Bitrix24 – Free Social Intranet for Small Businesses

3 thoughts on “Bitrix24 – Free Social Intranet for Small Businesses”

1. 1) Look around the home page– what is your initial impression of what you see?
   My first impression was a well designed website that will appeal to students or younger generation business owners who have had trouble of a hard-drive breaking and the time and money it cost to get going again. I work with Apple and immediately thought about compatibility. Since Apple already have a similar service I would first have to compare the price. At $99 for a monthly subscription it sound very expensive and made me hesitate. This gave me the feeling only well established businesses will be able to afford it. To budget an extra $2000 for a company with 20 employees who will be using it sound costly in todays recession times. I guess you will not be able to just give it to half your staff.
   I am also missing 3rd party recommendations of small well known companies who use bitrix24 as their internet storage solution. Nice to have a couple of individuals tell you great things but would rather have liked to see a little video of them telling their experience. It would have made it much more personal.
   I would not put the pricing on the homepage as most new people first need to see the value of having this service. If there are already a large market segment who is using similar service and Bitrix24 is cheaper and better a price on the homepage would be a good idea, else not.
   After price come security. I was not convinced this will be as secure as Bitrix24 say it would be. a Third party backing would be more comforting and assuring when in comes to secure data. 
    
   2) Think of something you want to find on this website. Now try to find it. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing?
   I did not see a question box and clicked on the support button. This led me to a list of questions and answers. I could not think of a question that they did not have and found it sufficient at first use.
    
   3) Are you encouraged to (create a new account, subscribe, sign up for a free trial, etc.)? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
   Anything for free is always welcome, however time can be an issue and with anything new the time that you spend setting it up and actually figuring out how to use it makes even free less attractive. If I do not see how will my life be more simple and Bitrix24 save me time and money it remains a difficult decision to even open a free account. For this to happen I suggest you have to lift the real reason people opt in for Bitrix24 and have I little question and answer box for each new customer to answer exactly why they signed up for a free account. As somewhere it is state that you have been doing this type of service already for 10 years I know you probably did the match and reason for your service, but to stay currant in an ever fast changing environment of the internet I would suggest get firsthand reasons from real people.
   Curently I have a slow connection and to move 5 Gigs will take too long. For this reason I will not sign up. But maybe in a couple of months this may change. It will also be a good test to see if Bitrix24 is still around and if your service and price improved for now.
   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which on do you prefer? Why?
   I searched for Apple’s Icloud and found it more appealing since it is cheaper and also a brand that I trust. To consider Bitrix24 it will have to do the comparison for me and when I visit any other similar service there must be a feeling that I am better off with bitrix24. This feeling is still missing and therefore i will stick to brands I know till I find a cheaper simpler solution.
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   All in all i think Bitrix24 will work and there is definite a lot of people who will talk about it and tell their friends and so on that will make it grow. i do not see that people will just join by visiting the site for the first time and suggest a few different marketing campaigns. I also suggest to donate a few accounts to charity organizations who should have your Standard option and thus talk about it. Regarding the website I would suggest a more step by step approach that will lead the people into a certain way of thinking and give them more ownership. If you follow the sales funnel of Icloud in Apple they never mentioned price until all has nearly been set up. They rather focus on helping me to take the first step and give me the benefits. When price is mentioned people get scared away cause most of them do not like to make decisions. In fact most decisions get made for us. As long as you genuinly help people solve their problems and let them get that feeling, would not suggest you put the price on the first page. in my opinion you will scare a lot of them away. 
   Hope this feedback helped you.
   All the best

2. 1) Look around the home page– what is your initial impression of what you see?
   Bitrix is online way to collaborate on projects. I like the homepage and scroller that gives a basic preview.
    
   2) Think of something you want to find on this website. Now try to find it. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing?
   I found the pricing without any problem.
   3) Are you encouraged to (create a new account, subscribe, sign up for a free trial, etc.)? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
    
   No because I dont have a micro business, and have no need for cloud storage and intranet collaboration.

   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which on do you prefer? Why?

   Well I dont think this is very fair. I read a testimony that said you have the best prices, which I believe. I like your website and would use your services if I needed it. I think you have the best service at this price.
    
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
    
   My evaluation is based on the usability experience on your website. I found no obvious glitches. I liked your website layout, and liked how the testimonies were so easy to find.
    
   I think the thing for me is how to convince potential clients why your social experience using Bitrix is any better than the competitors. This is hard to do without actually using your software and taking it for a test run. As for your scroller on your homepage, I really liked that and found it to be real helpful.
    
   Is Bitrix intentionally named this to invoke the brand recognition of Citrix? The only reason I know about Citrix is from hearing our IT guys talk at work.

3. 1. My first impression was that you have a very flashy site. Lots of animation, scrolling images, eye-catching color…The only problem is that after spending a minute or two watching your very attractive home page presentation, I still don’t understand what Bitrix24 is. It looks like it has something to do with work management, but I really don’t know what. I don’t know what a “social intranet” is. I don’t understand what’s meant by “a united work space.” I can see that I’m going to have to dig much farther into the site for that.
    
   As I scroll down, I’m surprised that you chose to put the pricing information on the home page. That’s unusual. Since you offer a basic plan for free, I’d make sure you advertise that on your home page, but I’d move the rest of this pricing chart to your “Prices” page. The danger of including it on your home page is that visitors will see that you want to charge them $99 a month for a standard plan, which is a hefty fee, before they have a chance to understand the value of what you’re offering. That could turn people off. Better to convince them that they need the product first and then get into your pricing structure.
    
   As I continue down the page, I like your scrolling testimonials, and I appreciate your security guarantee. However, I’d like to see the security guarantee up closer to the fold. If I’m going to consider conducting business on your site, that would be one of my first concerns.
    
   2. What I wanted to find was more information about the service you offer since it’s not clear from the home page. I clicked on your invitation to learn more about Bitrix24 about halfway down the home page.
    
   …Ok. Now I finally understand what Bitrix24 does! It appears to be a closed employee social network personalized for each business that joins. Only instead of socializing or networking, the goal is more efficient working. That’s an interesting idea, especially for companies that have multiple locations and/or a lot of offsite employees. The various pages under “Features” explain this very well in easy, digestible bites with accompanying screen shots, and I love that I can click on the screen shots to enlarge them. Honestly, this is all set up beautifully, and I’m impressed with the range of features you offer.
    
   No, nothing was confusing. As I said, once I got to the pages under “Features,” everything became clear.
    
   3. If I needed an online project management service, I would definitely sign up for this. This is truly one of the most powerful, feature-rich services of its kind that I have come across. Your fee structure seems quite reasonable, although it’s a shame that certain features are only offered with the more expensive plans. That’s not too helpful for small businesses that would like to use those features but have a dozen employees or less. Nevertheless, I can see that this would be a great investment for mid-size and larger businesses, and certainly the free accounts provide a lot.
    
   4. I searched on “social network for business.” The first result returned was a service called Yammer. I was surprised to see it since I really wasn’t aware that anything like this existed.
    
   Yammer’s home page presentation is very different than yours. It’s much briefer, and the look and feel is more strictly business, whereas yours is friendlier and more casual. You’ll notice that they have a tag line which instantly communicates what Yammer does. It’s “a private social network for your company.” There’s no guesswork involved. Also, you’ll see that they don’t display their pricing chart on the home page. 😉 On the other hand, their home page seems very generic. I like that yours has “personality.”
    
   Yammer is another very feature-rich service. Trying to do a side-by-side comparison here, I think it offers all or most of what Bitrix24 does as well as some apps that Bitrix24 does not. For example, whereas Bitrix24 seems aimed at supervisors, workgroups, project managers, sales professionals, and administrators, Yammer also has apps for IT, accounting, and other departments. In addition, they seem more focused on security than Bitrix24 does; they have an entire section under their “Feature List” page devoted to security and privacy precautions. However, even though Yammer seems to provide a little more than Bitrix24 does, I prefer Bitrix24’s method of presentation. Yammer doesn’t include screen shots in its list of features, and I really like that you do. The visual aid is helpful in understanding how Bitrix24 is organized. On the other hand, I like Yammer’s “Business Benefits” tab, which has a drop-down menu with nine pages, each one aimed at a different company division to explain how Yammer can assist in its particular role. I’m not sure Bitrix24 needs pages of that sort at this point, but it’s something to think about for the future.
    
   In terms of pricing, I’m having a hard time comparing because Yammer charges per user whereas Bitrix24 does not. However, it seems like they might offer most of what you do free of charge to an unlimited number of users. If that’s so, then they’re the better deal.
    
   5. Bitrix24 looks like an excellent service, although after comparing it to Yammer, they may have the price advantage.
    
   Right now, I think the most useful thing you could do would be to redesign your home page. It’s “pretty,” but I had to dig deeper into the site to understand what Bitrix24 is, whereas it was pretty obvious what Yammer was as soon as I read the tagline. I like the home page slideshow concept, just not the execution since it doesn’t explain anything concrete. Your “Overview” page does a somewhat better job of this, but it’s not until the visitor reaches “Features” that everything becomes clear. My suggestion is that you revise the selling points in your slideshow to make them less vague. A “social intranet” doesn’t really say anything to me, but “a private social network for your office” does. “Communicate where your work is being done, stop fishing in your inbox” is just about meaningless. But “employee activity streams keep you in the know about progress on group projects” is much more informative. If you can condense the main features of Bitrix24 in one- or two-sentence selling points like this, I think your home page will be much more effective. Then just move the pricing chart where it belongs–under “Prices”–and I think you’ll be good to go. Good luck!

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