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.
Best CRM Software of 2024
Best CRM Software for Small Businesses: Pipedrive
Small businesses with less than 100 employees likely already have Pipedrive on their radar. This user-friendly CRM solution harmonizes the collaboration between sales and marketing teams through its various lead-management features. The interface is refreshingly clean and hassle-free, guaranteeing quick onboarding without the need for complex setups or extensive training.
Pipedrive is particularly well-suited for businesses that prioritize customizability, offering a plethora of editable email templates and web forms. It even has its own e-signature tool to expedite deal closures. Along with its exceptional integration with Teams, perfect if you’re a Microsoft 365 user, Pipedrive offers over 300 integrations with other crucial business apps.
The best part is that Pipedrive gives users free access to the platform’s full potential, including add-ons, for 30 days.
Positives
Highly customizable
30-day free trial
+300 integrations
Data-rich reports
User-friendly
Negatives
No built-in online payments
No refunds
Best CRM Software for Freelancers: HoneyBook
Freelancers spend a lot of valuable time managing overcomplicated workflows at the backend of their business. Thankfully, the increasingly popular HoneyBook is here to help these independent professionals work smarter while boosting project bookings.
This intuitive CRM platform streamlines project management, saving time and effort on customer outreach with automatic lead responses and payment reminders.
HoneyBook takes the burden of scheduling calls or meetings off your hands by setting up appointments based on your projects’ progression. It offers a library of 70 templates for essential documents, which makes contact and invoice management a breeze. While limited to just ten integrations, HoneyBook has a comprehensive reports section equipped with project-tracking tools and bookkeeping features.
Positives
360-view of projects
Easy invoice and contract management
Robust reports
Intuitive platform
Bookkeeping features
Negatives
Only ten integrations
Un-customizable dashboard
Best CRM Software for Sales: Freshsales
The CRM industry wouldn’t be the same without Freshsales. Thousands of companies rely upon it to boost their sales, marketing, and customer service efforts. Its all-encompassing nature fosters smooth collaboration across departments, which share a unified view of clients, leads, and deals.
True to its name, the interface is fresh and user-friendly. The four main tabs cover contacts, deals, sales, and automation. This structure, combined with the platform’s support of up to ten sales pipelines, turns the hard job of tracking leads into child’s play.
Freshsales consolidates data from integrated communication channels, its document-builder add-on, and any other key sources into a thorough reports section. The curious can explore this software through its limited free version or a 21-day full-featured free trial.
Positives
Up to ten sales pipelines
Extensive integrations
Forever-free plan
Thorough reports
Straightforward interface
Negatives
Essential features cost extra
Limited free version
Best CRM Software for Nonprofits: monday.com Sales CRM
Efficiency is the stepping stone of any nonprofit, and monday.com provides the essential tools for these organizations to thrive. This project management solution simplifies setting deadlines, creating to-do lists, and prioritizing tasks with its intuitive navigation and custom workflows.
monday.com integrates with 50 other services, including competitor Asana, so importing tasks from one platform to another won’t be an issue. Setting up your workspace and customizing your user profile are just as straightforward. Plus, this solution has Android and iOS mobile apps to boost on-the-go productivity.
As if it could get any better, monday.com’s free Individual plan, which curiously supports two users, is an excellent choice for small teams and nonprofits. For those interested in the advanced features, all paid plans start with a generous 14-day trial.
Positives
Project management tools
Workflow automation
Extensive integrations
Forever-free plan
Detailed support page
Negatives
Limited collaboration tools
No budgeting options
Best CRM Software for Real Estate: Salesforce
Successful real estate agencies know their customers well, usually thanks to a robust CRM system. However, few off-the-shelf services are as tailored to the real estate sector as Salesforce.
Sales teams gain the most from the numerous features of Salesforce. It facilitates lead tracking and deal closure with dynamic pipelines that offer an overview of each account and real-time updates. Salesforce provides revenue forecasting and boasts several customization options allowing users to personalize pages and create apps without programming experience. Plus, the platform integrates with over 4,000 apps.
While complicated for first-time users, Salesforce has a guidance center with several self-support tools and a risk-free 30-day trial.
Positives
Highly customizable
All-encompassing platform
Forecasting abilities
4,000+ integrations
30-day free trial
Negatives
Not user-friendly
Poor customer support
Types of CRM Software
Pipedrive is particularly well-suited for businesses that prioritize customizability, offering a plethora of editable email templates and web forms. It even has its own e-signature tool to expedite deal closures. Along with its exceptional integration with Teams, perfect if you’re a Microsoft 365 user, Pipedrive offers over 300 integrations with other crucial business apps.
The best part is that Pipedrive gives users free access to the platform’s full potential, including add-ons, for 30 days.
Positives |
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Negatives |
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This intuitive CRM platform streamlines project management, saving time and effort on customer outreach with automatic lead responses and payment reminders.
HoneyBook takes the burden of scheduling calls or meetings off your hands by setting up appointments based on your projects’ progression. It offers a library of 70 templates for essential documents, which makes contact and invoice management a breeze. While limited to just ten integrations, HoneyBook has a comprehensive reports section equipped with project-tracking tools and bookkeeping features.
Positives |
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Negatives |
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Best CRM Software for Sales: Freshsales
The CRM industry wouldn’t be the same without Freshsales. Thousands of companies rely upon it to boost their sales, marketing, and customer service efforts. Its all-encompassing nature fosters smooth collaboration across departments, which share a unified view of clients, leads, and deals.
True to its name, the interface is fresh and user-friendly. The four main tabs cover contacts, deals, sales, and automation. This structure, combined with the platform’s support of up to ten sales pipelines, turns the hard job of tracking leads into child’s play.
Freshsales consolidates data from integrated communication channels, its document-builder add-on, and any other key sources into a thorough reports section. The curious can explore this software through its limited free version or a 21-day full-featured free trial.
Positives
Up to ten sales pipelines
Extensive integrations
Forever-free plan
Thorough reports
Straightforward interface
Negatives
Essential features cost extra
Limited free version
Best CRM Software for Nonprofits: monday.com Sales CRM
Efficiency is the stepping stone of any nonprofit, and monday.com provides the essential tools for these organizations to thrive. This project management solution simplifies setting deadlines, creating to-do lists, and prioritizing tasks with its intuitive navigation and custom workflows.
monday.com integrates with 50 other services, including competitor Asana, so importing tasks from one platform to another won’t be an issue. Setting up your workspace and customizing your user profile are just as straightforward. Plus, this solution has Android and iOS mobile apps to boost on-the-go productivity.
As if it could get any better, monday.com’s free Individual plan, which curiously supports two users, is an excellent choice for small teams and nonprofits. For those interested in the advanced features, all paid plans start with a generous 14-day trial.
Positives
Project management tools
Workflow automation
Extensive integrations
Forever-free plan
Detailed support page
Negatives
Limited collaboration tools
No budgeting options
Best CRM Software for Real Estate: Salesforce
Successful real estate agencies know their customers well, usually thanks to a robust CRM system. However, few off-the-shelf services are as tailored to the real estate sector as Salesforce.
Sales teams gain the most from the numerous features of Salesforce. It facilitates lead tracking and deal closure with dynamic pipelines that offer an overview of each account and real-time updates. Salesforce provides revenue forecasting and boasts several customization options allowing users to personalize pages and create apps without programming experience. Plus, the platform integrates with over 4,000 apps.
While complicated for first-time users, Salesforce has a guidance center with several self-support tools and a risk-free 30-day trial.
Positives
Highly customizable
All-encompassing platform
Forecasting abilities
4,000+ integrations
30-day free trial
Negatives
Not user-friendly
Poor customer support
Types of CRM Software
The CRM industry wouldn’t be the same without Freshsales. Thousands of companies rely upon it to boost their sales, marketing, and customer service efforts. Its all-encompassing nature fosters smooth collaboration across departments, which share a unified view of clients, leads, and deals.
True to its name, the interface is fresh and user-friendly. The four main tabs cover contacts, deals, sales, and automation. This structure, combined with the platform’s support of up to ten sales pipelines, turns the hard job of tracking leads into child’s play.
Freshsales consolidates data from integrated communication channels, its document-builder add-on, and any other key sources into a thorough reports section. The curious can explore this software through its limited free version or a 21-day full-featured free trial.
Positives |
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Negatives |
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monday.com integrates with 50 other services, including competitor Asana, so importing tasks from one platform to another won’t be an issue. Setting up your workspace and customizing your user profile are just as straightforward. Plus, this solution has Android and iOS mobile apps to boost on-the-go productivity.
As if it could get any better, monday.com’s free Individual plan, which curiously supports two users, is an excellent choice for small teams and nonprofits. For those interested in the advanced features, all paid plans start with a generous 14-day trial.
Positives |
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Negatives |
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Best CRM Software for Real Estate: Salesforce
Successful real estate agencies know their customers well, usually thanks to a robust CRM system. However, few off-the-shelf services are as tailored to the real estate sector as Salesforce.
Sales teams gain the most from the numerous features of Salesforce. It facilitates lead tracking and deal closure with dynamic pipelines that offer an overview of each account and real-time updates. Salesforce provides revenue forecasting and boasts several customization options allowing users to personalize pages and create apps without programming experience. Plus, the platform integrates with over 4,000 apps.
While complicated for first-time users, Salesforce has a guidance center with several self-support tools and a risk-free 30-day trial.
Positives
Highly customizable
All-encompassing platform
Forecasting abilities
4,000+ integrations
30-day free trial
Negatives
Not user-friendly
Poor customer support
Types of CRM Software
Sales teams gain the most from the numerous features of Salesforce. It facilitates lead tracking and deal closure with dynamic pipelines that offer an overview of each account and real-time updates. Salesforce provides revenue forecasting and boasts several customization options allowing users to personalize pages and create apps without programming experience. Plus, the platform integrates with over 4,000 apps.
While complicated for first-time users, Salesforce has a guidance center with several self-support tools and a risk-free 30-day trial.
Positives |
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Negatives |
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Some sources categorize CRM software into many different types. However, the main three to focus on are analytical, operational, and collaborative.
Analytical CRM
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
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.
Collaborative CRM
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.
Benefits of CRM Software
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.
What To Look for in CRM Software
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.
Marketing Automation Features
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.
Sales Automation Features
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.
Customer Service Features
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.
How To Implement a CRM System Effectively
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.