Traction Rec - Salesforce for Community Centers

A Solution for Community centers: It keeps getting better!

I've been working with the Traction Rec product since its inception, helping out nonprofits as a Salesforce consultant. I want to share thoughts for anyone thinking about giving it a go. The product isn't flawless, but whenever I check out alternatives, Traction Rec is consistently the top dog. That's probably why you see more and more organizations, especially the Y's and J's, jumping on board. I want to give a shoutout to the product team for being on the ball with updates that tackle pain points. They're always making things better, and that's all we can ask for with such a beast of a product. There are some seriously powerful and flexible features, but here's the thing – with great power comes great responsibility. You need to be careful, especially with tricky stuff like the journal entries data model. My advice: make sure you've got at least one certified admin with good business analysis skills to handle it. For anyone thinking about getting on the Traction Rec train, it's not just about the license costs. Factor in the admin needs, onboarding & training, and custom tweaks. Don't forget to give your team some time to adjust – it's key for a smooth ride. Traction Rec is solid at recruiting and keeping great talent. They've got a bunch of competent teammates, including sales pros and consultants I've worked with in the past – both as colleagues and clients. I'm picky about products and delivery work and keeping things ethical in sales yet I find I'm always nodding in approval at their new hires. They are great at supporting their clients.

Upgrade to our Organization

Our systems were outdated and had a lack of customization. Traction Rec took us to a new level with our memberships and registration. Add in the customization of Salesforce and its has elevated us to not only tell a story about our members but to create a positive online member experience. The Traction Engagement team is incredible to work with and has helped us through many innovative ideas.

Great tool with fantastic support

Traction Rec is a game changer for JCCs and YMCAs wanting to use Salesforce as their CRM. Not only are they constantly improving their features based on feedback and needs from customers, they have robust support and knowledge sharing. Definitely a system worth checking out!

A big step forward!

Traction Rec helped our organization move from a very limited, closed system to Salesforce, a platform with virtually limitless possibilities. It was a significant undertaking and Traction Rec was a great partner for this transition, and the product helped us leverage the power of Salesforce for our specific needs. The product is improving with each release, and they have been responsive to feedback, bug fixes, and enhancement requests. Great people, great product!

Very unprofessional sales experience

I'm truly embarrassed to have to write this review. But, this experience was so horrific that I think it's important for others to know, so you don't waste your time with Traction Rec. Our client is a nationally known non-profit organization and we are assisting them in choosing the right solution for scheduling of classes and the normal admin functions that go along with class/student management. Traction Rec had 3 sales calls with us. The first two seemed productive, we shared our client's use cases to ensure they understood our requirements and we had a demo and things seemed like they were moving in the right direction. On the 3rd call things took a very unprofessional turn. They basically told our client that they are only interested in supporting JCC's and YMCAs and that they will not do anything to support any needs outside of what those organizations require and then they threw out an outrageously massive price tag, which made it very clear that they did not want to work with us. Traction Rec wasted our time, our client's time and then disrespected our client's requirements. All of this was unnecessary, very unprofessional and left a very negative impression of Traction Rec as a company with us and our client. I'm sorry to say if you are not a JCC or YMCA, don't waste your time with Traction Rec.

What every JCC and YMCA I've ever worked with has wanted

I've worked in the JCC and YMCA space for over 16 years. I've used many different community center software systems and CRMs. The problem was always the same... the software served 50% of the needs well, another 25% it tried but did poorly, and the remaining 25% it didn't do at all and had to be done in separate systems that were not integrated. TractionRec has changed all of that. By leveraging the Salesforce platform with TractionRec serving as our primary software for membership management, program registration, facility management, we're able to supplement best in class solutions around it such as NPSP, Volunteers for Salesforce, PatronManager, Docusign, Upace and others to create a solution that brings together our entire business and allows us for the first time to be able to see a complete picture of a member; their registrations, their donations, facility visits, memberships, ticket sales, volunteer hours, and more all in one place. It's what every JCC and YMCA is looking for... a wholistic view of their members and their interactions with your organization.

The right choice for us

After an extensive review process of 6 different CRM vendors, Traction Rec was clearly the choice for our community center. It provided a flexible hub for running our business - everything from selling membership, registering for camps and classes to opening our locker room doors based on membership type. Additionally, with the added layer of Salesforce NPSP we can raise money from our consituents, while always being able to access a 360 degree view of their relationship to our center. We began our implementation in June 2019, and went live with our first phase in December 2019. Throughout it has been apparent, that we have a true partner in the Traction Rec team. They took the time to learn deeply about our business so that the product could be customized to meet our specific needs. Additionally, they were able to make recommendations about how the Traction Rec technology could better our business through new business practices.

Traction Rec helped us change our Community Center

When we began our Salesforce journey we faced the challenge of finding apps for Constituent, Membership and Program management integrated with the platform. We tried to custom build the processes ourselves but realized this was not scalable nor sustainable for a non-profit organization of our size. Traction on Demand helped us solve this challenge with Traction Rec! We now have all our membership sales and retention, and program registration and administrations in one system. Traction Rec, on top of Salesforce NPSP allows us to see a fuller picture of how constituents interact with our community center. We have features and functions we could never have built ourselves and look forward to cool new stuff coming out with each release. We have users (awesome admins) from all departments building their own reports and dashboards from a single source of truth to provide data insights we never had before! Without Traction Rec we would not have been able to build this ourselves nor continue to develop new ways to improve. With Traction Rec, we can focus on how to improve transaction automation so we can foster and grow human interaction and community.