Network Hippo Wants to Kill Your CRM

Written by Steven Walling / August 6, 2009 10:43 AM / 9 Comments

Network Hippo is a new startup taking direct aim at the open source and SaaS CRMs so popular with small business. On top of contact management, it adds the ability to handle documents, manage tasks and business deals, and rate the strength, importance and opportunities for each relationship listed in your network.

Network Hippo is a project of Mercury Grove, which has also made other business software, including a CRM. Network Hippo's niche is fine-grained control of business relationships, rather than just a one-size-fits-all pipeline of leads. But unlike social CRM offerings, Network Hippo is something of an odd duck. It's not just a CRM, but it's also not really connected to the social Web.

Network Relationships, Not Customers

Despite being targeted at business users, the site focuses on being a "network relationship application" rather than something to manage customer relationships. This means that it does away with a lot of the sales-related functionality that is at the core of a CRM.

The concept of network management is a much more sophisticated one than simple contact and customer management. Basically, the idea is to import your contacts from email and social networks, separate them into different networks, and then rate and classify them. Once you've got it all going, Network Hippo provides a dashboard with some interesting metrics and reports on what's happening in your network.

Not A Replacement

There may be a lot of posturing on the site about being an alternative to CRM, but in our estimation Network Hippo isn't likely to draw many businesses away from their CRMs.

It's offered on a freemium basis, with the paid options either $19/month or $29/user per month. The steepest price is the only one that gives you "deal management" and document importing.

The fundamental problem with Network Hippo's value proposition is that network relationships are too personally oriented, rather than something fit for an organization as a whole. To position the service in opposition to CRMs but only serve the needs of individuals is a recipe for failure.

Comments

Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteEnterprise posts

Hi Steven,

I think you missed the point of Network Hippo. It is designed for BOTH individuals and companies in similar but different ways.

For businesses, it has all of the core tools that businesses need to manage their customers and contacts - including lead management, deal management, web forms to collect new leads, custom fields for account management, & detailed reporting. It can match - feature for feature - any enterprise CRM in the market.

What's different about Network Hippo is that there is a personal version that gives individuals the power of CRM to apply to their professional network. Many people neglect important people in their network, Network Hippo helps them stay connected with reminders, regular notifications on activities and news, and the ability to set reminders and tasks.

But its a good title... we do want to kill your CRM if you, like thousands of other organizations, have invested in an expensive CRM system that is time-intensive for sales people with little incentive to use it; constantly has inaccurate contact information; and ends up being "a good idea" when you bought it, but useless now that nobody uses it.

I think you overstate the popularity of these CRM products that you mention.

Check out some screenshots of the powerful features of Network Hippo here: http://www.mercurygrove.com/RWW

Sincerely,

Scott Annan
CEO, Mercury Grove

Posted by: Scott Annan | August 6, 2009 12:36 PM

Thanks for the review, it gave me a chance to check it out with a trial. I must say, 'I got' what their offering was pretty quickly and like it! We see too much sameness, these days.

Killer features for me are the relationships ratings (just the act of thinking through producing them is of value) and the email integration. Looking forward to leveraging the relationship capabilities further.

I thought the review was harsh.

"The fundamental problem with Network Hippo's value proposition is that network relationships are too personally oriented, rather than something fit for an organization as a whole."

Wow, if business isn't about personal relationships, then I've been operating all these years with the wrong premise.

In fairness, rating and measuring at an aggregate company level is another matter, but this brings opportunity to expand this concept further to this level.

Sure to displace a traditional CRM (installed or cloud), it has to cover the standard capabilities you'd expect, but, we sure need more innovation like Hippo's to help use do and achieve more than what the thoery (marketing) tells us.

Posted by: Graham Robson | August 7, 2009 5:53 AM

I have been using Network Hippo as a beta user and find it appropriate not only for personal use but also for organizations. Is it the right CRM for a Fortune 500 company? Maybe not, but it can be good for forward looking SMBs who want to allow their salespeople to leverage the networks they've worked hard at building through the years.

That's the beauty... it's not closed off. It uses the hard work a salesperson has put forth. It also minimizes the time a salesperson has to spend updating contact info (which in reality doesn't get done) by leveraging data available from network sources.

I could go on about this... but essentially, I feel this review is just plain wrong (it does serve more than just individual's needs). Try it... you'll see.

Posted by: Mike Sullivan | August 7, 2009 6:51 AM

Graham, Mike

I think you don't quite get what I meant. I said the value proposition was wrong, not that it doesn't work or that business relationships themselves aren't personally oriented.

I tried out Network Hippo. Everything worked fine and it was well-designed, but it just felt wrong.

To position the service as a replacement for a CRM, which is geared towards the networking and contact management needs of an organization itself, is wrong when your service revolves around a network, which is something that stems from individuals and their connections.

Posted by: stevenwalling.com | August 7, 2009 8:04 AM

I haven't tried Network Hippo but I am always curious when people talk about managing networks. To my mind, networking isn't an aim, but a means to an end. All the contacts are of no use if you don't have a defined objective as to what you're going to do with them. You can't bank lists of usernames. So management should include progression of your contacts towards a goal, rather than just placing people in groups.

Which makes it interesting that Network Hippo, to quote Steven, "does away with a lot of the sales-related functionality that is at the core of a CRM."

So how is Network Hippo helping us to achieve something with our network of contacts, other than a prettier visual representation?

Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz

Posted by: Ian Hendry | August 7, 2009 8:39 AM

These are interesting response/reactions. Granted if you use the networking word, and indeed the CRM word, the paradigms these bring up will color interpretation - so I won't go into this territory.

Having just engaged with this in the last few hours, I won't be able to say with much authority what it is trying to do or address. I can only apply an interpretation of my first take and possibilities/value that strikes me.

If I'm particularly harsh, I could see that Hippo could make a good plug-in to Salesforce.com, if your angle was to get the added value of evaluating contact relationships and use this to help better direct your time.

However, I think Hippo is putting together a package of just enough of the CRM feature set plus it's uniqueness to offer something different.

It is showing tie-in to network sources - new channels arriving all the time.

Ian, given that it has a 'deals' (Opportunities) capability, I think it very much drives to a purpose. Almost embarrassing and honestly so.

I'm not sure yet, and I may be projecting this onto Hippo, about how much it uses the relationship evaluations entered to encourage you foster and strengthen relationships towards closing those deals.

I'm guessing that you need some critical mass and investment in time to get this level of analysis and support out of the application. Of course, all of this type of approach, good sales people do by instinct, for the rest of us, some help would be welcome - especially in the discipline stake, doing things that bring the most value.

Posted by: Graham Robson | August 7, 2009 10:00 AM

Hi Steve.

I think your review was based on the premise that Network Hippo is another CRM tool. From everything I have seen, Network Hippo is a new category of tool, perhaps called "Professional Relationship Management", and your assessment is valid for the CRM category of tools, but not for PRM category.

In one place, you mention that Network Hippo focuses on managing network relationships rather than customer relationships. I think that is good. As much as businesses think that they have relationships with customers, reality tells us that relationships are personal. That's why when you go to the barber shop you ask for your favourite barber. Also, I know that many women will follow a hairdresser as (s)he moves from salon to salon, because that it is the hairdresser with whom they have a relationship. Many salespeople don't get hired for their looks or speech, but because they have personal relationships with buyers in desirable markets; i.e. it's the salesman's Rolodex that the company wants.

I also know that a number of sales folks don't trust their employers with the intimate details of their personal relationships with their customers because they don't want somebody else taking advantage of something they have built over time. That explains why CRM tools don't get used as much as companies would like.

This category is a good alternative to CRM because CRM does not work as well as it could. A big part of that is because it is hard for the companies that pay the bills for CRM implementations to admit that it is the sales people that own the relationships. It is also hard for a sales person to use a CRM tool that very obviously puts the company's interests far ahead of the sales person's interests. I think that Network Hippo and the PRM category will better align the interests of the sales people and the companies that employ them. Both groups will benefit as a result.

Posted by: Jay | August 30, 2009 7:56 PM

Hi,

A word of caution to anyone using / considering using this service. Network Hippo is not using HTTPS for transferring information from your computer to their servers. Basically, the information you are sending (username, password, email account, email password), can be seen easily by those monitoring network traffic. I would recommend you write to Network Hippo, ask that they secure their site, and suspend using it in the meantime. (It also wouldn't hurt to change your passwords on any email account you have used with NH).

You can easily see if a site is using a secure protocol by looking for "https://" at the beginning of the URL in the address bar.

For more info:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/ecommerce/a/aa070407.htm

-Kevin

Posted by: Kevin | September 2, 2009 10:57 AM