In a Nutshell
pros
- Basic plan includes unlimited customers
- Very strong, detailed case management system
- 30 day free trial
cons
- Not so strong in leads and marketing
- Can’t send mass emails
Solastis CRM+ at a Glance
Best for: SMBs to large companies
Key use: CRM system, project management, BPM software and system
Price: $10 per month per user
Free trial: 30 days
Overview
Solastis CRM+ is a combined CRM and BPM (business process management) platform designed to be reasonably simple while still offering advanced features. The platform includes a CRM system, BPM software and system, a case management platform, project management, task integration, marketing CRM, and a lead generation system. The main focus is the CRM itself, not marketing and leads.
Setting it up is simple, with “cases” as the main way that customer issues get stored. Cases can include contacts, leads, emails, and more, but what’s really useful is that businesses get to create their own case types. This makes it easy to customize Solastis CRM+ to each company’s specific needs.
Solastis uses SSL encryption technology to ensure the integrity of its system, along with CAPTCHA protection and two-factor authentication.
Tools for Sales Teams
Solastis CRM+ comes with various tools, but most are not designed specifically for sales, customer support, marketing, etc. Rather, the tools are there, and it’s up to each company to decide how best to use them.
The way that all teams interact with the system is through case management, which is designed to ensure that no clients or cases fall through the cracks.
Tools that a sales team would find useful include:
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) Management - Allows salespeople to track SLAs, including the planned time for each task and the actual time it was completed. Managers can use this to make sure that CRM agents are up to par.
- Task templates - A task template can be created and attached to a case type. Then, every time that case type is created, the template will be automatically attached.
- Task review - A good tool for managers—it allows them to randomly flag cases for review, which encourages employees to do their best with every case.
- Questions at task complete - The manager or team leader can designate questions that need to be answered upon task completion, which ensures that no case will have incomplete information.
- Email notifications - Automatic emails can be sent to customers about the next step, letting them know what to expect.
- Assignment rules - Solastis comes with assignment rules that the boss or team leader can use to automatically assign tasks to specific CRM agents.
Many of Solastis’ tools are designed to give team leaders full reign over how their CRM agents follow through with their tasks.
Tools for Customer Support Teams
Solastis CRM+ comes with a ticketing system that provides clear, easy access to all cases as they come in. The system is helpful for customer support teams and other teams as well.
Features of the ticketing system include:
- Central case management - A platform where all cases are registered and easily accessed.
- Multiple case types - Teams can choose from multiple case types that suit their company’s business processes, specifically, reporting and authorization.
- Subcases - The larger piece of work can be broken into smaller segments.
- Digital processes - The support process can be entirely digitalized.
Tools for Marketing Teams
In general, Solastis CRM+ gives teams the option to use the company email domain account or the inbuilt email system in its CRM. Whichever option is chosen, the emails can be sent and received directly from/in the CRM system. Solastis automatically associates emails sent and received from/within the system with the correct case. When new inquiries come in, users can create an action that will open a new case.
Solastis offers a separate marketing plan geared toward small businesses. It’s a one-off service that includes a review of the company website, a new landing page if necessary, an organic reach plan, and a professionally designed Google ads campaign.
Customization and Integrations
One of the highlights of Solastis CRM+ is that it doesn’t come with preprogrammed case types — rather, each company can create its own case types to match its specific needs. Dashboards are also created on a bespoke basis, designed based on each company’s requirements.
Solastis offers limited VoIP integration from its group company, SIPTEL. Clients can also request specific integrations from the Solastis team during setup.
Reporting and Dashboards
The Solastis CRM+ dashboard is shown as a collection of tiles that provide a visual representation of all data in an organized fashion. Users can click on any data point and the other tiles will automatically adjust. Every client gets their own customized dashboard from Solastis that is created specifically to suit their needs. All of the information in the dashboard can also be seen as an enhanced report in list form.
Solastis offers reporting tools that can be used by different teams to review their processes:
- CRM analytics - Allows multidimensional analysis of cases, which is particularly useful for generating cross-functional, cross-geography views of cases.
- CRM agent authorization - Solastis comes with built-in authorization for leads, contacts, and accounts. It includes authorization for specific types of actions, including creating, changing, deleting, listing, and exporting. Team leaders can also create authorization roles and then assign them to different users, saving time so that authorization doesn’t need to be done every time something new is assigned.
Mobile Options
Unfortunately, there is currently no Solastis app, but the site can be accessed by mobile browser and used just as the desktop site is used. Since the company is rather new, founded only in 2017, there’s hope that a mobile app will be developed in the future.
Plans and Pricing
There is one price plan with Solastis—Professional—which makes things easy. The cost is $10 per month per user. On the website FAQs, one question is, “Why is the price so low?” The answer is twofold: First, Solastis is currently focusing on developing markets, so the price is meant to be affordable for them. Second, the cost of cloud computing infrastructure has gone down in recent years, and Solastis is passing those savings on to its customers.
The Professional plan includes all of the features of Solastis CRM+, which include unlimited customers, basic CRM task management & assignment, case analytics & reporting, security controls, email integration, and Helpdesk productivity.
There is a separate Marketing plan, which is designed for small businesses and costs $1499 a year. The plan includes:
- A professionally designed Google ad campaign (does not include cost of ads)
- Quarterly performance review
- One-time website review
- Customized website organic reach plan
Ease of Implementation and Use
Solastis is fairly easy to set up and use. It takes 1-2 hours to map and set up business processes and another hour to actually learn to operate the system. Contacts can be uploaded to the system through a CSV file and all information on the platform can be exported if necessary.
Solastis offers the option for implementation help, which includes:
- Transferring all user contacts (from a previous CRM system) to the Solastis system
- Personalized configuration services
Customer Service
Solastis customer service can be contacted via in-site messaging, email, or phone, between the hours of 9:00 am and 6:00 pm.
What Users Say About Solastis
We have been using Solastis platform for a few months now, and experiencing significant clarity and efficiency in our business operations. The platform is very easy to understand for us. We could even do A/B testing of business processes to improve performance.
Miriam Williams, consultant
What I liked most about Solastis platform is that it lets us create logical sections in CRM using the organizational unit and territories, and then in these compartments, we can manage specific processes of departments of our company.
Tejal Joshi, Business Development Manager
We are using Solastis CRM + BPM software platform for all our internal work. We are an IT solution development company based here in Queensland. Initially, we subscribed to the solution thinking of using it only for sales enquiries. But quickly we saw its prowess and now for every type of work we have a case type. We use it to define cases for SEO work; we use it for AR collection work, we use it even for our office maintenance schedule cases.
Neil Whitting, Founder Pingo Solutions PTY LTD
Bottom Line
Solastis CRM+ is a straightforward CRM platform that allows for easy case management. Users like it because it’s simple to use, but at the same time, it offers many options for defining cases. It also gives team leaders full oversight of all the tasks of the CRM agents. Solastis’ primary use is as a case management/CRM/BPM system—not on lead generation or streamlining marketing. It is very reasonably priced and has a responsive customer support team. The platform comes with many customization options, is fully scalable, and can be used by SMBs and large businesses alike.
