"The only constant thing in life is change"
said Heraclitus a mind-blowing 2,500 years ago. A saying that’s stayed with us ever since, because it’s true.
For us, change often comes in the form of product names, features and their availability, and prices. And this time is not an exception – we are rolling out changes again.
As of October 6 this year, SuperOffice has changed its product and price model, introducing several editions and add-ons. This article sets out to explain what changes were made and why, and how it all affects you as our customer.
Why change?
First, you may wonder, why change at all?
Change and innovation, for sure, is the name of the game in the software industry.
During its own lifespan, SuperOffice has seen many changes – big and small, including changes to the optimal technological platform, deployment methods, as well as a whole range of features and work processes.
SuperOffice has always aimed to be at a leading edge, not a “bleeding edge” when it comes to adopting new technologies. It means that we stayed away from rashly adopting a technology that was not yet properly tested and verified.
Allowing the technologies to mature a little and then adopting these into our products and services is a tried and tested way that allows our customers to grow at a pace that suit them.
So, we have changed from being predominantly a Windows-based solution, to offering a rich web application. Our main deployment method used to be for customers on premises, but now 99.9% of our customers prefer the cloud model – and for very good reasons.
There’s been a massive digital transformation of not just the high-tech industry, but also for our customers, especially what they need and expect from a CRM solution. That’s why the rate of new feature releases has changed from one to two times a year, to new releases every three weeks – automatically available for your consumption in our cloud solution.
Six years ago we changed our product and price model to offer a structure with one single user plan per main processes: sales, service and marketing. Each plan included all features for each process area, whether you needed them and used them or not. This “all or nothing” approach is something we now wanted to change.
Less is not always more, even though we do like to simplify complex things. But in the case of our product packaging, we realized that “one size does not always fit all” and that the differences in our customers' needs should be better reflected in our product offering.
So, that’s what we did.
Three solutions – one CRM Suite
Before going into more details, let’s first establish two things that have not changed:
- As our existing customer, you will not lose access to any features you enjoy today. That has not changed.
- Secondly, we still offer three solutions – for sales, service and marketing. That has not changed either.
Each of these solutions can be used on its own, and some companies only need a solution for one particular area of their business, or they prefer to start with one area before they expand into another.
All three solutions – sales, service and marketing – are still built on the same technology stack, have the same user-interface and are based on the same business logic. This means we still offer the strong and complete CRM suite packed with the functionality that you’re used to.
Furthermore, we have not changed the principle that all users share a set of core features across whatever user plan they have. Same as before, your personal productivity and the ability to enjoy a shared, 360-degree customer view are still fully supported by SuperOffice CRM. That has also not changed.
What has changed is that now there are two editions for the Sales and the Service solution, each offering a specific feature set that allows our customers to select, use and pay for the feature set that best matches their requirements. In addition, there are a number of new add-on products our customers can choose from.
Introducing two editions: Essentials and Premium
We know that the majority of companies have similar needs to a great extent and most of them benefit from using a standard software tool like SuperOffice CRM.
However, we also see that our customers vary greatly and, as a result, differ in what they use in our software and to what extent. Taking that on board, we have redefined the features into different feature sets that allow for a better fit for different needs.
There are now two editions of the Sales and Service solutions, each with the feature set that provides capabilities to meet varying needs.
- The Essentials edition offers customers the most important tools they need to take control over the sales processes and incoming requests, so they can create sustainable customer relationships and retain more happy customers. No more, no less. It’s ideal for customers with less complex requirements and who want to get started easily.
- Companies with more complex processes, more diverse teams and requirements will benefit from the Premium edition, which contains additional tools needed to manage prospects from quote to close and to streamline and automate their service processes – equipping teams with everything they need to create and build sustainable long-lasting relationships.
A specialist marketing solution
The Marketing solution contains the feature sets needed to perform more specialized functions required in creating successful marketing communication. This includes all the capabilities needed to get messages out and connect with the right customers at the right time.
Whilst it is common to price a marketing solution based on the number of contacts a company potentially can send to, we realized that there were a few challenges coming with such a model.
The true value of the new Marketing solution is not just in the number of features and automations available, but also in the communications sent. This is why the marketing plan now is split into a platform and a user plan, in addition to the metered payment for mailings sent.
The subscription includes a generous number of mailings you can send, which means that additional payment is only activated when a company uses the solution to send out a lot of communication.
User plans and multi-plans after the upgrade
The choice between solutions and their editions will determine what features a user has access to, in addition to the core features that everyone can enjoy.
Loved by many SuperOffice CRM users, the core features include: contact management, privacy features, diary, document management, find and selection features, email and a variety of office integration tools that support personal productivity. Core features also includes your Mobile CRM application.
After the upgrade, your new plans will reflect what you already had access to, so the only thing that will be different for a user is the name of the user plan they have. For example, a Sales user will now be using Sales Premium and a Service user will now be using Service Premium.
All users of a solution need to be on the same edition, and it is possible to move from one edition to another. It is also possible to mix editions between solutions and a user may subscribe to more than one plan. For example, current users with a Complete user plan are now defined as multi-plan users and continue to have access to all the feature sets as before the upgrade to SuperOffice 10.
Optional add-ons
Finally, and in addition to the redefined solutions, editions and user plans, we have also a number of add-ons that a company can select to further expand their users’ capabilities.
One of the new add-ons is the Customer Engagement Platform, which allows you to connect and engage with your customers through self-service portal, chat and forms. Another one is SuperOffice AI, which embeds AI services to automate processes, as well as adds value and improves user experiences.
Simply put, add-ons is a new way to help our customers expand their CRM solution and do even more. While some add-ons expand user capabilities, others allow you to automate processes, customize your SuperOffice CRM or integrate with other tools.
All the new add-ons come in addition to all the apps and integrations available in the SuperOffice App Store.
A flexible, scalable and modern CRM solution
By introducing the new solutions, editions and add-ons, we want to offer you – our customers – a much greater flexibility. You can now select from a range of options that allow you to design a CRM solution that fits your business needs and, at the same time, enjoy the ease and robustness of the standard CRM solution.
These changes reflect our 30+ years’ experience in creating a modern, forward-thinking CRM solution that helps customers from all over Europe to build strong and profitable customer relationships.
If you have questions about your SuperOffice CRM solution after the upgrade to SuperOffice 10, please get in touch with your sales representative who will be happy to help.