Customer Relationship Management 2024
Which Vendors Consistently Partner with Organizations & Deliver Strong Technology?

Value: Innovaccer Respondents See Highest Value Thanks to Partnership & New Functionality

Innovaccer—the 2024 Best in KLAS winner for CRM—is the newest entrant to the CRM market and has a small CRM customer base. Respondents are highly satisfied overall, mentioning the product’s customized analytics and solid connections with data sets. They also appreciate how the product helps with efficiently allocating resources. The vendor is seen as a partner who supports customers throughout every stage of the patient journey. Though the product’s cost is perceived as somewhat high, respondents say Innovaccer’s offering is worthwhile thanks to the coaching, support, and guidance included with the software package. In general, respondents can negotiate costs with Innovaccer, although they wish they didn’t need to negotiate in the first place. Also, some customers are surprised that new functionalities—which used to be included with the software package—now come at an additional cost.

Epic’s Cheers product, used exclusively by Epic EHR customers, has seen increased adoption in recent years. Respondents say the product’s reliable capabilities and deep integration with ancillary products have driven valuable outcomes; for example, the product has decreased call work among frontline staff, thus shortening patient wait times. Cost is a concern for some respondents, who feel that nickel-and-diming has increased with additional charges for new functionality. Still, they say the new functionality is worth the cost. Salesforce, who has the largest CRM market share in healthcare, is highlighted for their product’s deep functionality. However, respondents wonder whether they are seeing enough value for the price they pay. 59% of respondents feel nickel-and-dimed, citing extra fees for training, support, implementation, and additional functionality.

Relationship: Epic Customers Attribute Their Successful Relationship to Vendor’s Hands-On Approach

Epic respondents appreciate their vendor relationship and how Epic is focused on understanding customers’ needs; the vendor works with them to customize the functionality and help them leverage the Cheers product within the larger Epic ecosystem. Epic’s approach is seen as hands on, and the assigned support representatives are a source of customer satisfaction. Some respondents experienced knowledge gaps after transitioning to Cheers from a different CRM workflow; these customers would like more training on integrating Cheers into their daily processes.

Innovaccer* also stands out for their strong relationships. Respondents say the account management teams are committed to understanding organizations’ unique needs and that the support team is open to feedback and quick to find solutions. Additionally, the high-level executives work to create personal relationships with customers. For Salesforce, customer satisfaction with service proactivity has declined in the last year. Several respondents say they must initiate all communication with Salesforce and that it is challenging to quickly get in touch with the technical support team (though the team provides help eventually). Another concern is that when respondents reach out for support, the support team often focuses on sales instead of problem resolution.

*Limited data

Product: Salesforce’s Product Seen as Robust; Implementation & Maintenance Challenges Detract from Product Capabilities

The majority of Salesforce respondents are satisfied with the product and say it is robust and well established in the market. The vendor is perceived as having a strong foundation in multiple industries and an advanced software product that offers customizability and functionality not found in other competitors’ offerings. Additionally, Salesforce has the expertise and developers needed to perform custom integrations. Respondents appreciate that the software can be set up to meet their organization’s specific needs. The product’s advanced technology is seen as a strength only when organizations invest the time and effort to perfect the implementation and maintain the product. These efforts can sometimes be difficult—respondents that implemented the product via a third party struggle to build a good relationship with Salesforce, and some say the post-implementation support is too reactive. As a result, respondents (especially those who are Epic EHR customers) report mixed product experiences.

Innovaccer’s respondents report the product meets expectations and that the vendor’s healthcare expertise comes through in the design. The ease of use, out-of-the-box options, and reliable EHR integration are also highlighted. Innovaccer’s technology teams are perceived as easy to work with and are quick to deliver on customization requests. Some customers would like more predictive and real-time analytics options. The Epic Cheers product can exchange data with other Epic products, and respondents mention that the straightforward design and easy EHR integration foster a seamless implementation experience. The product fulfills respondents’ needs, though they note it is underdeveloped in some areas. Respondents would like improved automation, more customization options, smoother workflows with other Epic products, marketing tools, and more-direct patient communication options.

Vendor Bottom Lines

Vendors ordered alphabetically

Epic

“Epic’s support is fabulous. We have a lot of our technical support people’s personal contact information, and they have been willing to go above and beyond on numerous occasions, no matter the time of day. I can’t think of a time when the vendor hasn’t supported us. The comfort they provide us in comparison to other vendors cannot be overstated. With Epic, I can call or text any technical coordinator or BFF, and they will respond. That level of support goes a very long way in ensuring that if issues arise, we resolve them quickly.” —Director

“For certain groups, Cheers works as is, but for more complex groups, it still has a ways to go. Cheers is still pretty new in its development. There are a lot of things that are either newly released or coming in the next couple of versions that take the product further, but Epic is still a step and a half behind the traditional CRM players in the space. Cheers isn’t quite where it needs to be yet.” —Director

Innovaccer

“Innovaccer is truly a partner with us. The journey that we are on, the progress that we have seen the vendor make from a product and a relationship perspective, and the way they interact with customers have been phenomenal. Innovaccer is willing to listen, engage, and take feedback. They have showed us their warts, bruises, and lumps along the way and have told us what was working well and where they were still trying to improve. All of that created trust, and we felt like we could really work well with them.” —CIO

“We had some struggles with the product. As we trained with Innovaccer, we felt like beta testers on the product. Things weren’t as robust as we thought they would be. Innovaccer is doing a great job of going back and forth with us on things we need to see while making tweaks as we go. But that is not always ideal, even though the vendor helps us get the products we need. More up-front communication would be better so we can do the outreach we want to do.” —Director

Salesforce

“Salesforce CRM is a very powerful and highly customizable tool, but customers need a great implementation partner to implement Salesforce CRM in a way that meets their organization’s needs and a bench of Salesforce developers and admins to maintain their organization. I would advise others to have a clear vision of their goal and their use cases prior to their implementation. I believe Salesforce CRM is the best in class. However, due to Salesforce CRM’s high degree of customizability, expensive implementations can go wrong if people don’t have a strong vision and high engagement from the healthcare organization.” —Director

“Salesforce is only proactive and involved when they are trying to sell us something. They focus on what is hot and what they can sell instead of making their current products more functional, flexible, and valuable. The vendor has also gone through a number of layoffs, and a lot of the folks we worked with in the past are gone. That lack of continuity is harmful. Additionally, Salesforce’s people don’t have regular conversations with us to see how we are doing and how they can help us. Our previous vendor was far more proactive and interested than Salesforce in trying to help us do our jobs.” —Director

About This Report

Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT solutions and services their organizations use. For this report, interviews were conducted between December 2022 and February 2024 using KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluation for healthcare software, which is composed of 16 numeric ratings questions and 4 yes/no questions, all weighted equally. Combined, the ratings for these questions make up the overall performance score, which is measured on a 100-point scale. The questions are organized into six customer experience pillars—culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value.

Sample Sizes 

Unless otherwise noted, sample sizes displayed throughout this report (e.g., n=16) represent the total number of unique customer organizations interviewed for a given vendor or solution. However, it should be noted that to allow for the representation of differing perspectives within any one customer organization, samples may include surveys from different individuals at the same organization. The table below shows the total number of unique organizations interviewed for each vendor or solution as well as the total number of individual respondents.

Some respondents choose not to answer particular questions, meaning the sample size for any given vendor or solution can change from question to question. When the number of unique organization responses for a particular question is less than 15, the score for that question is marked with an asterisk (*) or otherwise designated as “limited data.” If the sample size is less than 6, no score is shown. Where textual content relies on limited data, the vendor name is marked with an asterisk. Note that when a vendor has a low number of reporting sites, the possibility exists for KLAS scores to change significantly as new surveys are collected.