Pega CRM Reviews

I have worked across various organisations as a software engineer. Pega CRM is used in the BFS domain, with multiple domains being a common scenario.

The case management feature is really valuable.

There is a customer who tried using Pega CRM, but due to the high licensing cost, he had to reconsider his ability to use the software within his organization. There has been a common acknowledgment among customers that this solution is an expensive tool and they often opt for cheaper tools like Comodo, where their needs are served better at a lower cost. 

I have been using Pega CRM for the past 17 years.

It is pretty much stable. It has its own issues but compared to others when the projects, it has a global support system which is an advantage. The newer versions of the solution have also improved a lot. However, it is still sluggish in the United States. I believe it has its own positives and negatives.

It is scalable.

I've been in communication with the support team regularly, especially since I've taken on the role. I regularly communicate with both the vendor team in India and another team based in the US. The support we receive from them has been consistently good.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We have numerous uses of the solution in our organisation. Almost 72 applications are integrated with Pega CRM, and some of them are shutting down for various reasons including the high licensing costs. There is a strong focus in the market and offices on cost reduction.

I would like to suggest the solution but it really depends on your specific requirements, your business use cases and future plans. There is a significant investment involved in this solution and therefore it is very crucial to reevaluate your future necessity including automation potential and modernization plans. I would suggest that you select any kind of solution and explore alternatives of similar functionalities at a lower cost. This might help you to achieve more with less.

I use Pega CRM, customer service, Pega Constellation, the framework, like, the Pega underwriting for insurance and all.

Pega CRM is used for multiple clients, primarily in customer service. When calls come in through applications, it can be through different channels or an omnichannel. Whether it's email, calls, or chat, Pega handles all these channels. Additionally, there could be an IVR system that authenticates or identifies customers before launching service requests. These service requests are essentially different tasks that can be performed on a customer's account or profile.

Within the CRM, we can implement various predictive or adaptive analytics models that provide information helpful for customer service representatives during their discussions. This is the basic customer service use case for Pega CRM.

Pega also has a sales automation component that manages lead generation, campaign management, and conversion of leads into opportunities. 

Additionally, it offers beautiful dashboards with beautiful reports and a customer 360 view, providing a comprehensive framework.

From the analytics perspective, Pega processes a lot of information through predictive and adaptive models. These models generate outputs that are sent to other systems as input for further processing. While this is not directly related to customer service, it's another Pega capability. However, most commonly, Pega CRM is used for customer service-related functionalities.

Pega CRM has been instrumental in automation and streamlining the sales and customer service processes.

Because Pega is a low-code platform, many tasks are configurable, eliminating the need for custom coding from scratch. This allows for faster implementation – up to ten times faster. 

Many functionalities are readily available for drag-and-drop configuration. For example, sending an email to a customer requires simply dragging and dropping the "email" shape.

Similarly, Pega can listen to emails sent to various accounts. It can then process them, decide which user should handle the request, and route them accordingly.

This intelligent routing, including email listening, can be configured in just five minutes. Pega can identify the email header, and body, and send the body to an intelligent model for further processing and output generation. 

This low-code approach allows for way faster configuration compared to traditional methods like writing Java code or defining models.

The capabilities for customer engagement depend on how the Pega projects are implemented. In many places, the best practices are not followed. There's a tendency to over-customize and not leverage Pega's built-in features. 

If the implementation considers this and involves good quality business analysis to determine what to implement, what to avoid, and where to optimize processes, then the end-user experience is definitely optimized.

For example, let's say a customer is calling, and the call is received on a larger application. Pega goes through the customer's history, including their last few calls, geography, and any data stored in the Pega system of record. 

Based on this data, Pega suggests why this customer might be calling.

Additionally, if other customers with similar past interactions have called in the past year, Pega suggests what this customer is most likely to say and do based on those interactions. Based on this information, Pega offers suggestions and prompts that the customer service representative can use to ask the right questions.

Similarly, let's say a customer is reaching out on chat, and the chatbot is responding. In between the calls, the customer wants to switch to a call because the chatbot or even the re-chat with a real person isn't helpful. 

So, when the customer calls, Pega picks up the conversation from where it was left on the chat channel and continues on the call channel. This ensures the customer doesn't feel like they have to go through repetitive tasks and that the company or the customer's representative truly understands their needs. This provides a more positive experience for the customer.

So, these key features, like suggesting why a customer might be calling, picking up conversations from chat, etc., those are likely the drivers for improved customer satisfaction and retention.

Overall, CRM improved operational efficiency.

For case management, Pega's capabilities are unmatched. No other tool has what Pega offers. While Appian might not even have cases (unsure about the latest version), their processes are based on flows. 

Pega, on the other hand, manages cases with different stages, steps, and flows within each stage. This allows for creating reusable and modular flows at the tool level, unlike building large flows like in Appian. 

Additionally, Pega offers a clear parent-child case relationship that's easily created and maintained. Dependencies can be configured, where reaching a specific stage in a parent case automatically triggers a child task in a child case, while the parent case remains on hold until a certain condition is met before moving forward. 

This configuration allows multiple users to work on cases in parallel. Many of these settings are readily available within Pega case settings. 

Overall, Pega's case management is unparalleled compared to other options like Power Apps, which lack any case-related functionalities due to their different focus.

Price is always a concern for many organizations. They often think Pega is expensive, and sometimes they don't fully understand the pricing model.

I have been using this solution for four years. 

Overall, I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten. 

Pega's global customer support is excellent. We have access to a user-friendly portal where we can raise tickets and typically receive a response within a day. 

Additionally, Pega offers dedicated technical support for our team managing Pega Cloud, where our infrastructure is hosted. We also have a customer helpline accessible anytime.

Pega even assigns an architect to each account, embedded within the team and connected to key Pega personnel. This allows us to reach them directly for any issue. Upgrades are also very smooth compared to local technologies. 

While local application technologies often come with new versions requiring careful planning, Pega releases new versions quarterly (similar to Appian and Salesforce). 

In the past two and a half years, we've done around ten upgrades with minimal issues, even for ten applications. I can typically schedule a one-week window to upgrade all applications without major problems. 

All those things are handled by Pega's technical support. They manage all the environments and address all our issues, and we have weekly calls with Pega teams to discuss pending issues and work on resolutions. Based on my experience, they've been very responsive.

So, for example, every week, we have a half-hour call to go through all the pending issues and work on them collaboratively. So, they are very responsive based on my experience.

Positive

I used to use Appian.  The reason I left Appian and started working on Pega is its flexibility. I used to be on the Pega engine development team, then moved to Pega application development. 

Back when I was with Appian, there wasn't much flexibility in building applications. Appian had limited connectors, a basic flow builder, and a very small expression editor. They didn't offer the capabilities needed for real projects. Additionally, there were performance issues.

When I moved to Pega, I found a lot of out-of-the-box configurations available for building full-fledged applications. I've always been happy with Pega's offerings because there's practically nothing you can't do with it. However, we always emphasize staying within Pega's capabilities and avoiding unnecessary customization.

Many people say implementing Pega requires technical expertise. However, since Pega version 8.6, Pega has been pushing for implementation using App Studio instead of the traditional Desktop Studio. 

In the past few years, we've experimented with having Business Analysts (BAs) do the development in App Studio. Previously, Pega projects typically had many developers and few BAs. In my experience, projects using App Studio have had at least a couple of BAs per team, with developers focusing on the backend logic. The BAs work in App Studio, which is a "what you see is what you get" interface. They don't need to know any Pega code; they just log in, work on cases, stages, validations, service level agreements, actors, portals, and UI elements.

So, from that perspective, Pega is making it easier for people with less technical knowledge to build applications. However, many developers and architects are still comfortable with the old ways and hesitant to move to the new approach. This hesitation sometimes leads to feedback saying Pega is difficult to implement due to the required "Pega technical knowledge." This isn't necessarily true. Many large banks with dozens of applications running for years find Pega valuable due to its robust enterprise capabilities.

Pega offers a lot of out-of-the-box configurations, probably more than other tools. For example, in terms of integrations, Pega provides a large number of pre-built connectors that allow you to simply create a form and fill it out to connect to another system. 

The number of configurations, validation tools, case management features, and CRM features available in Pega makes it well-suited for enterprise-level applications.

Price is always a concern for many organizations. They often think Pega is expensive, and sometimes they don't fully understand the pricing model. I use different models for different customer sizes, like user-based or case-based pricing. I'm not an expert on the specific details of the pricing structure.

However, based on what I hear from customers, they often perceive Pega as expensive compared to Appian or other local technologies. This can influence their decision when choosing a solution. They might opt for cheaper local options unless they have a clear need for an enterprise-level solution, in which case they consider Pega.

It's important to note that I'm not sure about the exact cost of Salesforce, but from what I hear from current customers, it's potentially even higher than Pega.

In some cases, it might be two or three times more expensive. So, from that perspective, considering Pega's leadership in CRM and its comprehensive functionalities, it can still be a good option despite the cost.

From my perspective, Pega is a comprehensive product that already offers a wide range of functionalities. It might not be perfect, but it fulfills most needs quite well.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Pega CRM uses a layer cake architecture. Basically, the tool is a convenient application to use even if you are not a technical person, like a business analyst.

I use the solution for the CRM module, especially for customers who prefer Pega CRM. My company provides consulting services for pharmaceutical companies.

Beneficial features in terms of customer engagement stem from the tool's layer cake architecture, which is one of its best functionalities because it allows the business analyst or people who do not have much technical knowledge to design a use case in the solution. You can show others a readily available demo feature provided by Pega CRM. The aforementioned two features are quite interesting. Pega CRM also provides robust, out-of-the-box workflows that generally fit customer needs. Pega CRM's users can avail the tool's out-of-the-box workflow for simple requirements. For complex requirements, Pega CRM can be a little difficult.

The disadvantage of the tool stems from the fact that it does not allow users to make database-level modifications. In Siebel CRM, you have complete control over your database, you can do any database-level modifications, and you can create a custom data model within your database, but such functionalities are not available in Pega CRM. The UI and UI level modifications that are available in Siebel CRM with JavaScript within the jQuery framework, which is basically an open UI framework built by Siebel on top of a UI layer, are available in the tool. The level of UI modifications allowed by Siebel CRM is not available in Pega CRM. The aforementioned areas can be considered for improvement in the tool.

I would like to see more out-of-the-box adaptors in Pega CRM since it is an area where the tool has certain shortcomings.

I have experience using Pega CRM for a year. My company provides services to clients who have already purchased the Pega licenses. My company provides services on Pega.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight to eight and a half out of ten.

Pega CRM offers fewer scalability features than Siebel CRM. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

The tech support is robust, responsive, and better than the one offered by Oracle. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The product's deployment phase was easy. Siebel and Pega are easy to deploy.

One engineer can deploy the application with and for maintenance; for a small SaaS application, hardly two people are needed to maintain it.

If I consider the installation, migration, and deployment processes, it takes around half an hour to complete.

AI capabilities are quite robust. Pega CRM offers seamless integration with AI capabilities. If you tell something to Pega CRM in a simple language, the AI will design the application for you. If you just want to design a new case type and you tell it about your requirements, Pega's AI part will automatically design case types for you. You can then make minor tweaks or modifications to the tool as per your needs to suit your business which is good.

Integration is possible in Pega CRM, but it's not as flexible and robust as Siebel CRM. From an integration perspective, Siebel CRM's out-of-the-box adaptors provide users with a more robust option. I don't have much expertise in Pega CRM.

Pega CRM is suitable for businesses that don't deal with complex processes and for small and medium-sized businesses. For a large customer base with very complex business requirements, I would prefer Siebel CRM.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

There are numerous use cases tailored for customer retention and customer acquisition. These scenarios often come with pre-configured visual logic, with the flexibility to adjust them to fit specific organizational needs. Additionally, there are various components provided out of the box, facilitating efficient data management within Pega CRM. Ensuring that the data seamlessly integrates into the platform is crucial for optimal performance and leveraging the built-in functionalities effectively.

Pega CRM has proven invaluable in addressing business challenges like hyper-personalization, which is increasingly relevant today. An illustrative scenario involves a banking example where a customer attempts to withdraw money from an ATM but doesn't complete the transaction. Later, when they log into the banking portal or app, the system recognizes their earlier attempt and offers relevant recommendations or options based on that interaction. Similarly, Pega CRM enables geo-specific use cases, such as notifying customers about nearby events or restaurant discounts based on their location. This capability extends across various channels, ensuring consistent and personalized experiences for customers regardless of how they engage with the system. Pega CRM's ability to maintain context across multiple channels is instrumental in delivering such tailored experiences.

The AI-driven decision-making capability within Pega CRM significantly impacts our customer interactions by providing intelligent recommendations. This functionality is a pivotal aspect of CRM, enabling seamless integration with call center applications. Through this integration, agents can access recommended options for specific users and identify products of potential interest to them. Moreover, if Pega CRM is utilized for an intelligent call center setup, it comprehensively captures and summarizes all customer-agent interactions, attaching them to relevant cases.

Customization of Pega CRM significantly impacts our workflow. Pega CRM provides clear segregation between customizable and non-customizable parts. Business rule components are areas where customization is encouraged, allowing users to add their own use cases, details, and business logic easily. This configurability is straightforward and operates within a local strategy framework.

One of the most valuable features of Pega CRM for our team's productivity is its ease of setup, thanks to its configuration-driven approach. Once the initial setup is complete for the first release, subsequent changes and additions, such as implementing new cases, are straightforward. This ease of configuration not only reduces time to market but also lowers overall operational costs.

There is room for improvement and further enhancement in the stability capabilities. I think there's potential for enhancement in the support system provided. It would be beneficial to enhance the pricing and support implementation options as they are currently quite expensive.

I have been working with it for six years.

I would rate its stability capabilities eight out of ten.

It provides excellent scalability. I would rate it nine out of ten. The number of users a CRM platform can support varies greatly and depends on various factors such as infrastructure setup, scalability, and utilization of real-time containers. I've witnessed CRM platforms functioning as headless systems and handling a range of requests from one per second to a significantly higher number.

Pega offers a good support system. Users of Pega Cloud get their ticket-handling system, which I haven't personally used, but I've heard it's quite efficient and ensures high availability. If there are server issues, they have contingency measures in place to prevent downtime. However, when it comes to product issues or configuration problems, resolving them through support requests can sometimes be time-consuming, taking days or even weeks. This often involves numerous meetings with Pega to address the issues.

Setting up CRM can be time-consuming, primarily because its value becomes apparent when the initial foundation is well-established, and the system is fed with accurate data. Given that CRM operates on data, ensuring its correctness is paramount for optimal performance. However, even with readily available and configurable data, it's possible to launch the minimum viable product or first release within three to four months in many cases. The key lies in selecting use cases wisely from the array available in the tool and focusing on configuration and data setup, which are critical components of the process.

For deployment, Pega provides comprehensive instructions to deploy the entire system. These implementation guidelines outline all necessary steps, allowing you to tailor the setup according to your specific requirements. This involves configuring contexts and defining business values, issues, groups, segments, and other relevant elements based on your business needs. While setting up the foundation is critical, Pega offers a thorough instruction manual, enabling you to follow the steps and understand your client's needs effectively. Although setting up the system may take a couple of weeks for proper foundation establishment, following the detailed steps provided by Pega in their implementation guide ensures a successful deployment process.

For the successful implementation of Pega CRM, it's essential to determine the specific hardware sizing requirements for optimal performance. This involves accurately predicting factors such as the number of users, transactions, and data volume. Pega provides detailed guidance for hardware sizing, ensuring that you ask exhaustive questions to accurately determine your needs. Failing to correctly size the hardware can lead to various issues and potential failures.

Pega's licensing model is handled on a client-specific basis. Typically, it involves a subscription fee, which could be annual and based on factors such as the number of users or cases created. The pricing is on the higher side.

Having worked with Pega for over twenty years, I've witnessed its remarkable evolution to meet the changing demands of clients. While Pega remains a prominent player in the industry, it's worth noting that it's a premium product, making it inaccessible to some clients due to its price. However, for those who can afford it, Pega ensures swift delivery and offers access to abundant resources, which is crucial for implementation and ongoing support. Despite the cost associated with running support, the scalability of the tool contributes to faster return on investment and improved time to market, ultimately enhancing its value proposition. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

We use Pega CRM for database purposes.

We can effortlessly manage the data within it, and it offers ease of use and high flexibility to present the data across various vendors.

They should enable the data-driven streaming feature inside it.

I have been using Pega CRM for the past three years.

It is stable, and I would rate it a seven out of 10. 

It is scalable, but it depends on the specific scenarios. When the number of requests increases significantly, we need to assess the request volume. Based on that assessment, we'll need to introduce additional servers. It's important to note that all matters related to server management are handled by the administrator. If we decide to add more servers, there will be a brief server downtime to facilitate the addition. After the new servers are added and aligned with the use case, we can proceed to restart the primary CMS server.

But it needs to be done manually, so I would rate it a four out of 10.

The technical support team is good.

Positive

I would rate the initial setup a six out of 10. 

It is expensive. 

I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

I use the CRM framework as the customer relationship manager in my healthcare company and for retirement services applications. I'm a senior Pega developer.

Pega has given us flexibility and its locking mechanism enables multiple users to work on the same case seamlessly. You are notified when changes are being made but you're also able to work on top of that at the same time. This was not possible previously and it's given Pega a strong place in the case management market. 

It's great that you can seamlessly integrate with any REST or SOAP service. And the latest versions have included a lot more integrations including to Kafka messages and power processing so you can work on multiple threads. It plays a key role when you're working on any sum items and processing in the background, perhaps sending a report or maybe purging to a table. The queue processor now allows you to spin up multiple parallel threads. If one thread is busy, it can re-route to a second, and then you can work in parallel on each thread without stopping or having to wait for another thread to complete your execution.

They have recently added more integrations. Earlier, we just had integrations with REST, SOAP, and maybe JMS. We now also have SQL, SAP, and more. CRM provides a lot of flexibility in workflow, where an assignment might be changed on the fly. It enables privilege and access rules to be defined. 

Although I see increased efforts recently, the big issue I have is with the UI, which lags in comparison to its competitors. Pega's competitors have a lot of packages that Pega doesn't have. I'd also like to see direct PDC integration. The way we do it now is almost external but if Pega could add that as a link so you can directly open the PDC, that would be helpful.

They also have room to improve when it comes to where you send notifications, email templates or email notifications. Pega needs to provide a lot more libraries that users or developers can add on the fly. Most of the current applications I work on use Pega as a business rules engine. 90% of what we do is integration where we create some REST and SOAP services. When we set up, Pega supplied the URLs and set up the rules. It would be great if they could make available any URL for PDC to help developers so anyone can see who has access to that.

I've used this product for the past eight years. 

We had some issues with stability this year when we were developing the secure site and creating integrations. We had to go back to Pega to have those issues fixed.

The scalability is quite good. 

The customer support is very good. 

The initial setup is not complex. A lead could implement the solution but setting up the pipeline requires a system or a DevOps team. Amazon AWS had DevOps guys who could do this; you insert your application name, product version, and then copy-paste your product file. It deploys your code from dev to QA. Our project has eight developers using this solution. From a front-end perspective, the application has 30 or 35 users. We are likely to increase our usage in the near future. 

This is a very good tool. Of course there are limitations but when your technical team is good and your support team is good, those challenges can be addressed in no time. Pega has improved a lot over the past few years and I would recommend the solution. It's one of the best tools when compared to BPM and CRM. They're continuing to make it easier for developers and users. 

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

The solution is primarily used to manage client information. All notes and interactions between you and the client can be stored in the solution, and reports can be generated to help with client proposals.

The most valuable feature is the ability to pull information about the customer on-the-fly so they feel the interaction is more personal.

The solution has room for improvement around decisional and real-time data analysis.

I have been using the solution for ten years. 

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. All you need is to deploy more servers, both vertical and horizontal. It runs on Java and JVM.

The customer service is good.

Positive

The setup is straightforward. All that is required is a server. If you acquire a license from the solution, they will deploy everything and provide you with an instance that will run in the cloud.

The licensing is case to case depending on the organization's requirements. There is no fixed price for this solution.

I rate the solution eight out of ten.

The solution is intuitive, it includes one-to-one customer engagement, and Pega 360-degree view, powered by data science and AI. Business intelligence is also included.

I recommend that you enroll through the solutions website for a training course before implementing the product.

I would recommend the solution to anyone looking for a CRM.

My organization has built solutions for sales representatives using the product. It has a lot of AI features. We really like the solution that we have given to our customers.

The solution is very easy to use.

The UI should be improved. It should be made easier to access.

I have been using the solution for eight months.

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten. It depends on a lot of parameters like customer acceptance and comfort, usability, the kind of recommendations it provides, and the kind of intelligence it has.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten. We have 15 customers using the solution.

The support team is proactively involved and is always supportive.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Pega CRM is easy to navigate compared to Salesforce. We have evaluated other options, but we chose Pega CRM because the customers chose it.

It’s a very good tool. Pega CRM should build its UX. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

The Pega CRM use case is end-to-end. You have a customer center where people are reaching out for their self-service portal, self-service request, or some change requests in their account, or they want to check on their balance or different things. They reach out to a customer care executive and get authenticated during the call by using their account number, credit card number, debit card number, or their applicant number.

As soon as the executive receives the call, because it's an authenticated person, all the details are already popped up in the stream for that user, like the account information and personal information. Instead of browsing all 10 different systems, there would be a desktop that gets all the information from all the different upstream systems and downstream systems. Then they ask how they can help and create service cases and resolve them or proceed further.

In the transaction, if the person needs assistance, the call would get transferred to another person and all the details and data will also get transferred to the other person's desktop so they can take care of the request. This is all about one use case where we are basically orchestrating all the different systems into one system and making sure that all the information is presented on one page, which improves the efficiency and results in a good experience for the customer.

It also reduces the duration per call, and it ensures a first time resolution of the issue. In these kinds of use cases, there are many variances. In some places, like if it's a credit card company, they will get to know why you have called them and if it's related to some charges or something. Then out of your profile, they will get options from the system for the retention of customers. This happens mostly either in the banking industry or telecommunication industry where you have a phone or internet connection.

For many of the clients, they have a separate system or separate layer of UI and a separate layer of the business rules engine, which Pega has taken care of in the recent releases. The performance is also better. But developers should be properly trained so that the solution is developed properly.

I have been using Pega for 16 years. Currently, I'm managing a Pega engagement.

It's very stable.

It's scalable. If the designers have followed Pega's best practices, it is very scalable and there are no design issues.

I would rate technical support 4.5 out of 5.

I have been using Pega for the last 16 years, from the beginning of my career. I am familiar with solutions like Appian and OutSystems. But for enterprise-level solutions, Pega is the best.

Since Pega has promoted cloud, it is not as cumbersome as it was earlier when we used to manage their servers in-house. If you want to use another cloud, then Pega will configure it on another cloud. It won't take that much effort, but it is much more secure and much more reliable.

Since Pega Deployment Manager came into picture, deployment is very easy. It won't take a lot of time. Based on the number of rules or size of deployment and how big the release is, it won't take more than a couple of hours or even less. It's very smooth. If you're deploying small packages, it's almost done in real time.

Pega claims that the ROI is 300%. People get ROI very early.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

The results are good from implementing this product. My advice is that you need to have a well-trained and experienced team. If you have that with a quick turn-around time and the requirements are clear, then you will see the magic.