| Best for | Brand |
|---|---|
| Editors' choice | Pipedrive |
| Automation | Zoho CRM |
| Small businesses | Nutshell |
| Freelancers | HoneyBook |
| Sales | HubSpot |
| Nonprofits | monday.com |
| Real estate | Freshsales |
Everyone knows that a business can’t survive without its clientele, so understanding, maintaining, and nurturing customer relationships must be prioritized. That’s where CRM software plays its part, helping companies manage these relationships with tools that allow marketing, sales, and customer service departments to work collaboratively.
From capturing leads to closing deals and providing post-sales support, CRM platforms help teams create, manage, and view the customer’s entire journey in real time. With this, understanding clients’ needs, directing marketing strategies, and consequently improving sales become far more straightforward.
Pipedrive is a cloud-based CRM platform that strives to streamline sales processes. Its user-friendly tools allow companies to smoothly manage sales pipelines with a clear view of the process and real-time tracking of each stage. Almost every aspect of the platform is customizable, and its wide range of lead-management features and insightful reports help marketing and sales teams work collaboratively.
With over 300 integrations available and superb customer service, Pipedrive is the go-to platform for businesses looking to increase client retention and manage leads. It’s also the perfect place to store and track all customer-related data, such as shopping preferences and purchasing history. All this is available for affordable prices, starting at $14.90 per user per month.
Opting for annual billing gives you a 25% discount on the monthly plan, but you don’t have to open your wallet just yet. Before committing, users can take advantage of the 30-day free trial to fully test the service, including all add-on features.
Zoho CRM can be considered as the ace up your sleeve, helping users strategize and win big with every customer interaction. The platform is designed to simplify the complex world of customer management, offering a comprehensive suite of tools that help users stay organized, build relationships, and drive sales, all in one centralized place.
The provider’s free plan ensures anyone can access its basic features. Those who need more advanced features can upgrade to one of its paid plans, which start at $14 per user per month. Plus, opting for annual subscriptions results in a discount of up to 34%. Users can also take advantage of the platform’s 15-day free trial and a money-back guarantee to fully test the software before committing.
For those looking to crack the nut of CRM platforms, Nutshell may be for you. Since 2010, this provider has offered easy-to-use and feature-packed CRM software that helps users check customer data, track sales pipelines, and automate tasks.
With prices starting at $13 per user per month, users can also get a discount of up to 32% by choosing longer commitment plans. s intuitive interface and integrations help users keep everything running smoothly, so they can focus on growing their business.
Founded in 2013, HoneyBook helps small business owners manage customer relationships from the first inquiry to the final payment. The platform offers an arsenal of features and tools that streamline sales pipelines and keep track of every stage of the process. It’s great for those who rely on several types of software and spreadsheets to manage their businesses, as it merges customer information, contact forms, invoices, and many more, into one place. Its simple and intuitive interface allows users to smoothly navigate through all its resources. Additionally, the option of automating tasks and the variety of templates available show that the service has the whole package. The best part is that you can get HoneyBook for as low as $1 per month by taking advantage of the company’s occasional promotions. Moreover, with the 7-day free trial and the 60-day money-back guarantee, there’s no reason not to see what this CRM software is all about.
If the CRM industry were Hollywood, HubSpot would be an A-list star. When most competitors scaled back their packages to include either marketing software or help desks, this company put them all to shame by implementing both into its platform.
HubSpot’s free version features basic tools from its six ‘hubs’, and when it’s time to expand, there are premade software bundles. Furthermore, the company allows users to customize their own bundles with an extensive list of products and add-ons.
Mondays are the worst. It’s difficult to get back into work after two days off. To make matters worse, it’s often the day that managers overwhelm their team with handing out tasks. The Tel Aviv-born monday.com uses this notion ironically to highlight how painless the first day of the week (or any other) can be when workflows are managed well. Ever since its foundation in 2012, the company has provided a reliable task management platform where you can work on projects and tasks without losing focus. Its collaboration tools make teamwork as smooth as possible, and its custom workflows make it all even easier. Plus, monday.com provides informative customer service, a free plan for individual use, and a 14-day free trial for its paid plans.
Freshsales is an outstanding CRM system designed for small to medium-sized businesses. It’s part of Freshworks’ integrated suite of CRM tools with different focuses, such as Freshmarketer for marketing and Freshservice for IT service management. On its own, Freshsales provides multi-touch attribution to customer relationship management and has been streamlining the workflow of sales teams since 2016.
As a cloud-based, AI-supported platform, Freshsales has everything sales managers need in one place: lead generation and tracking tools, a wide range of customization options, unrivaled customer support, and more.
Starting at $15 per user per month, Freshsales is perfect for budget-conscious businesses. Plus, those who don’t want to commit right away can enjoy a 21-day free trial that doesn’t require any credit card information. The company also provides a forever-free plan limited to three users.
Impressively available in over 30 languages, Freshsales is a truly global solution for sales teams.
Some sources categorize CRM software into many different types. However, the main three to focus on are analytical, operational, and collaborative.
As the name implies, analytical CRM platforms are centered around displaying data so that businesses can analyze customers’ behavior and trends. Having this information broken down into insightful reports helps companies capture and convert more leads, customize goal-oriented marketing campaigns, and develop strategies to meet sales targets. This is the best type of software for data-driven large businesses, such as service providers and account-based sales organizations.
Operational CRM platforms focus on streamlining marketing, sales, and customer service operations. They usually provide automation tools that help save time with repetitive tasks. Such tools let workers automate actions according to customers’ behavior, sales processes, and marketing strategies. As facilitating operations is at the core of CRM, it fits businesses of any kind, but it’s especially useful for those with linear sales processes.
Also known as strategic, collaborative CRM is all about making data visible to anyone in marketing, sales, and customer service teams, so they’re able to work collaboratively. For example, it’s essential for customer support representatives to have visibility of the client’s purchase history and preferred communication methods to improve assistance. For this reason, it’s most suited to businesses that require effortless cross-department collaboration.
Whether it’s an enterprise with thousands of employees or a freelance photographer flying solo, anyone can benefit from using a CRM system. For starters, most platforms gather all customers’ information in only one place. They also let users create and share contact forms to capture clients, manage leads, streamline sales pipelines, and receive online payments. This eliminates the need to juggle different platforms to access data in spreadsheets, email inbox, text messages, meetings calendar – the list goes on.
Managing clients solely from one platform also increases customer retention rates because staff members are able to access their information and keep up communication with ease. Performing these client-centered actions using only one web or mobile app is essential to save time and organize data, but, above all, to provide a better service and consequently make your business thrive.
Specific aspects to look for in a CRM platform depend on the company’s needs, usage, size, and many other variables. However, the core features to consider are those related to marketing, sales automation, and customer service.
Firstly, it’s important to search for features that help your business improve its marketing strategy. For instance, CRM platforms should allow lead-capturing contact forms to be brand-customized. They also must offer dedicated spaces to manage clients’ product preferences, contact information, and interests. What’s more, users should be able to see this data in insightful analytics that show which sources generate more leads, for example. After considering all this, be sure to check if you can set automations so that marketing-related actions are triggered by certain variables.
It’s essential to check whether the platform allows you to create contracts, send invoices, and receive online payments. However, it’s even more vital to consider aspects related to the sales pipeline, such as its visibility, how it’s divided, the kind of information displayed, and how customizable it is.
It’s also worth seeing if the sales process stages are automatically updated according to customers’ actions, such as project approvals, signed contracts, and payments. Finally, it’s a bonus if the platform provides sales data insights, such as revenue forecasting and purchase history.
It’s also key to identify which modes of communication with clients are available. Ticket system, live chat, chatbot, social media messaging, and email are essential for customer assistance. Plus, it’s a good idea to search for tools that assess customer satisfaction levels and carry out surveys.
Additionally, it’s worth considering which integrations the software facilitates and if there’s a mobile app available. Other common yet important aspects to reflect on for all types of software are how easy it is to use the platform, pricing structures that fit the company’s budget, and how reliable customer support is.
Time and attention need to be dedicated to the setup process for any CRM system to work successfully. It’s important to carefully upload customers’ contact information and purchase history data, as well as customize sales pipeline stages according to the company’s unique processes.
Then comes integrating the platform with the essential communication, document management, meeting scheduling, and accounting apps already in use. Next, repetitive manual processes should be automated. Lastly, it’s time to add users and configure their permissions.
Once these first steps are made, the team needs to be trained to use the system. Staff members already familiar with the platform’s tools can help, but most CRM platforms offer training programs. Plus, for the CRM software to be implemented successfully across the organization, all personnel should be educated on how to use it to boost their productivity and collaboration with coworkers.
Finally, bear in mind that CRM software can increase sales by 29%, productivity by 34%, and forecast accuracy by 42%. So, as the numbers show, applying the right one isn’t just helpful for businesses to prosper, it’s vital.
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