HR. This unified approach enables better decision-making, facilitates real-time access to financial data, and ensures a seamless flow of information across the organization. As such, NetSuite is a comprehensive solution that unifies the entire business for improved efficiency and customer service.

Why Choose NetSuite CRM?

NetSuite CRM offers numerous advantages that make it a preferred choice for businesses:

1. User-Friendly Integration: Seamlessly integrate with third-party cloud environments and on-premises applications without coding. Leverage SOAP, CSV, and REST web services through SuiteTalk. Build custom mobile apps and website-to-NetSuite integrations effortlessly.
2. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction: Improve customer retention by providing convenient self-service options. Customers can complete transactions, submit support issues, update profiles, view order histories, and access support documentation.
3. CRM Functionality on Mobile: Stay productive on the go with mobile solutions for iOS, Android, and Windows devices, including the SuitePhone app. Manage leads, generate quotes and orders, access reports, and customize apps to match unique business needs.
4. Efficient Data Tracking: Empower sales, marketing, and service teams with personalized real-time dashboards. Monitor KPIs, call resolution time, volume, trends, renewing maintenance, and customer satisfaction.
5. Seamless E-Commerce Integration: Streamline data flow and ensure accuracy by consolidating customer interactions, information, and transactions into a single record system. Automatically track all online interactions with customers and prospects.
6. Convenient Apple Watch Updates: Apple users receive real-time key alerts on their Apple Watch, ensuring they never miss critical information or updates.
7. Efficient Case Management: Gain valuable insights into the value of each customer, lead, and client. Improve visibility into case management with time tracking tied to customer records. Track the exact time spent by team members on individual interactions.
8. App Store for Customization: Access industry-specific capabilities through bundles developed by NetSuite or third-party developers. Tailor solutions to match specialized requirements as needed.
9. Accurate Sales Forecasting: Enable sales reps and managers to forecast deals accurately and compare against pipelines at various levels. Utilize multiple forecasts and “Mood Ring” forecasts for capturing predictions as overrides. Calculate close probability, weighted amounts for opportunities and quotes, and projected revenue.
10. Informed Decision-Making: Probability-based forecasting empowers managers and sales reps to understand pending orders, quotes, and opportunities, allowing them to make necessary adjustments.

Industry Expertise: Energy, education, consulting, advertising and digital marketing, IT services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, financial services, restaurants and hospitality, wholesale distribution, and other industries are all served by NetSuite CRM. It serves start-ups, family-owned, fast-growing, PE and VC-backed, and large enterprises.

Pros:

1. Robust CRM Functionality: Users appreciate the feature-rich platform that allows efficient tracking of sales orders and activities, setting reminders, managing leads, and forecasting revenue. It also facilitates seamless integration with HR, timesheets, and invoices.
2. High Customization Capability: Over 90% of reviewers find the platform’s easy customization of reports, fields, and options a significant benefit, tailoring it to their business needs.
3. Integration with External Systems: Nearly 80% of users highlight the advantages of integrating NetSuite with systems like Tableau and Power BI, providing valuable information visualization capabilities.

Cons:

1. Steep Learning Curve: Almost 70% of users mention a considerable learning curve to fully utilize the platform’s potential, requiring substantial effort to grasp its functionalities.
2. Occasional Slowness: Some users report instances of the software experiencing slowdowns or downtime, resulting in reduced productivity during those periods.
3. Costly Investment: According to all users discussing pricing, the system is deemed expensive, which may pose a challenge for businesses with budget constraints.
4. Limitations in User Experience: Reviews about limitations highlight hidden menus, confusing dashboards, and difficulties in efficiently tracking client interactions at a macro level and scheduling routes.
5. Complexity for New Users and Small Companies: Every user mentioning complexity emphasizes that the platform can be confusing, particularly for users without prior experience and smaller companies with limited resources.

By addressing these cons and providing adequate training and support, businesses can unlock the full potential of NetSuite CRM while mitigating the challenges users might encounter.

NetSuite CRM provides businesses with a real-time, 360-degree view of customers, offering a wide range of features for seamless management of opportunities, fulfillment, renewal, upsell, cross-sell, and support. Most users highly praise its high level of customization and integration with major platforms, including BI tools for visualizations.

However, the system’s complexity results in a steep learning curve, and some users need help navigating. Occasional sluggishness has been reported, and the software is considered relatively expensive. Additionally, a few users mention certain feature limitations that need improvement.

NetSuite CRM is a comprehensive platform with robust functionalities, making it best suited for larger companies with the technical resources and budget to leverage its capabilities effectively. By overcoming the learning curve and addressing the identified limitations, businesses can fully harness the potential of this complete CRM platform.

5 Ways NetSuite CRM Differs from Other CRM Software:

1. Seamless Integration with ERP: NetSuite CRM is completely connected with the Oracle NetSuite ERP system, providing a complete end-to-end business management solution. This integration guarantees that information flows smoothly across all departments, resulting in more accurate forecasting and improved decision-making.
2. Built-in CRM Analytics: NetSuite CRM offers built-in analytics capabilities, empowering businesses to track and analyze customer behavior, sales performance, and other critical insights. This data-driven approach enables businesses to make informed decisions and improve their sales and marketing efforts.
3. Support for Multiple Channels: NetSuite CRM allows businesses to manage customer interactions consistently and personally across various channels. Whether email, phone, chat, or social media, the CRM system ensures a cohesive customer experience.
4. Customizable Workflows: The customizable processes in NetSuite CRM enable businesses to automate and streamline their sales and marketing activities. This adaptability enables organizations to adjust the CRM system to their requirements, increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
5. Scalability: NetSuite CRM is designed to scale along with a business’s growth. This scalability allows businesses to start small and expand as needed without outgrowing their CRM system or incurring significant additional costs.

By offering seamless integration, powerful analytics, multichannel support, customizable workflows, and scalability, NetSuite CRM provides a comprehensive and adaptable solution that sets it apart from other CRM software options in the market.

Key Features of NetSuite CRM:

1. Opportunity Management: Empowers the sales team with detailed information and a complete view of opportunities in the pipeline. Access prospect data, potential revenue, meeting records, notes, and status for streamlined sales and customer buying processes.
2. Contact Management: Centralized data management allows easy creation and management of contacts through sales portals. Track leads, tickets, and associated opportunities with a pipeline view, facilitating lead tracking and comprehensive interaction details.
3. Quote and Order Management: Streamline quote and order tasks with an integrated solution that covers quote-to-order, cash, and fulfillment processes. Automate quote processing with back-end financials, convert quotes into approved sales orders, and handle shipping rate calculations, automated tax, pricing, and discounting rules—access sales projections of recurring revenue in forecasts and variances.
4. Quota Management: Sales representatives can create and track quotas based on criteria like item, class, location, or department. Additionally, quotas can be aligned with company sales goals.
5. Incentive Compensation Management: Integration with an incentive management module provides visibility into incentives through automated compensation management. Set up commission schedules on various frequencies and apply configuration rules based on sales, quotas, profitability, quantity, and more.
6. Lead Management: Efficiently manage lead generation and measure campaign ROI by tracking the lead-to-revenue score. Automate lead capture from multiple sources such as search engines, websites, direct mail, email, and events.
7. Campaign Management: Create and track targeted marketing campaigns based on purchase trends, demographics, support histories, and response patterns. Personalize marketing efforts using data segmentation and analyze various marketing campaigns within a single application, including direct mail, events, email, and multichannel campaigns.
8. SEO-Optimized Website: Optimize web pages with meta tags, image alt tags, customizable titles, and short search engine descriptive URLs for dynamic pages. Preserve search rankings for static HTML and dynamically generated web pages by creating permanent (301) redirects.
9. Web Forms: Easily create landing pages with a drag-and-drop interface, capture leads directly from the website, and automatically populate them in real-time. A routing engine efficiently directs captured leads to the appropriate sales representatives.
10. Partner Management: Align partner activities in Partner Relationship Management (PRM) with order management and CRM sales activities within a single application. Partners can register, measure conversion rates and acquisition costs, and track leads and marketing campaigns. Resellers can place and track orders transparently.
11. Case Management: Offer online self-service options for customers with case submissions, tracking, and routing of customer support cases based on criteria such as case type, product, partner, customer, and issue. Enable multichannel communication, including phone, email, web, and fax, and prioritize cases with default statuses such as not started, escalated, in progress, closed, and reopened.

Limitations of NetSuite CRM:

1. Bundled Product Offering: NetSuite CRM is available as a bundle with four modules, and users cannot purchase individual modules based on their specific needs.
2. Limited Native Social Media Integrations: The CRM lacks native integrations with popular social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter. Users must rely on third-party integrations like Celigo to connect with these platforms.
3. No Native Integrations for G Suite and Office 365: NetSuite CRM does not offer native integrations with G Suite and Office 365. To access these applications, users must use connectors for integration.
4. No Free Trial: NetSuite CRM does not offer users a free trial option to explore its capabilities in real-time before making a purchase decision.
5. No Native Chat Capability: The CRM does not have built-in chat functionality. Users looking for chat features need to integrate with external applications like LiveChat.
6. Limited Simultaneous Logins: NetSuite CRM does not support multiple logins of the same user from different PCs simultaneously.

These limitations highlight some areas where NetSuite CRM may not fully meet specific user requirements or additional integrations are needed to enhance functionality. Businesses should carefully assess these limitations to determine if NetSuite CRM aligns with their specific needs and can overcome these challenges effectively.

Business Challenges:

1. Inability to Track Marketing ROI: The current system cannot effectively track the Return on Investment (ROI) of marketing campaigns, making it challenging to measure the effectiveness of marketing efforts accurately.
2. Missed Revenue Opportunities with Existing Customers: Due to the inability to target customers based on their purchase history and preferences, the business is missing out on potential revenue opportunities from its existing customer base.
3. Data Fragmentation: Customer data, vendor information, leads, prospects, and contacts are scattered across multiple sources, leading to data fragmentation and difficulty in maintaining a unified view of all critical information.
4. Lack of Targeted Campaigns: The current system does not support targeted marketing campaigns to specific audience segments, limiting the ability to deliver relevant and personalized campaigns.

NetSuite Solution:

1. Comprehensive Tracking of Marketing ROI: NetSuite’s fully integrated business system enables tracking orders against marketing promotions and spending, providing accurate insights into the ROI of marketing campaigns.
2. Unified Database for Customer Information: NetSuite is a single source of truth for all customer data, vendor details, leads, prospects, and contacts. All this information is consolidated and maintained within the NetSuite platform.

By implementing NetSuite, the business can overcome its existing challenges, improve marketing effectiveness, and achieve a centralized view of essential data for better decision-making and targeted marketing campaigns.

Pricing of NetSuite CRM:

NetSuite CRM follows a different pricing model than most sales CRM software providers. Instead of offering publicly listed pricing with various monthly plans based on features, NetSuite CRM is considered an added module to the core platform, which requires an annual license fee. The number of account users determines the total cost of NetSuite with the CRM add-on.

In addition to the licensing fee, NetSuite pricing includes a one-time implementation fee to cover the initial setup costs. Small businesses can expect to pay well over $1,000 per month, considering the licensing fee, add-on modules, and additional user fees. The actual pricing will vary significantly depending on the specific sales CRM features and other tools in the Oracle NetSuite platform.

Since NetSuite provides a comprehensive and integrated solution, the pricing is tailored to the needs and scale of each business, making it important for businesses to assess their requirements and choose the appropriate features and modules that align with their budget and objectives.

NetSuite CRM FAQ:

Are SAP and NetSuite the same? 

No, SAP and NetSuite are distinct business service providers specializing in ERP solutions. For a monthly subscription, both firms provide CRM modules that may be added to their main platforms.

Does Oracle own NetSuite? 

Oracle acquired NetSuite for $9.3 billion in July 2016 to become a prominent cloud software provider. The acquisition was completed in November 2016, and NetSuite has since operated as part of a global business unit within Oracle.

What’s the difference between Salesforce and NetSuite? 

The key difference lies in their primary focus. NetSuite is primarily an ERP software service with an optional CRM product offered as an added module. On the other hand, Salesforce is primarily a CRM software provider offering additional tools to support ERP functionalities across various industries.