The main goal of every business is to develop and grow, and the most essential part of business growth is happy customers. According to the marketing surveys, about 3 out of 4 clients state that positive customer experience prompts them to spend more money with a company. How to keep them happy, organize the business-processes effectively, and not get lost in the increasing flood of information? Here the CRM comes in handy.
So, what is CRM, anyway? It is a technology that helps a company organize and manage all interactions with customers or potential clients. The acronym itself stands for Customer Relationship Management. However, this is not the only option of this system.
Why Does Your Company Need a CRM System?
Let us have a closer look at what CRM means for a company:
- Gives a Clear Overview of Your Customers. CRM tools help gather all the information of company-customer interaction in one place and organize it conveniently, including all orders, previous history, customer service issues and even public social media activity.
- Facilitates Work and Collaboration of Your Team. The more our employees know about your clients, the better they can understand their needs and meet these needs efficiently. The tools of CRM allow you to store all necessary data in one place, they also let anyone update it at any time.
- Simplifies Sales Processes. The system helps develop different ways of communication channels, increases the effectiveness of cross-selling and up-selling and facilitates optimized marketing in general.
How to Choose a CRM System?
Choosing what CRM will work best for your company is not an easy task. The effectiveness of the system implementation highly depends on whether you were able to choose the right system for you. Here are the main key points you should consider:
- Price. If you need a CRM for small businesses, this point can be really important. There is even free CRM software you can choose to use for your company;
- Your Needs. Concentrate on your company goals and challenges it meets at present. For example, if you are looking for the best real estate CRM, check if the offered systems can provide practical solutions to meet your specific needs.
- Simplicity. Regular sales managers and employees are not always tech-savvy. That is why it is so important to find something intuitive and user-friendly.
- Customization Opportunities. This part is crucial for CRM software. Make sure the system you choose is flexible and adaptable to your specific needs.
- Integration Possibilities. You are implementing CRM not as an individual tool but as a part of the general technological solution meant to improve workflow in your company. That is why it is important to make sure that the tools offered by a specific CRM can be integrated with other tools and applications you use.
- Customer Support. Friendly and skilled customer support should help implement and customize the system to meet the goals of your company.
Check the list of the best CRM for small businesses below.
CRM for Small Business
1) EngageBay CRM
EngageBay is a comprehensive and easy-to-use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that is designed for marketers who want to increase sales and profits.
This is the perfect balance because it's built specifically for high growth, low margin businesses in need of a simple, affordable solution that helps them win more customers and grow their revenue.
Top features of EngageBay CRM:
- All in one suite for marketing, sales and support.
- Manage contact and deal in a simple dashboard.
- Create landing page & email template using drag and drop builder.
- Easy ticket management and automation.
- Instant support & form customization in live chat software.
Price: EngageBay offers a free plan with all necessary features. Paid plan starts from $10.79/user per month.
2) Sugar CRM
Sugar CRM is a cloud-based platform designed to help your business with customer communication, handling sales and marketing automation. It can be integrated with many third-party platforms and is highly customizable. The key features of the product are divided into three main categories: Sugar Market, Sugar Serve and Sugar Sell.
Main advantages of the platform:
- Effective management of customer support systems;
- Campaign Wizard that facilitates understanding of marketing campaigns;
- Easy contact management that takes only a few clicks;
- Vast integration possibilities;
- Easy-to-understand reporting;
- A highly qualified support team you can access 24/7.
Price: Sugar CRM offers free 7-day trial and six payment plans starting at 40$ per user per month
3) Suite CRM
Suite CRM is an open-source CRM software that fits small, medium and large companies. All tools necessary to improve the system’s efficiency are free and easy to modify. It’s possible to use both local and cloud-based installations.
The main features of the system are as follows:
- Effective customer management by tracking the entire process of the customer;
- Easy management of users and group profiles;
- Possibility to manage all the contacts, including leads, companies and customers contacts;
- Effective management of your day through organizing and scheduling all activities;
- Ability to track sales opportunities, orders, and other commercial documentation;
- Possibility to manage marketing campaigns, emails and target lists;
- Report management;
- Free customer support.
Price: Free.
4) amoCRM
AmoCRM is considered one of the best CRM solutions for small businesses. It does not require installation and has an intuitive user-friendly interface that includes integration and customization options. The system is also available as a mobile app.
The main amoCRM benefits:
- Unified communication that provides you with a built-in calling solution;
- An easy-to-use interface where all the important information is presented on a single dashboard to minimize clicking;
- Streamlined lead generation that allows you to create custom web forms and capture every single lead;
- Convenient mobile app that enables you to use the system on the go;
- Task management that helps plan your work;
- Full email integration;
- Automated sales pipelines;
- Effective website integration;
- Sales reports.
Price: AmoCRM has a free trial. The Base Plan starts at $15 per month per user.
5) Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a web-based system that offers a wide range of useful tools and possibilities, including sales pipeline management, lead and contact management and purchase control. The system works well both with small businesses and large enterprises. Its functionality allows you to engage customers on different platforms, track sales and automate daily activities. It has a mobile platform that enables you to manage and update information from different locations.
The key benefits of Zoho CRM are as follows:
- Simple and easy-to-understand user interface;
- Convenient migration wizard that helps import all the necessary data from other CRM systems or spreadsheets;
- Easy integration of Zoho system with external systems and applications;
- CRM apps for iOS and Android;
- Training programs that help start using the system without any difficulties.
Price: Zoho CRM offers a free trial version. Payment plans start at €12 per user per month.
6) HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM software is one of the most popular platforms used by small businesses. It includes all basic CRM functions without overcomplicating it with numerous additional tools. The platform is perfect for beginners who have never worked with CRM systems and would like to get acquainted with them.
The main advantages of the system:
- It can be linked to all locations including social media profiles, websites, email service providers and others;
- Unlike most free tools, HubSpot is flexible and can meet the needs of different kinds of businesses;
- It can be easily integrated with numerous systems and platforms.
Price: Free.
7) Salesforce CRM
Salesforce CRM is a popular customer relationship management solution that focuses mainly on sales and support. It suits all businesses from small to large ones. It is considered one of the most common CRM software. The system capabilities include marketing automation, sales management, customer service and partner relationship management. With its help you can easily track sales leads, manage customer accounts, monitor marketing campaigns and provide post-sales services.
Price: The payment plan starts at $25 per user per month.
8) Agile CRM
Agile CRM is a platform that provides sales, marketing and service automation. It is mainly intended for small and medium-sized businesses. The tool allows you to manage tasks between the sales and marketing team effectively. It has many functions including widgets, plugins, API-integration and many others, though free version functions are rather limited.
Price: Agile CRM offers a free version. Payment plans start at $8.99 per user per month.
9) Batchbook CRM
Batchbook CRM is a cloud-based system intended to create and manage customer records. The software is developed for small and medium-sized businesses. It includes customizable fields for filling customer details in any format. Tags and customizable lists help group and segment customers. Batchbook CRM provides tools for handy organization of your schedule to ensure you will not miss any crucial event. It enables contact importation from vCard files or spreadsheets and system integration with main SMB solutions.
Price: Batchbook CRM price starts at $ 19.95 per month.
10) Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM software is a web application and mobile app created to help small and medium-sized businesses track their customers. It includes a ticket management module that helps resolve customer inquiries. The system provides a lot of instruments for the organization and prioritization of your tasks. Capsule CRM supports integration with a wide range of popular small-business solutions.
Price: Capsule CRM offers a free plan for up to two users. Paid plans start at £12 per user per month.
11) OnePageCRM
OnePageCRM is a cloud-based system for sales automation. The software is created mainly for small businesses. Its tools enable one-click lead capture from a wide range of sources, including Gmail, LinkedIn and others. The software functions allow integration with some third-party financial, lead generation and communication software. OnePageCRM has mobile apps available for iOS and Android.
Price: OnePageCRM offers a 21-day free trial. The payment plan starts at $12 per user per month.
12) Bitrix24 CRM
Bitrix24 is an easy-to-use online CRM system that includes many instruments for management, communication and collaboration. In order to start working with the platform, you simply need to create an account.
Price: Bitrix24 offers a free option. Paid plans start at €19 per month.
13) Base CRM
Base CRM is a web-based sales platform that includes instruments for email, forecasting, pipeline management and much more. The system has been rebranded not so long ago and is called Zendesk now. The system mainly suits small and medium-sized businesses. It is a powerful and intuitive sales automation solution.
Price: Base CRM starts at $19 per user per month.
Conclusion
Hopefully, now you can agree that CRM platforms are powerful and useful tools that can facilitate the interaction between your business and customers. If you have decided to introduce the system to your company, examine carefully all the services certain CRM provides and analyze whether they meet your company needs. The most important aspect is the integration ability that allows you to integrate your CRM with third-party tools and avoid manual data import.
No matter how useful this tool is, it can’t grant you full control over your employees. To analyze and find out how much time your employees use for the specific task, you need a more specific instrument. Kickidler employee computer monitoring software can become a useful solution in this case. Handy remote employee monitoring option allows you to check what your employees are doing at this very moment and find out if there are any violations.