We surveyed users of Amdocs Clarify CRM systems to find out the primary reasons they incorporated, or migrated completely to, Dovetail Software’s CRM system, and their .NET platform, Dovetail SDK.
The
following evaluations are in no particular order. Customer responses
are edited for clarity. These are the ten most common themes we hear
today, from mostly IT and some business folks.
1. DISTRIBUTION
Dovetail’s
cost per license is vastly lower than Amdocs Clarify. Dovetail’s
agent-facing apps look and feel like Clarify, so no additional training
is needed.
Comments: “awesome ability to expose data to the
enterprise”; “now running twice the number of users on Dovetail, no way
we could have done this with Amdocs”; “we were looking for a richer
client-side experience.”
2. STRATEGY
Eliminating Java, native applications written in .NET. Using thin clients.
Comments:
”.NET is our strategic platform going forward”; “Amdocs not moving in
the desired technical direction”; “Clarify hasn’t added new functions
or features of any value between versions 5 and 11”; “we wanted to stop
releasing new fat clients as the upgrade process.”
3. THIN CLIENT
Clarify
customers who attempt to move from the Amdocs thick client to the
Amdocs thin client give up a great amount of functionality, whereas
they can move from the Amdocs thick client to the Dovetail thin client
and actually gain additional functionality.
Comments: “we needed to move to a web-based deployment”
4. INTEGRATION
The
ability to run Dovetail in parallel with legacy and forthcoming systems
is immense. Dovetail Web Services provides a top layer with over 500
Dovetail APIs to manipulate data on demand. Dovetail apps are written
with integration in view. Plus, we integrate with SAP, PeopleSoft ERP, Metasolv, data warehouses, manufacturing systems, Lawson, ImageNow, ManMan and many others.
Comments: “wanted easier integrations with other apps, client-side and server-side”; “web service calls, CTI integration”; “using Dovetail Web Services (and SOAP-.NET)
we connect with multiple databases and systems to obtain customer
information, e.g. loyalty points, service order history, etc”; “we can
give the agent a portal view across multiple customer data sources.”
5. CUSTOMIZATION
Dovetail
has over 500 APIs, that enable almost any conceivable custom function.
We’ve been customizing Clarify for a decade and our software is built
for extensibility.
Comments: “we wanted to build a custom
Logistics solution, with the ability to add custom functions – Clarify
had no useful APIs”; “we’ve added enhancements that were impossible
with Amdocs”; “development within the Clarify environment has been
difficult”; “we needed a more flexible application”; “we wanted the
ability to add custom objects easily”; “there’s really nothing we can’t
do with the system now or add to it.”
6. SCALABILITY & DEVELOPMENT SPEED
The IT departments love Dovetail deployments. We’re flexible, extensible, adaptable, easy and rapid to customize.
Comments:
“we had deadlocks with trying to scale Clarify, we needed an efficient
development environment”; “we can now ‘track everything – causes of
failure, etc. – something that would not have been possible with
Clarify”; ” we use it worldwide, with huge cost benefits, mostly due to
the speed with which we can change stuff, and the ability to put
anything we want in it.”
7. MAINTENANCE
Dovetail
sharply reduces maintenance effort and cost, with no fat client to
update for every user, and the system is maintained globally at the
server level.
Comments: “we’ve reduced our maintenance costs”;
“we moved to Dovetail thin clients primarily for ease of maintenance”;
“the system itself is much easier to manage.”
8. RELIABILITY
Glitches
can happen anywhere, but with a thin client, web-based architecture,
the greatest interruption is typically no more than a server restart
(versus trying to debug the thick client).
Comments: “we had lots of outages with Clarify thick clients.”
9. SUPPORT
Dovetail’s
culture has always focused on the user, from its beginnings as a
Clarify partner. We’re proud to say that no one—no one—is better at
support.
Comments: “Support”; “we have access to engineers”;
“Dovetail’s rapid code fixes stand out from other vendors”; “awesome
response times”; “support is never clueless”; “we can ask questions on
the edge of consulting.”
10. COST BENEFIT
Dovetail’s
cost per license is vastly lower than Amdocs Clarify. Our fast
development and roll-out times equal reduced development cost.
Comments:
“the cost was too good a deal to pass up”; “Dovetail was in effect a
revenue-neutral solution – we protect the investment in Clarify, and
continue to get enhancements and new functions, which Amdocs hasn’t
delivered in years.”
