For small companies (or SMBs), growth is the biggest challenge. Growth has to happen in terms of more exposure, more customers and staff, and definitely more revenues. And, while this growth is taking place, your business needs to streamline workflows and organisational processes. The best CRM software is incredibly useful at this time.
Customer relationship management software, also known as CRM software, can help you handle customers and potential customers, freeing up time and energy to concentrate on increasing your business. But what exactly is a customer relationship management system (CRM), what do you expect from CRM software, and how can you choose the right small business software?
Continue reading to learn what you need to know about the best CRM software and how to choose the business CRM software for your needs.
What Is CRM Software?
Manual processes become more slow and expensive as the company grows with time. It's easy to lose clients and profits if you're not careful. CRM software is an all-in-one platform for handling customer records, adding notes, sending emails, monitoring customer satisfaction, and much more.
Business CRM software brings marketing, sales, and customer service along with all the data they need to excel in their positions.
Points to be taken care of while choosing the best CRM software
Since there are so many customer relationship management software providers, understanding what to look for in small business software is crucial. Here are some things to remember:
- Ease of Use: You'll be using your CRM app regularly, every day. You would not use anything if it is difficult. So you need small business software that helps you to smoothen your operation.
- Cloud-Based Client Management Systems: Using a cloud-based CRM allows the team to access client information in real-time from anywhere.
- Funnel Management: The best CRM software should be able to help you maintain your sales funnel very easily.
Remember that your CRM software is not only a database of contacts. Lead generation, marketing, and distribution all must be integrated into your CRM software. The best CRM software can assist you in keeping track of the entire customer journey.
Your CRM software must help the integrations if you use WordPress, an email marketing program, social media, or lead generation software.
Benefits of using CRM Software
Let’s take a look at the major benefits of using the best CRM for small business
1. Maintaining contacts
When your company's customer base expands, you'll need a structure in place to organise the data in a way that benefits you. This simple view of your contacts on CRM software would also assist in the smooth running of sales processes.
2. Sales reporting
Best CRM software allows you to keep track of sales success using a variety of metrics such as calls made and deals closed. By managing customer relationship profiles, small business CRM software allows you to monitor and visualise sales success metrics. Tracking your organisation's outreach and booking success will also help you better control your sales.
3. Customer segmentation
Customer segmentation is a hot topic among digital marketers and sales teams these days. This is useful not only for personalisation efforts, but also for breaking down prospects into various categories based on factors such as the size of their contract, where they live, and so on. This helps the sales team to concentrate a little more.
Check out the best CRM software
Take a look at the best CRM applications for small businesses.
1. Hubspot
HubSpot's CRM software, which is popular with small businesses, has a fully free version. The software incorporates many of the core features of CRM software to keep track of your business activities, including contacts and corporate profiles, assign and monitor agreements and handle all these data in an extensive dashboard. Use this CRM app to increase inbound sales as well. Not to mention, HubSpot integrates with a number of common applications, including SalesForce, Shopify, and Microsoft tools.
2. Salesmate CRM
Salesmate CRM can help you streamline sales processes and provide a more personalised experience to your customers. This best CRM software is also ideal for sending out email promotions because you'll be able to monitor what happens to your emails after they have been sent. Salesmate acknowledges the importance of versatility and scalability for small businesses.
3. Zoho
Zoho can also be used by small businesses. In contrast to Insightly, Zoho has a few more sales/marketing functions. It provides website visitor monitoring, lead scoring, sales signals (including lead pop-up notifications), and more to its users.
4. Salesforce
Salesforce is one of the market's most popular and widely used CRM programs. Salesforce has a simple version called Lightning Essentials that is ideal for small businesses. This kit provides an advanced contact manager with email integration and follow-up notifications for the customer. It also has a lot of integration and customisation options.
5. Agile CRM
Agile CRM is unique in that it incorporates many of the features found in larger CRM systems, such as personalised appointments, drag-and-drop marketing automation, and email reports. Widgets, a wide plugin library, API-powered integrations, and more are all supported by this program.
6. Freshsales
Freshsales allows you to automatically capture and group your website visitors as sales lead based on how they interact with your site. Assign them to the relevant sales team members. Reach out to each lead with full background and use custom pipelines to monitor deals.
7. Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM is a leading small business software that has become popular recently. It's a simple piece of software that lets you keep track of both your relationships and your sales pipelines. It can also be found on both desktops and handheld devices. However, one downside is that it has minimal campaign and reporting capabilities.
8. Microsoft Dynamics 365
If you're a Microsoft consumer, you're probably aware that Microsoft Dynamics 365 is a sales and marketing all-in-one platform. This CRM isn't your typical small business software. Of course, other Microsoft products may be added to this platform.
9. Base CRM
The base is a customer relationship management software that helps businesses to customise their sales pipelines. A sales monitoring solution that allows you to customise sales phases is available to users. In the Sales Pipeline area, you can add items like leads, partners, and records to all of your sales deals. The base also includes real-time visual reporting through templates, as well as integrations with social media platforms and third-party apps like Zapier, Mail Chimp, and Yesware.
10. Streak
Streak is a wonderful CRM application for Gmail users. Streak, which is technically a browser extension, is suitable for small teams because it enables them to operate directly from their Gmail inbox. This tool allows monitoring views, scheduling emails, and sending mass emails a breeze, as well as building separate email threads for various teams (e.g. sales, HR, support, etc).
11. Converge Hub
Converge Hub is a cloud-based CRM software that is ideal for small businesses, especially because it eliminates the need for multiple repositories in favour of a single platform. The users can also keep track of all sales activities, generate contact lists, create campaigns, and. Converge Hub also comes with built-in SalesForce and marketing automation modules.
12. SugarCRM
Sugar CRM's small business software offers simple and efficient customer service solutions. This tool can be customised and used by each user whenever and wherever they want. Sugar Shell lets you simplify workflows and guarantees that you have the right details for each customer interaction thanks to actionable intelligence.
13. VTiger CRM
Another all-in-one CRM software for small businesses is vTiger. This tool has a lot to offer in terms of sales automation, email marketing, and management of project/inventory. They also have web-to-CRM forms to assist users in capturing and prioritising specific contact information. Furthermore, all features have been enhanced in response to customer reviews.
14. Nimble
Nimble CRM is one of the best CRM software for those who want to keep all of their contacts, emails, and social media interactions in one place. The GUI is also very user-friendly, as it includes a to-do list, a list of top / main offers, and other features. It also has a cool "rules engine" that Nimble uses to predict related contacts and activities based on your user behaviour.
Summary
Now that you've learned more about them, it’s time to start reviewing the CRM platform choices for small businesses. Integration options, as discussed earlier in this article, are important because they allow you to use all the tools in your current toolkit instead of importing information manually, which can take a lot of time and effort. When choosing the best CRM software, keep this in mind.
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4) All About Small & Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)
5) OkCredit: Simple, Paperless & Secure solution for businesses
FAQs
Q. How much does Zoho CRM cost?
A. There are mainly four versions of Zoho CRM. They are free, standard, professional and enterprise.
Q. What is the pricing of the Salesforce lightning essentials package?
A. The lighting essential package costs $25 per month per user.
Q. Does CRM software also offer a pre-sales package?
A. Yes. There are several CRM packages that offer pre-sales modules.