There are numerous CRM platforms in the market, which makes it challenging to get the right one for your business.
After using a ton of different CRMS across numerous tech companies, I’ve narrowed it down to the 4 best CRM software to try this year.
BEST CRM SOFTWARES IN 2020
If you don’t use a CRM platform, then it’s time to think about getting one.
1. FreshSales
Freshsales is an AI-based CRM for lead scoring, email activity, email capture, and so forth. One of its most prominent features is that it provides a 360-degree view of your business.
KEY FEATURES:
- Lead Management – Provides solutions to convert prospective leads into customers
- Deal Management – Gives you a thorough picture of where the deal is placed in the sales funnel. Also helps you manage and organize every step in the funnel and maximize your chances of conversion
- Tracking and Lead Scoring – With in-built AI-feature, you can rank and score leads, and identify the ones most likely to make a purchase
- Auto Lead Assignment – The CRM allows handpicked leads to select salespeople automatically
- Smartforms (web-to-lead) – When a person fills up the web-form on your website, they automatically become a lead and are added to your database
PROS:
- Provides high-level automation and intelligent workflows
- Extensive range of integrations, including MailChimp, Zapier, Calendar, Piesync, Segment, and more
- RESTful APIs to help you read, modify, add, and delete data from help-desk
- Behavior-based lead segmentation
- Advanced lead scoring based on characteristics and behavior
- Sends out personalized welcome and voicemail messages
- GDPR-compliant
- 21-day free trial period
- Excellent customer support via phone and email
- Known as one of the best mobile CRMs with a mobile app
- Event tracking (tracks previous communication to plan the future approach)
- Highly flexible
CONS:
- Can be challenging to use for a beginner
- Doesn’t include landing page builders
- Doesn’t have features like proposal templates
- Customer support is 24/5 (no support on weekends)
PRICING PLANS:
Freshsales offers four plans, starting from $12 up to $79 per user per month (when billed annually).
2. SalesForce
Salesforce is one of the most famous names on this list and has more than a million users worldwide. It is a cloud-based CRM software that caters to all the branches of a business, including sales, service, marketing, analytics, and more.
KEY FEATURES:
- Opportunity Management – You can close more deals by identifying the perfect opportunities with the ‘opportunity management’ module
- Contact Management – With this module, you can track parameters like customer history, communications, and social media mentions
- Sales Performance Management – Set sales goals and update targets for the best sales performance
- Visual Workflow – Using this, you can drag, drop, share, and track files and updates.
- First Feed Feature – Allows you to see what you want to see first (based on your settings)
PROS:
- 24/7 customer support available via phone, email, and tickets
- High-level automation and personalization (provide great social experience)
- 30-day free trial period
- Cloud-hosted (faster and inexpensive)
- Compatible with Linux, Windows, Mac, Android
- Open API (therefore highly customizable)
- Offer enterprise territory management, a sales CRM, and management of social networks
- Multi-language and multi-currency customer support
- Wide range of email templates to choose from
- In-built Einstein Lead Scoring
- Lead management with sales force automation and business intelligence
- Compatible with all devices, including mobile phones
- Provides partner communities
- In-built process builder and lead generation tools
- A large number of third-party integrations (LeadExec, Ambassador, Zuora, Zendesk, among others)
- Mass emailing option to help you save time and efforts
CONS:
- Can’t be used by companies who want on-premise deployment
- Live chat support isn’t available
PRICING PLANS:
Salesforce offers a variety of products; therefore, the prices may vary. However, the subscription plans start at $25 per user per month, and the most expensive plan costs $1250 per user per month (both billed annually). You can also get in touch with them for a customized plan.
3. Insightly
Insightly is a modern CRM platform that can help you grow your business faster by building lasting relationships with customers.
KEY FEATURES:
- Lead Routing – Tracks the most relevant lead information including a rich activity timeline of marketing campaign source, email, phone calls, meetings
- Relationship Management – Enables you to build strong relationships with existing customers and get new customers on board
- Extensive Third-Party Integrations – Integrated with a wide range of applications like Gmail, Mailchimp, Dropbox, Outlook, and more
- Pipeline Management – Allows you to monitor the performance of the sales team, track sales pitch, and identify where it is precisely in the sales funnel
PROS:
- Compatible with mobile devices, both Android and iOS
- Provides visual dashboards for display and tracking important metrics
- Ensures data integrity (military-grade AES-256 encryption) and regulatory compliance (GDPR-compliant)
- Highly flexible calendaring and events
- Highly scalable and customizable
- Offers features to ensure efficient filtering and tagging possible
- In-built automated email reminders and tracking
- 14-day free trial
- One of the most affordable software solutions
- Customer support available via phone, tickets, and email
- In-built tutorials for hands-on experience working with the software
- Get real-time macro/micro view of your business
- User-friendly and intuitive
CONS:
- Doesn’t have live chat support and on-premise deployment
- Supports only one language (English)
PRICING PLANS:
The prices start from $29 and go up to $99 per user per month (billed annually). Insightly also offers a free plan for up to 2 users.
4. ZOHO CRM
With Zoho, you can get a 360-degree view of your business, track essential sales and marketing opportunities, and increase conversion rates. With more than 150,000 customers globally, Zoho CRM is one of the most popular tools on this list.
KEY FEATURES:
- Advanced CRM Analytics – Integrates your data and derive actionable insights
- AI-Powered Sales Assistant – Zoho helps sales teams and representatives make decisions based on customer profile and detect anomalies
- Performance Management – With features like gamification, reporting, sales forecasting, and territory management, you can make the best out of your small business spendings
- Sales Enablement – Helps you generate price quotes and access sales scripts
- Process management – Enables the team to chart out every step of the sales process with ‘sales builder’ and ‘processing rules’
PROS:
- Omnichannel customer support via phone, live chat, email, and social media
- Provides high-level automation
- Highly customizable
- No additional surprise costs
- More than 100 third party integrations, including LinkedIn, Zapier, Google, Outlook, and more
- Highly scalable
- 15-day free trial period
- Offers a mobile version (for paid plans)
- Ensures data security, integrity, and regulatory compliance
- Multi-language offered
- Has a free plan for up to 3 users
- Provides holistic calendar management
- Offers data import/export
- Predictive sales feature to help with data enrichment, email sentiment analysis, and more
CONS:
- Can be difficult to handle for a beginner
- Doesn’t provide polling service
- No ‘import’ option from emails or web browser during registration
PRICING PLANS:
All the three paid plans, the ‘Standard,’ ‘Professional,’ and ‘Enterprise’ cost $12, $20 and $35 per user per month (billed annually). Zoho CRM also offers a freemium plan for up to 3 users.
CONCLUSION
There are a lot of CRM tools in the market, and all of them have their own strengths and benefits.
For instance, Zoho makes customer relationship management easy and fun, while Insightly helps you focus on the project management side of things. On the other hand, Freshsales is renowned for its user-friendliness.
However, you know your business better than anyone, and it’s for you to decide what it needs. Look at the value you’re getting at a definite price point, and the outcome you’re looking at.