Nutshell

Pros

I've used Nutshell for three separate businesses that I've run or owned. Each one considered a small to medium-sized business. Nutshell is perfectly suited to us because it's lightweight and easy to learn. It doesn't require an in-house expert on the app (like SalesForce). It's basic feature-set is all I've ever needed, and the support is terrific. Real people at the end of the phone, with fast responses. And, it's made in Michigan! It has a lot of simple customizations that I use; workflow, custom fields, leads, etc.

Cons

Integrations are somewhat limited, but still, plenty to work with. I'd like an integration to RingCentral's app. Also, it doesn't' handle subsidiary company relationships well. I've had to create a workaround with tags to help connect them.

Pros

It's designed for super easy customization for what I do, and I lean hard on this feature! I also love how the Dashboard feature is set up, allowing me to see at a glance which activities should be tackled each day, and when I've scheduled future to-dos. Nutshell's approach feels like 'the little guy' was thoughtfully considered--and that's me!

Cons

I have a tough time with my leads fields frequently reverting back to the default setting that shows all fields, not just the 4 custom ones I've created. This is more of a tech issue, not really a dislike of Nutshell in general.

Pros

I like that's it's web based, and that it can store information about my clients. That's really about it.

Cons

I dislike very much that I cannot search using CTRL + F for stuff on a clients page. I'll have a lot to look though and I'll want to search for a specific word, say "lunch" or "meeting." I cannot search for these words. Instead it just pulls up the search bar for people. Very unuseful for a CRM....

I really hate that when I do search, it rarely finds me what I need, and almost never quickly. It's difficult to find phone numbers, if I search someone's name, it'll pull up everyone's not CLOSE to what I'm search for, but somehow not the specific person....

My daily tasks somehow get clogged by what is in the leads... perhaps there's a way around this, but I haven't found it yet. I can't really rely on tasks or to-dos with Nutshell, so I use Trello for that.

I can mostly use Nutshell for just storing stuff about my clients, and even then finding that information months later is not very easy, frustrating and not very helpful.

Pros

Nutshell has been great for our software firm as it grew from a startup to a mid-market company. Nutshell is very similar to us in age, culture, feature philosophy, etc. so I always enjoy interacting with the team. The Support (via chat and email) is excellent and they are always willing to hear new feature ideas and requests. The affordability makes it a great first CRM for new and small businesses.

Cons

Importing can sometimes result in a lot of duplicate leads, so data cleanliness becomes a bit of an issue as you grow. Reporting has some room to grow but it's not too bad right now.

Pros

Nutshell is insanely powerful in that it can be customized to your needs pretty heavily, and has some nice features like Outlook integrations and auto-population of contact info from LinkedIn/address books.

Having all email correspondence with leads auto-entered into Nutshell is a huge time saver, and is easily our most liked feature.

Cons

The UI can be a bit cluttered/clunky at times, and the lack of a well put together mobile app makes it a pain to use on mobile devices. We found ourselves often waiting until we got to a desktop to enter/update leads, which defeats the purpose of keeping the CRM always updated.