Online customer database software?

September 3, 2012 11:37 AM

I'm looking for recommendations for online software for managing a database of customers.

I'm part of an online business that is starting to get more customers. So far we have just been keeping track of things in Excel - but this is starting to get ugly fast.

I'm looking for some recommendations for a simple online software for maintaining customer information. This would include things like contact info, billing dates, invoices, amounts paid and owing, reminders that we can configure to be sent on a certain date, etc etc.

Thanks (in advance) for your help.

posted by rabbitfufu to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Highrise by 37 Signals is pretty great, and it integrates with the rest of their products.
posted by Happy Dave at 11:53 AM on September 3, 2012 [1 favorite]

Salesforce.com and Highrise are pretty good solutions. Salesforce may be a little much for what you're looking to do, but it does have the benefit of being scaleable, so if you grow quickly, it is helpful.
posted by dfriedman at 12:04 PM on September 3, 2012

Just so you know, what you are after is called CRM - Customer Relationship Management. There are probably 100 on the market if you want to Google some options. I prefer OnePageCRM to Highrise.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:41 PM on September 3, 2012

Beyond the CRM, I noticed you mentioned "billing dates, invoices, amounts paid and owing". That sounds more like general ledger stuff to me. Good bookkeeping is important to any successful business. You might need two products if you don't already have GL software.
posted by sbutler at 12:48 PM on September 3, 2012

Sugar CRM is free/has a free version. I installed it once but it did not run very smooth.
posted by yoyo_nyc at 12:51 PM on September 3, 2012

Zoho is another option - especially if you might be looking for billing and other business apps in the near future.
posted by COD at 12:55 PM on September 3, 2012

Is the online business automatically billing these people and you just want to record it? Or, are you processing sales that come in from a website and you want to keep track of it? Are the reminders to pay, or to do other things?
posted by michaelh at 1:19 PM on September 3, 2012

I've used Freshbooks for invoicing, it sounds like it might fit the bill.
posted by bleep at 1:21 PM on September 3, 2012

I've had good experiences with Salesforce. Fairly clean API, good selection of apps, it is a bit pricey though.
posted by humanfont at 4:35 PM on September 3, 2012