Management

Best CRM Software for Small Businesses 2020

Management /

Top CRM Software for Small Businesses

Customer relationship management (CRM) tools do just that, helping your sales team log communications, manage leads and even build marketing campaigns. In the past, CRMs were only available to large organizations, but the rise of cloud-based services has availed CRM platforms to businesses of all sizes.

Last year we created an overview of the best Customer Relationship Management software for Enterprise businesses. Now we want to focus on the smaller players. This article will zoom in on 15 of the best (and top-rated) CRM software intended for small businesses.

Three Major Benefits of using CRM Software

Maybe you’re not using any CRM at the moment. Let’s take a look at the benefits first…

Whether you cater to consumers or other businesses, it’s important to stay up to date on evolving conversations with existing customers while also effectively managing new leads.

Your customer satisfaction depends on your ability to offer attentive, personalized engagement with your clients, but your growth demands you continue seeking out new customers as well.

Top CRM Software for Small Businesses

Alright, let’s get to it. Here are the top 15 Customer Relationship Management software for small businesses…

1. Salesmate CRM

With Salesmate Customer Relationship Management you can speed up the sales processes and offer customers a personalized experience. Manage your contacts effectively and keep track of all related sales activities. This tool is also perfect for sending out email campaigns and you’ll know what happens to your emails once you hit send. As a Small Business you appreciate flexibility and scalability and Salesmate understands these needs.

Pricing: Starts at $12/user/month.

Website: www.salesmate.io

2. Zoho

Though we previously included Zoho in our enterprise-grade software list, this software can also be employed by small businesses – thanks to the variety in editions offered. Zoho – in comparison to Insightly – offers a bit more in terms of sales/marketing features. It offers its users website visitor tracking, lead scoring, sales signals (with pop-up notifications about leads) and more. Note: Most of the advanced features are included only in the professional and enterprise editions.

Pricing: Free version, Standard ($12/month), Professional ($20/month), Enterprise ($35/month) and more.

Website: www.zoho.com

3. Hubspot

HubSpot offers a completely free version of its CRM software that is rather popular among small businesses. The software includes all of the basic features provided by CRM software, allowing you keep track of your company’s activities, including contacts and company profiles, assigning & tracking deals, and managing all of that data in a detailed dashboard (visible to all team members). Already a HubSpot Sales user? Then you can also use this CRM software to boost your inbound sales. Not to mention, HubSpot offers several integration options with popular apps like SalesForce, Shopify and Microsoft Dynamics.

Pricing: Free of costs.

Website: www.hubspot.com

4. Salesforce

SalesForce is perhaps one of the biggest and most widely used CRM software on the market. Luckily for smaller business, SalesForce offers a basic edition called Lightning Essentials. This package provides the user with an advanced contact manager that includes email integration and follow-up reminders. It also includes a lot of options for integration and customisation.

Pricing: Lightning Essentials package ($25/month/user), Lightning Professional ($75/month/user), and more.

Website: www.salesforce.com

5. Agile CRM

Agile CRM is a particularly interesting CRM software in that it offers a lot of those big business features like custom appointments, drag-and-drop marketing automation and reports via email. This software also supports widgets, a large library of plugins, API-powered integrations and more. The free version, however, is quite limited in terms of features offered.

Pricing: Free for up to 10 users, or choose the Starter package ($14.99/user/month).

Website: www.agilecrm.com

6. Freshsales

Freshsales enables you to automatically capture your website visitors as sales leads and group them based on their engagement with your website. Assign them to the right salespeople on your team. Reach out to each lead with complete context and track deals by the personalized pipelines.

Pricing: Package for Growing Teams ($25,- /user/month).

Website: www.freshworks.com

7. Capsule CRM

Capsule CRM is a software that’s been around for quite a while now. Starting up in 2008, it has become quite popular in recent years. It is a very easy-to-use software that allows its users to track both relationships and sales pipelines. Straight and to the point. Not to mention it can be used on both desktops and mobile. The user interface is broken down into five groups: dashboard, people and organisations, sales pipeline, calendars and tasks and lastly, cases. One pitfall, however, is that it offers less functionality in terms of campaigns and reporting.

Pricing: They have both a free package (up to 2 users) and a Professional package (£12/user/month).

Website: www.capsulecrm.com

8. Microsoft Dynamics 365

If you are a Microsoft user you’ll probaly know that Microsoft Dynamics 365 is an all-in-one platform for sales and marketing. This CRM is more than your average CRM. AI
Of course this platform can be extended with other Microsoft products.

Pricing: Different modules and licensens offered. Sales Insight i.e. (€ 42,20/user/month)

Website: Dynamics.microsoft.com

9. Base CRM

Base is a CRM software that is ideal for companies looking to customise their sales pipelines. Users can make use of a sales tracking solution that lets you customise sales stages. You can add things like leads, collaborators and records to all your sales deals in the Sales Pipeline section. Base also offers real-time visual reporting via templates as well as integrations with social networks and other third party apps such as Zapier, MailChimp, Yesware and more.

Pricing: Starting from $45/User/Month

Website: www.getbase.com

10. Streak

Streak is a great CRM software for Gmail enthusiasts. Technically a browser plugin, Streak is great for smaller teams as they can work directly out of their Gmail inbox. This tool makes it very easy to track views, schedule emails, and send mass emails, as well as create separate email threads that cater to different teams (e.g. sales, HR, support, etc).

Pricing: From $49/user/month.

Website: www.streak.com

11. ConvergeHub

ConvergeHub is a cloud-based CRM software that is great for SMBs – especially considering the fact that these businesses don’t have to deal with multiple repositories, but rather one central platform. Additionally, users can store contact lists and design campaigns as well as manage all sales activities. ConvergeHub includes built-in SalesForce automation and marketing automation modules too.

Pricing: Starts from $9/user/month (Starter package) up to $59/user/month (Premium package).

Website: www.convergehub.com

12. SugarCRM

This CRM has a great solution for small businesses, called Sugar Professional. The platform offers customer experience solutions, creating a simple and consistent experience. Each user can customize and use this tool wherever and whenever. Sugar Shell helps you automate workflows and thanks to actionable intelligence you have the right intel for each customer interaction.

Pricing: Sugar Professional ( $40,- user/month, 10 user minimum)

Website: www.sugarcrm.com

13. vTiger CRM

vTiger is another all-in-one CRM software made for small businesses. This tool offers a great deal in terms of sales automation, email marketing and project / inventory management. They also offer web-to-CRM forms to help users capture relevant contact info as well as prioritise that info. Plus, all features have been improved based on the feedback of their customer base.

Pricing: Depends on the package you select (Sales CRM, Help Desk or All-In-One), but pricing can range anywhere from free to $30/user/month.

Website: www.vtiger.com

14. Nimble

Nimble CRM is a great CRM software for those of you looking to combine contacts, email and social media interactions (works great with Twitter) in one place. The interface is also very easy to use in that it provides you with a to-do list, shows you top / key deals and more.

It’s also got this cool ‘rules engine’ that helps Nimble predict relevant contacts & activities based on your user behaviour. Users can set reminders to Stay in Touch with certain users as well as mark certain communications as important to stay ahead of the game.

Pricing: Ranges from $9/user/month to $19/user/month.

Website: www.nimble.com

15. SuiteCRM

SuiteCRM is an open source CRM software that, based on its tools and functionalities, is surprisingly equipped to serve even enterprise-level businesses. This tool is completely customisable in that users can create their own business process models as well as create templated customer quotes, model sales pipelines, and set up automated actions. Note: some customisation options come with an extra fee.

Pricing: Not available

Website: www.suitecrm.com

Chew on this…

Now that you know more about the options you have in terms of CRM software for small businesses, it’s time to start assessing.

Some things you may want to ‘chew on’ before you make your decision include implementation and the technical assistance required, user minimums, usability, costs and of course, with the new GDPR in place – security features.

Source: Work Wise

As we mentioned previously in this article, integration options are a particularly important factor in that you can combine your CRM software with all of the tools in your present toolkit rather than having to import data manually – which can cost you a lot of time and energy.

Mopinion Feedback Analytics software works with several CRM software providers including SalesForce, HubSpot and Marketo.

Want to learn more about our integration options? Click here.

Customer Relationship Management In The Retail Industry

Management /

CRM In The Retail Industry

The adage “the customer is king” is an age-old maxim of good business.  Excellent customer service leads to customer retention, which is the lifeline of any successful business.  When the local bookstore knows you by name and can recommend new titles that you are certain to love – that’s good customer relations in action.  When settling a discrepancy in your credit card bill over the phone is a quick, painless affair handled by a courteous customer service rep – that’s excellent customer relationship management.

Enterprises are increasingly treating customer relationships as a valued business resource that needs to be managed, nurtured, and supported by information systems.

Likewise, today’s customers expect consistent, professional service and support with every interaction, through any channel, from anywhere in the world. Combine this expectation for high quality service with an explosion of choices in providers of goods and services, from retail, to banking, to insurance.

In today’s business environment, the renewed interest in customer relationships is due to increasing competition for customers, as well as the widespread realization that customer retention and loyalty is just as important as customer acquisition. Another reason behind this renewed interest is shift in the balance of power from suppliers to customers. Globalization has expanded customer choices by stretching a consumer’s reach across countries.  E-business tools help consumer and business customers evaluate diverse purchase options.

Given the vast choices, customers dissatisfied with their bank, credit card company, or long distance carrier can easily switch to another.

While the quality of a company’s customer service is even more critical to a firm’s success and …

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Customer Dashboards: CRM, Customer Service, Success, and More

Management /

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Dashboard

Customer relationships are the heart and soul of any organization, whether for-profit or nonprofit. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) dashboards help drive home the reality of those relationships and bring visibility into what you need to do to improve your interactions.

CRM dashboards come in many shapes and sizes, but they all share two key attributes: they help improve sales outcomes and unlock your team’s productivity.

In this article, you’ll learn the CRM dashboard basics, find free, downloadable templates, and gain indispensable insights from a frontline expert who works in growing global markets and has utilized CRM dashboards to enhance his client relationships.

What Is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Dashboard?

Companies use CRM dashboards to monitor sales, overall business opportunities, processes, and performance. They are relevant to businesses of any size or type, from the smallest start-up to an international enterprise. The visual representations of CRM dashboards enable viewers to quickly and easily get a snapshot of the KPIs and data that drive success (or lack of it).

You can also use a the metrics surfaced in a dashboard to perform a deep dive investigation of the underlying processes and/or problems. Often set to provide information in real time, CRM dashboards offer business intelligence to help professionals measure, analyze, and act on meaningful, actionable data.

Rohit Keserwani is a Saudi Arabia-based business intelligence consultant who specializes in the financial sector. He helps global banks eradicate the painful delays associated with amassing and understanding business intelligence. In facilitating these efforts, Keserwani aids his clients in leveraging this intelligence to build successful marketing campaigns.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software Overview

Management /

Customer Relationship Management Software

What is CRM Software?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business strategy that stresses good ongoing relationships with customers. It holds that maintaining these relationships drives growth and profitability. There are two core elements of this customer-centric strategy:

  1. Presenting a unified face to the customer
  2. Providing a seamless customer experience

CRM software can help by synchronizing customer communications among business units. Sales, marketing and customer service can all get on the same page. It acts as a system of record for contacts and accounts throughout the customer lifecycle. With CRM tools companies can track, automate, analyze, and optimize customer interactions. At its core, a CRM is a database of contact information and interaction history for each individual contact.

Customer Relationship Management Software Features

In general, customer relationship management technology provides the following sets of capabilities:

Customer Data Management

CRM software collects and organizes customer data. This includes contact information and interactions via email, phone, web chat and social media.

Sales Acceleration and Enablement

CRM software helps streamline and automate certain sales-related duties. This helps enable sales reps to do their job better and also accelerates sales cycles through automation of repetitive tasks. These tasks may include:

  • Creation of quotes
  • Order processing
  • Updating contact information
  • Sending emails
  • Sales forecasting
  • Evaluating employee performance

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