Workbooks targets Goldmine customers in recruitment push

CRM vendor lures rival's customers with new incentives in the hope that resellers will follow

Cloud CRM vendor Workbooks is looking to snare scores of rival Goldmine's customers in a move which it claims could triple its reseller base.

Workbooks has its eye on about 100 customers of its rival, which is an arm of FrontRage, after noticing a steady stream of what it claims are disillusioned customers wanting to embrace its cloud-based CRM system.

To entice customers, the vendor is offering them the chance to migrate their data to Workbooks for nothing. The standard price for data migration stands at about £800 per day, meaning initial savings amount to at least £1,600, according to Workbooks.

The vendor, which currently has about 10 reseller partners in the UK, reckons its targeted campaign will increase its channel base to between 20 and 30 as it hopes VARs will want to work with the vendor to avoid losing customers.

Ian Moyse, Workbooks' sales director, claimed his firm can work with partners once they have migrated over.

He said: "The beauty of what we have got is that partners can [make margin on] Workbooks licences, maintenance and renewals. Partners will not lose customers, they can build a services offering and extend their relationships instead of seeing customers dwindling."

He added that the campaign was sparked accidentally after he noticed an influx of former Goldmine customers looking to work with his firm.

"We figured that rather than wait for some to accidentally find us, we want to tell them we are here. SMB customers are our sweet spot and we are targeting those. Goldmine is not cloud based and it is very difficult to move into the cloud without rewriting [everything] because it is Windows based. Their customers are stuck between a rock and a hard place," said Moyse.

He added that while he knows Goldmine will retain a large portion of its customers, he hopes the new incentive will encourage customers and partners to stop putting off a move to the cloud.

Paul Peterson, Goldmine's general manager of CRM said that there is room for both Workbooks and Goldmine in the UK market, and said that cloud solutions aren't favoured by all customers.

"It's a very aggressive campaign...but we have found customers find it hard to make that transition [from one CRM vendor to another], it is a very sticky process. Analysts predict that in CRM, half will be cloud-based and half on-premise.

"Cloud isn't going to be for everyone. The on going expense is an issue for some people. Goldmine is known for its speed and this is favoured by on-premise."

Peterson added that Goldmine is working with its channel to launch new mobile applications for CRM which is claims will be popular with customers.