Unanet CRM by Cosential

"Adding a CRM to our firm has helped us keep track of prospect projects as well as client information"

Pros: We now have one central data depository for all of our offices contacts, project info, personnel, resumes etc. The ability to create custom reports, update project data and track prospects across many users has improved our communication and reporting tremendously. The ability to update personnel, project, contact information in one spot and have it populate throughout any report or resume is a big plus. The Widgets are great for a graphical representation to management that accurately represents current pursuits, hit rates, wins by market, etc. The ability to turn on and off modules for user groups is huge! It keeps people from being overwhelmed when they first start to use the CRM, especially if they never have used one in the past or are skeptical. Integrations with other programs continue to be developed and improved by Cosential - this is a huge plus! Business Development/Marketing people are mobile - the iPad is a tool, just like a laptop. Being able to enter client info in Cosential and add it to an individuals Outlook contacts with just a few clicks makes it easy to have centralized client data. We will be implementing an integrations with Vista later this year. I am excited for the potential that will bring live project and personnel data to our CRM!

Cons: It's still a little 'techy' and driven by IT/Developers from the end-user perspective. But it's getting better every month we use it! When a bug is identified, or an issue occurs, for the most part Cosential Support is responsive. Sometimes, however it seems like it takes months to fix an issue. This is especially frustrating when a function (say a mailing list) was working correctly and then stops working. Because Cosential manages literally mountains of company, contact, personnel and project data, it can feel overwhelming to new users. Customizing the training and 'easing new users into' the program based on their needs is the only way to get good buy-in from apprehensive or skeptical users. The mobile app has it's limitations on the iPad and as all of our Business Developers use iPads, they would like to see the app developed further. Right now, it's better than nothing when they are on the road!

"Cosential Three Years In"

Overall: Customer service and support have been challenging. We've been told that improvements were going to happen that just never went anywhere. The "improvements" that have been implemented for us turned out to be less useful than the previous state of the system. And I've had account reps just not return my calls or respond to my emails regarding issues we've had between what was promised and described during the sales pitch and how a particular module actually functions (most notably photo management).

Pros: Cosential is a detailed and robust database and CRM system. The information organization is well-thought out and the information relationships function reasonably well. Integrations with other firm systems are generally useful. The application is also a good value for our size firm.

Cons: Photo management is just about useless--keyword search should be reductive, not expanding, and should really be a simple case of AND vs OR Boolean search. Customized fields aren't reflected in reports at all, which limits their usefulness in data analysis. Some data areas are designed more for construction firms than architecture firms, and the dissonance in data capture has required some workarounds and means we can't actually search on that data. Several areas are a little too narrowly focused--there are more sustainability measures than just LEED--and require more workarounds to capture the kind of data we're tracking on our projects. There's a certain level of flexibility promoted and the reality is a superficial flexibility.

"The ONLY database in the AEC industry that makes my job easier!"

Overall: I was first introduced to Cosential in 2010 and began to research and push for the software at my previous company. After a long inside sales process, the company decided not to move forward with my recommendation which was a major factor in my leaving that organization. One of the main goals of my coming onboard to my current company was to implement Cosential as our marketing database software, and see what other tools are available that we can utilize in other parts of the company. We are full-service real estate company that provided construction (at the time), development, financing, tax credit syndication, facilities maintenance, and property, asset, and investment management services. We ended up implementing across all marketing groups in the business in the construction, development, investment, asset and property management, and in our justice division. Different groups adopted it more quickly than others, and some we ended up just removing entirely as they were not utilizing the system. Currently our marketing groups across the business still utilize Cosential for business development tracking, current project and property data collection and maintenance, and personnel resume maintenance.

Pros: Because Cosential was designed by marketers in our industry, they know what information is important to collect, track, and analyze. The organization of the information and ease of use of the system is unparalleled to other CRMs/databases. Cosential is constantly updating and enhancing the system, so there are new, and improved, features being released to its users constantly, and I always hear what's going on - I know it's the top of the line database for information junkies like me. The reporting and template publishing tools are also incredibly helpful. Tracking our proposals and showing our win/loss ratios to senior leadership has been crucial. Also, the ability to store less-than-popular data for possible future use is highly beneficial.

Cons: I wish the reporting module was a little more user friendly - it can be daunting to new and novice users causing it to go unused and frequently used incorrectly causing frustrations. I am now in the Commercial Real Estate industry (more so than what would be termed AEC), I would love LOVE to have more information/modules relating to development of projects, property and asset management - understanding the high-level of property and information turnover for these types of services.