{"id":10813,"date":"2021-02-08T11:46:16","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T19:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vtiger.com\/blog\/?p=10813"},"modified":"2025-06-03T17:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T12:20:07","slug":"introducing-vtiger-one-pilot-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vtiger.com\/blog\/introducing-vtiger-one-pilot-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Vtiger One: Pilot Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Vtiger, we are passionate about helping companies build deep customer relationships. We are a bootstrapped company ourselves, with over 15 years of legacy of supporting companies on their growth journey with our Open Source edition. Since 2021, we have supported those who wanted to take advantage of the power of this exciting new frontier with our cloud editions.<\/p>\n

Over the past years, several new entrants introduced free editions of their offerings with severely limited capabilities. While a 360-degree view of the customer was achieved by stitching together data from multiple sources became a big talking point, we stayed focused on the core value Vtiger CRM provided from day 1.<\/p>\n

We have a truly free Open Source CRM<\/a> for those who want it, and we have genuine customer \u2018One View\u2019 baked into our cloud offerings. When we said One View, all aspects of the CRM – Marketing, Sales, Support and Analytics were operating off a single database! We were not stitching together data points to arrive at an extrapolated view of customer data.<\/p>\n

We steadfastly stayed away from introducing a free edition while offering a 15-day no-commitment trial of everything Vtiger CRM offered.<\/p>\n

And then 2020 happened.<\/p>\n

It has been a rough year for companies around the world – financially and emotionally. We have a few scars of our own, but things could have been much worse. During 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, the best we could do was offer a discount on billing for those who really wanted it. It is a huge validation of how much our paying customers see the value of the offering that only a handful really needed to use the discounts. (A big thank you from all of us at Vtiger.)<\/p>\n

As the pandemic wore on, we doubled down on improving the product experience and enriching it with exciting new functionality. The all-new V9 was rolled out mid-November to rave reviews about how easy it was to use the new CRM. The new Calculus AI engine takes intelligent automation to a whole new level. (Take a test drive today, if you haven\u2019t already<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

We look forward to 2021 with a renewed sense of hope. Businesses big and small that drastically scaled down their operations shut down, or deferred new initiatives are now looking to get back.
\nAnd we wanted to help. We decided that in true Vtiger ethos, we want to do everything we can to help businesses come out stronger from the shadow of the pandemic in a sustainable way.<\/p>\n

As my team and I debated on the best way to make a meaningful impact, we realized a couple of things that are core to these companies who sought to accelerate their growth in 2021.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Marketing and Sales technology landscape is complex. Even setting up a basic stack can be daunting if you want a 360-degree view of the customer.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Companies don\u2019t want a free edition for the sake of it. They need something that solves their business challenges.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Over 300,000 businesses worldwide use Vtiger\u2019s free on-premise solution. Ever since Vtiger CRM launched in 2004, it has been downloaded thousands of times every week. But, there is a perceptible shift. Small businesses looking for a CRM today prefer the cloud-based version to get the latest and avoid the hassle of managing the hardware and installation.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And that led to the Vtiger Re:Boot<\/b> program. We are working on a bunch of things under a broad umbrella of Re:Boot to get companies set up their automated sales funnels and come \u2018roaring\u2019 back. (Yes, we will be announcing some exciting things for the Open Source edition too, under Re:Boot.)<\/p>\n

    The Vtiger Cloud CRM – Pilot<\/b> edition is the first of the offerings as a part of this initiative. The Pilot is a new edition of Vtiger One to empower small businesses with the power of Customer One View. As part of the Re:Boot program, to help businesses emerge stronger, we are making it free forever for everyone that signs up in 2021<\/i>.<\/p>\n

    Rapidly evolving Sales Tech and CX Toolkits.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n


    \nBefore I dwell more on the \u2018free\u2019 aspect, let me first talk a bit more about the complex technology landscape that I mentioned before. The Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service technology landscape is littered with hundreds of tools. In the past five years, the tools have also advanced to take advantage of AI capabilities and new communication channels such as WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Telegram, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n

    If you consider just Sales technologies, there are around 30 different application categories – from Sales Coaching to Pipeline Management to Data Enrichment to Enablement Technologies like Document sharing and Esigning.*<\/p>\n

    Marketing Tech Landscape is even more crowded, with over 8,000 tools across 40+ categories!**<\/p>\n

    If you are a small business running on spreadsheets and email inboxes, and looking to improve sales and customer service, which tool(s) would you pick? There are, in fact, many free tools if you are willing to scatter your customer data in a dozen different apps.<\/span><\/p>\n