Provider
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Features
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Reviews
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More Details
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Monday.com |
| Read Reviews | |
Easily Build, Run, and Scale Workflows On One Platform | |||
Freshworks |
| Read Reviews | |
Complete View of Customer Interactions to Personalize Engagement | |||
HubSpot |
| Read Reviews | |
Polished CRM with Aligned Sales & Marketing Tools | |||
Salesforce |
| Read Reviews | |
Bring Sales, Marketing, IT, and Analytics Together With Digital Workflows | |||
Zoho |
| Read Reviews | |
Sleek, Powerful CRM with Extensive Integrations | |||
Zendesk |
| Read Reviews | |
Powerful Cloud-Based Platform with CRM Tools for Small Businesses | |||
Keap |
| Read Reviews | |
Combines CRM, Marketing and Sales Automation Into One Platform | |||
Capsule |
| Read Reviews | |
Simple, Effective CRM with High Adaptability |
What is CRM Software?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is a cloud-based solution for managing, organizing, and storing current and prospective customer data. Essential CRM data includes customer contact information, consumer preferences, order and interaction history, sales data, marketing campaign and lead management, customer journey mapping, and more.
CRM software digitizes and automates the customer relationship management process, leveraging live and historical data to give businesses a deeper understanding of customer behavior, sentiment, and experience.
CRM tools help businesses provide a consistent, customer-centric buying experience by identifying and anticipating consumer needs–increasing sales, customer retention, and customer satisfaction rates in the process.
Customer information is updated in real-time across voice and digital channels, ensuring all support agents have access to the same accurate, up-to-date information.
This continuity ensures customers feel respected and valued, leading to longer partnerships, more opportunities for upselling and cross-selling, and even an increased Net Promoter Score (NPS.) CRM systems provide unparalleled insight into the customer journey and experience, meaning more accurate forecasting, decreased operating expenses, shorter buying cycles, and increased overall profitability.
Why Use CRM Software?
Cloud CRM systems help businesses improve everyday operations by providing personalized customer service and high-level insight into customer expectations and pain points. CRM tools provide several benefits including:
- Personalized Customer Communication: A CRM allows agents to bring up relevant information such as interaction history and geographic location in order to personalize every conversation
- Increased Customer Retention: Automatic follow ups ensure that nothing slips through the cracks leading to less customer churn and increased cost savings
- Higher CSAT and NPS scores: CRMs allow companies to implement self-service and reduce wait times for live agents, resulting in more satisfied customers
- Increased Upselling and Cross-Selling: With access to customer preferences and past purchase information during sales calls, agents can more naturally make recommendations and upsell
- A Single Source of Truth: CRMs provide a centralized repository for customer information that can be used to streamline business process management as well as reduce frustration for both customers and agents
CRM Software Essential Features
CRM software has expanded to support several business functions, such as team collaboration, sales forecasting, and campaign management. Many CRM providers use generative AI, workflow builders, and other automation features to streamline business processes and optimize customer journeys.
According to a recent study done by McKinsey, generative AI and similar technologies can automate 60 to 70 percent of employees’ work activities, saving businesses time and money while freeing up team members to focus on building relationships and making sales.
Below, we’ll cover the most important CRM functions and essential features to look for.
Customer Data and Contact Management
The ability to collect, organize and access customer data is vital to all types of CRM. This tool allows users to segment contacts into groups and improve marketing strategies when introducing new products. CRM unifies all customer and client data in one place, simplifying and centralizing everything a business needs to know about them.
Marketing Automation
Top CRM platforms allow organizations to automate parts of their marketing efforts. CRM marketing tools and functions include sending emails to customers in certain buying stages or company demographics. As a result, marketing teams can strategically reach target audiences with reduced effort. This helps a sales rep generate a higher number of sales leads in a shorter period of time by leveraging things like email marketing, dynamic pricing, and even social media outreach on sites like LinkedIn.
Customer Support
CRM systems integrate with existing help desk and contact center software to streamline customer interactions, phone calls, and support tickets. This continuity helps with customers who make multiple calls for support. It also helps ensure that information customers entered elsewhere, such as into an online form or with an AI chatbot, is available when speaking with customer service teams.
Lead Management
Part of the CRM benefit includes the ability to use analytics for lead generation. This can include metrics and scoring prospects to determine the best opportunities to follow up with based on their profile. By using available data on a customer’s needs, purchase history, and larger industry trends, salespeople can create marketing campaigns to better target those more likely to make a purchase. Along with improving efficiency, these processes can help improve the function of your sales team.
Accelerated Sales Funnels
Along with recording customer interactions, these products can improve overall sales enablement and operations. Sales force automation features include the ability to create quotes, process orders, update contact information, send and track emails, evaluate employee performance, and create a sales management protocol.
Examples of How a CRM Works
Here are some common examples of how a CRM works to improve customer experience and increase sales:
- Implement Self Service Options: A CRM solution allows companies to offer self-service options like knowledge base articles, chatbots, online payments, and more. Some CRM providers include low-code or no-code studios for admins to build custom bots and self-service workflows, along with tracking, data capture, and analytics to ensure inefficiencies are addressed promptly
- Small Business Marketing: CRMs enable companies to harness data from across the organization—including sales, service engagements, and commerce events—and then use that data to trigger automated outreach via email or text. CRMs keep all contacts organized while giving businesses the ability to create segments for personalized communication
- Order Management: CRM solutions allow all businesses to create fulfillment workflows, view inventory in real-time, and centralize contextual data like order history, customer records, payment terms, and service tools under one pane of glass
- B2B Marketing: B2B companies use CRM tools to create landing pages for data capture and lead generation. AI-powered lead scoring tools enable B2B companies to identify the leads most likely to convert based on behavior and profiles of prospects who converted in the past
- Omnichannel Engagement: Many CRM providers include tools that enable companies to interact with customers and prospects via SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Apple Messages for Business, and more. Omnichannel routing sends incoming communication from any channel to the right agent based on skill set, availability, and capacity.
How to Get Started with CRM Software
Let’s look at some things businesses must consider when choosing a CRM tool.
- Infrastructure Requirements - Cloud-based platforms do not require organizations to make any additions to their existing IT infrastructure, as they require only a working internet connection. This is opposed to on-premises solutions, which would require additional servers, expensive equipment, time-consuming on-site installation, and continued maintenance.
- Accessibility - With remote work becoming more popular, the need to access data anywhere has become that much more important. Cloud-based CRM software can be accessed anywhere from any device. This makes it simple for employees to access information promptly no matter where they work.
- Costs - Some CRM platforms offer their service for free. However, these free options typically only include a base level of service and come with continuous sales pitches to increase functionality. A free option can be a good place for businesses just starting out as they can test the core of a CRM system before making a financial decision.
- Customization - Customer management solutions offer a range of additional tools as add-ons that can be tailored to an organization’s specific needs. Businesses looking to implement a CRM should consider what customized solutions work best for their needs and which services would be nice to have. Determining these two factors will help in picking the best solution while keeping costs in line.
- Ease of Use and Integration - Like all software, the benefits of CRM software can only be realized if employees can integrate them into their daily work. Businesses want to ensure that any CRM system they select works with their existing systems.
- Security and Privacy - The security of company data and customer information should be a top priority. With cloud-based CRM software, the vendor bears responsibility for security and has likely invested heavily in keeping data secure.
Free vs Paid CRM Software
As businesses look to implement CRM software, they may be overwhelmed by the volume of choices available. The CRM marketplace includes a wide variety of vendors from established players to start-ups looking to disrupt the market. One of the big questions technology executives face is whether to select one of the myriad of free CRM software on the marketplace as opposed to a paid option.
While a free option may seem best at first glance, most free offerings only include basic functionality. For small businesses just starting with CRM, this may be enough. For large and medium-sized companies, or for small businesses looking to quickly grow, these free platforms may fall short.
Here are some key differences between free and paid CRM software businesses should consider.
Free CRM Software |
Paid CRM Software |
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Best Free CRM Software
The marketplace includes dozens of leading products. Businesses may feel overwhelmed in deciding which one to use for their organization. Since picking a solution can greatly impact a business’s bottom line technology leaders must make the right choice. Let’s look at some of the best CRM tools currently on the market.
Monday.com
Monday.com is a team collaboration platform that focuses on project management through spreadsheets that track tasks, assignees, the status of the tasks, due dates, and more. It is highly user-friendly with a simple UI and an aesthetically pleasing color scheme to make the quick sorting of tasks easier.
Monday.com does a good job of managing tasks for small businesses, though it still falls more heavily into the role of team and project management. The CRM side of the software is growing rapidly, and new features are regularly released for client management and sales tracking. This is a great option for its customizability and wide range of use.
Standout Features
- Generative AI: Users leverage artificial intelligence to quickly create emails, utilize smart templates, summarize call transcripts and meeting notes, and craft formulas for complex pipeline reporting
- Mass Emails: Enables users to send one mass email that results in multiple individual threads of conversation, one per recipient. The email does not indicate that there were multiple recipients.
- Sales Forecasting: Uses historical data to generate monthly/daily inventory and workforce forecasts, optimizes agent schedules across channels
- Lead Scoring: Enables users to assign each lead a numerical value based on several predefined parameters such as role, company, revenue, and the number of employees
- Whiteboard Collaboration: Digital whiteboard software that allows team members to freely sketch, add pictures, and collaborate in real-time
Why We Picked Monday
- Templates: Monday includes over 200 templates and 20+ column types in all pricing plans, allowing users to track and organize everything from contact databases to lead management and sales pipelines
- Features: Monday stands out due to its long list of features- specifically AI-powered features- such as content generation and rephrasing, natural language to code script writing, and forecasting
- User Interface: Monday’s no-code dashboards are some of the most intuitive in the CRM space. They include numerous widget options such as charts, time tracking, Gantt maps, workload/team progress overview, etc.
What we Like and Dislike about Monday:
Likes
- Thorough IT and customer support with clear and concise explanation of new features from developers
- User-friendly UI through dashboards and views with a variety of available templates
- Unlimited number of seats for all plans
Dislikes
- Lack of integrations for more specialized emailing software
- HIPAA compliance is only included for Enterprise plan users
- Basic Plan only includes 5 GB of storage and the activity log only goes back one week
Monday Pricing and Plans
Monday offers 4 pricing plans for its Sales CRM product:
- Basic CRM ($12 per seat/mo.): Includes unlimited boards, contacts and customizable pipelines
- Standard CRM ($17 per seat/mo.): Adds on AI email generator, quotes and invoices, 250 custom CRM automations per month
- Pro CRM ($28 per seat/mo.): Includes 25,000 custom CRM automations per month. Adds on sales forecasting, mass emails with tracking, and sales analytics
- Enterprise CRM: Adds on HIPAA compliance, multi-level permissions, lead scoring and advanced analytics
Who Monday Is Best For:
- Remote and Hybrid Teams: Monday offers team collaboration features such as whiteboard, real-time notifications, and document sharing to help remote teams stay on the same page
- Creative and Design Teams: Monday’s platform is colorful, visually appealing, and flexible– allowing creative teams to stay organized and inspired no matter what their workflows look like
- Value-focused SMBs: Monday offers affordable pricing compared to other CRMs and 24/7 live customer support–making it a good option for small and medium-sized companies on a budget
Nextiva
Nextiva is an all-in-one business communication and customer relationship management solution primed for businesses looking to improve their customer service across all customer communication channels. Nextiva also simplifies your company’s workflow by automating menial tasks and gaining insights from data automatically, making it the perfect partner to a busy team. Additional features like Artificial Intelligence tools and the patented SmartTopic technology give those extra bits of insight to allow you and your business to truly thrive and build a stronger customer base.
Nextiva Pricing and Plans
Nextiva offers 4 different pricing plans starting at $18.95 per month for the Essential plan
Essential | Professional | Enterprise | Ultimate |
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What we like about Nextiva:
- Fast and efficient customer service is always at the ready to help you and your business
- Easy to use, intuitive platform for both desktop and mobile
- Native unified communications and contact center software baked right into the CRM
- Different tiers of plan with noticeable differences in amenities, allowing you to pick what works best for your business
What we dislike:
- Simple integrations with a lack of options for more obscure 3rd party applications
- No free option
- CRM software isn't at the core of their product offerings
Expert Review:
Nextiva is an excellent VoIP solution for small to large businesses looking to manage their messaging and call logs in a unified database while providing collaboration and data analytics tools as well. It does a great job of allowing your company to improve customer relationships with their customer service CRM, messaging system, and to hone your team collaboration through video conferencing, screen sharing, messaging, and more.
Freshworks
Evolving from the customer support-centric platform Freshdesk, Freshworks is a user-friendly CRM software with a robust free plan to get started, and multiple additional features with each additional tier of the paid plans. The primary focus placed on this CRM system is the ease of use and approachability for your company or small business.
Freshworks Pricing and Plans
Freshworks offers 4 different pricing plans starting at $0.00 per month for the Free plan
Free | Growth | Pro | Enterprise |
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What we like about Freshworks:
- Built-in native cloud PBX phone system
- Integrations with social media and other 3rd party applications
- One-stop native portal for customer service ticketing, sales, and marketing CRM and automation
- Email tracking and detailed reporting
- Ease of use
What we dislike:
- Lacks advanced features compared to competitors at similar price points
- Lack of variation in user permissions
- Formatting reports and emails can become tedious
Expert Review:
Freshworks is an excellent choice for businesses looking to connect their call center with customers and potential clients and provides the tools needed to create detailed reporting on your call center and individual agent performance. There is even an integrated incentive system in the form of a sort of “game” that makes monotonous work feel more rewarding and enjoyable!
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is an easy-to-use, small business-focused CRM software with more advanced features and capabilities made available to the user. It is helpful in integrating chatbots for your website and developing robust yet efficient reports on your customers and sales team.
Pipedrive Pricing & Plans:
Pipedrive offers 4 pricing plans starting at $12.50 per month
Essential | Advanced | Professional | Enterprise |
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What we like about Pipedrive:
- A robust workflow with an intuitive interface
- Easy synchronization with mobile apps
- Strong alerts to ensure tasks are completed
What we dislike:
- Limited tools for the cost
Expert Review:
Pipedrive is best for Small and medium-sized businesses due to its ability to visualize the sales process from start to finish, which can help improve efficiency. It is also a great option for businesses looking to scale, as the customizations on more advanced features can provide additional value as your clientele and company grow.
Hubspot
Hubspot is another CRM aimed at small businesses with its simple dashboard and the freemium model. The base platform can provide basic customer management to a small business on a budget, and add-ons can be purchased to develop the platform into a comprehensive, end-to-end solution for customer relationship management.
Hubspot Pricing and Plans:
The Hubspot CRM platform consists of five core products combined into one unified platform should the user choose. The five products, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS Hub, and Operations Hub, can be purchased individually at three price tiers, varying depending on the product, or as a complete bundle known as the CRM Suite. In this review, we'll be looking at the three pricing plans of the all-inclusive CRM Suite.
CRM Suite - Starter | CRM Suite - Professional | CRM Suite - Enterprise |
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What we like about Hubspot:
- Very strong freemium offering that can help new customers easily add on new features as they grow
- Quickly integrates with all email clients to easily run larger email campaigns
What we dislike:
- The freemium model can have customers quickly rack up a high cost if they do not manage add-ons appropriately
- Purchasing the CRM suite as a bundle gets very expensive very fast, making it less ideal for small businesses seeing rapid growth in clientele
Expert Review:
HubSpot specifically targets small and medium-sized businesses and has gained a reputation for its innovation. It is great for companies that know what their needs are, and how to align those needs with the products offered.
Salesforce
Salesforce was the first CRM software offered to the public on a SaaS (software as a service) model and has long been the platform of choice for businesses large and small. Not only has Salesforce continued to innovate in the space of CRM software with features like interoperability and AI, but their list of partners offers additional benefits and potentially game-changing tools for a business of any size.
Salesforce pricing and plans:
Salesforce offers 4 pricing options, starting at $25.00 per month.
Essentials | Professional | Enterprise | Unlimited |
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What we like about Salesforce:
- Large and robust service offering aimed at integrating many departments across large organizations.
- Perhaps the best-known CRM provider, Salesforce has a history of customer satisfaction.
What we dislike:
- Salesforce can at times be too big for its own good and some users pay for services they do not use or even know to exist.
Expert Review:
Salesforce is the premier option for large enterprises that want a complete end-to-end CRM system and are not afraid of a high price tag to get what they want. It offers a wide array of integration options, and has innate capabilities to manage every facet of Customer Relationship Management, client databases, customer service, and more.
Zoho
Zoho has created an all-in-one solution that is easy to use and integrates additional features with. Zoho has a long list of products that can be used in conjunction with their software and offers their service at a competitive price making it a great choice for small and large businesses alike.
Zoho Pricing and Plans:
Zoho offers 5 different pricing options starting at $0.00 in the Free plan.
Free | Standard | Professional | Enterprise | Ultimate |
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What we like about Zoho:
- An innovative platform that offers clients a wide array of features and complimentary services
- Strong analytical integration that allows for data-savvy organizations to dig deep into customer data
What we dislike:
- Zoho is seen as a CRM for tech-savvy organizations, so might not be right for smaller organizations just starting on their CRM journey.
Expert review:
Zoho is an excellent choice for businesses that require advanced analytics or want to take a heavier hand in the customization of their CRM. It sports a proprietary AI and advanced customization at higher price tiers, making it an excellent canvas for tech-savvy organizations to impose their needs on.
Zendesk
Zendesk, formerly Base CRM, offers an affordable sales and customer relationship management software at a low starting price of $19 per month. Zendesk looks to expand on their Base CRM software to provide additional features that make sales and customer relationship tracking easy and efficient.
Zendesk Pricing and Plans:
Zendesk offers three sections of product offers, with a few pricing options available within. You can go with just their support options, the suite of products, or even beyond the standard suite options with enterprise options that allow for more choice and customization. For the sake of simplicity, and to make a suggestion, we will stick with the price tiers for Suite-based plans.
Suite Team | Suite Growth | Suite Professional |
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What we like about Zendesk:
- Zendesk easily integrates its sales and support platform in a plug and play fashion without external IT requirements
- Works great for companies with simple CRM requirements and sales cycles
What we dislike:
- Zendesk offers a simple and straightforward product not suitable for businesses with multiple sales pipelines
Expert review:
Zendesk is a great option for businesses of all sizes looking for an easy-to-use CRM software that will work right out of the box. With a simple UI and clear features, this CRM will work without the headache of more complex options.
Keap
Keap combines efficiency and ease-of-use into one software solution intended for the entrepreneur and business owners seeking long-term growth. It takes marketing, sales automation, CRM, and payments in one platform, streamlining the workflow and simplifying meticulous work.
Keap Pricing and Plans:
Keap offers three pricing options starting at $79.00/month, with the added bonus of a discount on your first 5 months of service. In addition, each plan is meant for 1 user, with additional users costing $30.00 each per month.
Lite | Pro | Max |
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What we like about Keap:
- Automated lead capture and follow-up
- Automates repetitive tasks and simpler workflows
- Campaign building and reporting
What we dislike:
- Dashboard reporting is somewhat bare
- Lack of social media integration
Expert review:
Keap is the perfect CRM software for entrepreneurs looking to maximize work hour efficiency by automating the more redundant, meticulous work tasks in the day. It is the CRM solution that has long-term growth of smaller companies in mind at the very core of its function.
Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM was built with a focus on being a smart, streamlined CRM that helps your business build better relationships with your customers and clients. It provides a litany of filters and data tags, integrations with popular software, and security through multi-factor authentication in order to make customer relationship building a simple and easy process.
Capsule CRM Pricing and Plans:
Capsule CRM offers 4 pricing options starting at $0.00/month for the free plan.
Free | Professional | Teams | Enterprise |
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What we like about Capsule CRM:
- Budget-friendly
- Easy to use
- Email and other integrations across all tiers of service
What we dislike:
- Can be too simple and lacking in features for some companies seeking customization
Expert review:
Capsule CRM presents an excellent option for small businesses with its low cost and myriad of features at even the free price tier, which only improves when paying more for the higher tiers. It is simple, easy to use, and a great starting point for many looking for a base CRM solution.