How ABLE Measures Up
In each installment of our “How ABLE Measures Up” series, we compare ABLE to another CRM tool on the market. We evaluate each CRM’s system, features, and pricing structure in order to give you a good idea of how it measures up against ABLE, our CRM for accountants.
Below we offer a quick comparison between ABLE and ContactEase, followed by an in-depth, categorical analysis. We hope this will be helpful to you as you seek to find the CRM that is the best fit for your accounting firm!
About ContactEase
ContactEase is a contact management solution that primarily serves law firms. The ContactEase application lives on a firm’s server and integrates with Microsoft Outlook, syncing contacts from a user’s email into a comprehensive database. All communications and updates are recorded in the ContactEase database. The stored contacts are categorized and tagged, which helps users to identify ideal targets for particular business opportunities.
ContactEase boasts an impressive 90-percent user adoption rate; however, this number is misleading. Since ContactEase integrates with Outlook, all Outlook users are included in the adoption rate number. Their habits aren’t necessarily changing due to using ContactEase, but they are included in the adoption percentage simply because they have the overlay on their Outlook application.
About ABLE
ABLE is a solution for CPA firms that simplifies contact and pipeline management. Because CPAs have a limited amount of time to dedicate to tracking business development activities, users can quickly add information regarding contacts and deals, assess the status of their relationships to determine necessary actions, and build their personal brands.
Conclusions of the CRM Comparison
- ABLE is a CRM built by accountants, for accountants. ContactEase, on the other hand, is built for—and primarily marketed to—law firms. Cole Valley puts most of its money into advertising and developing for that particular sector of professional services—the CPA profession is an afterthought.
- With an easy-to-use dashboard interface and tools for measuring both inbound and outbound referral activity, ABLE makes it easy to keep up with all of your important relationships. ContactEase does not offer dashboard views and power users must run and export reports in order to get statistical information.
- ABLE offers an open interface that encourages peer-to-peer interaction and free customization options in a wide variety of areas. ContactEase does not facilitate synergy within the firm, nor does it grant any autonomy to its users.
- While ContactEase supports an Outlook integration, the feature set comparison with ABLE shows that ABLE is a better fit for CPA firms.
In-Depth ContactEase CRM Comparison
Read on to learn more about how ABLE and ContactEase measure up to one another when it comes to systems, features, and pricing structures.
System Comparison
Feature Comparison
To compare feature sets of the two platforms, we focused on three major components of successful business development: relationship management, internal collaboration & accountability, and content delivery.
Client Relationship Management
ContactEase focuses on clean data management over relationship development. The system cannot remind a user to take certain actions. In fact, most users do not realize they are using the tool as it is only an overlay for their Outlook client.
ABLE focuses on the user’s most important clients, referrals, and prospects. While information is available for all system contacts, ABLE is designed so that users identify their top relationships, in particular, and assign them a CRoPs Tile. This allows them to effectively manage these relationships.
Internal Collaboration & Accountability
With ContactEase, users in a firm have no way to see how their peers are leveraging the platform. This has a negative impact on team synergy and accountability. For law firms, where practices are a bit more siloed, this may not be a huge issue. ContactEase does not support a survey module.
In ABLE, tasks and deals can be assigned in such a way that everyone in the firm is aware of pending deals and who is responsible, establishing a culture of accountability and synergistic workflows. The Net Promoter Score® Survey functionality is included in the annual ABLE subscription. Users can benchmark their progress. Marketing teams can promote high scores in future proposals. Firms can uncover dissatisfaction before the relationship is lost.
Content Delivery
ContactEase does not offer a content delivery tool. The system integrates with Outlook for tracking and documentation purposes, but is not equipped with brand-building capabilities.
ABLE’s Thought Leadership enables users to send clients the right piece of content at the right time. ABLE adds articles to its Content Library weekly, and users can share their own content or articles if they wish.
Pricing
ABLE not only beats out ContactEase as the best CRM for accountants, it also measures up well against other available tools. View our full CRM comparison to find out more.
Are you wondering if ABLE is the right CRM for your accounting firm? Schedule a demo today! Our team will show you how ABLE can make a difference in YOUR business.