The CRM software industry is currently one of the fastest growing industries.
According to a report, the CRM industry will have a growth rate of 14.27% from 2020 to 2027, expected due to consumer demand for better service and automated participation.
CRM software offers several benefits including the ability to organize contacts for any business and automate critical operations. It can also act as a centralized, organized hub for regular contact between the company and its customers. This is especially important as more companies transition to remote work cultures.
Every company wants long-term customer loyalty . Therefore, the future success of a company will be determined by its customer relationship CRM will help to retain customers.
Compared to traditional contact management techniques, advanced customer relationship management (CRM) software allows you to create much closer connections with your current and potential customers.
What is a CRM tool?
CRM or Customer Relationship Management controls customer interactions at every stage of the sales process. Although any approach or method that uses data to build, maintain, and improve customer relationships is CRM, the term is most commonly associated with CRM systems or technologies.
Tracking data at every touchpoint in a buyer’s journey can help you meet their needs, build stronger relationships, and sell more effectively. CRM helps to manage and maintain the data in one place.
A CRM software system takes on the following tasks:
- Collects customer data from various sources and apps and then stores it centrally
- Automates routine customer service, marketing, and sales tasks
- Follow up with potential consumers and buyers throughout their buying process
- Finds opportunities for cross- and up-selling
- Promotes cooperation between departments
If you are in a hurry, give this popular CRM a try, you won’t go wrong.
Salesforce
$25.00 per license
- The industry leader
- 3,000+ integrations
- Great customer reviews
HubSpot
Free
- Easy, free CRM
- Intuitive interface
- All in one management
monday.com
$10.00 per month
- 360° customer view
- Easy to set up and use
- 24/7 support
Why do companies need CRM tools?
Not having a CRM solution can be problematic for an established company. A CRM can help your sales reps when they are struggling and losing efficiency.
Here are some of the reasons why CRM can be a growth driver for your business:
# 1.Centralization of customer data
CRM stores your customer information in separate records. As your interactions with your customers progress, it can update the records with the latest information. All conversations, emails, agreements, proposals, etc. are stored on a single platform, so your entire team can access the data.
Not having to dig through a mountain of documents to find a contact saves your business time and effort.
The CRM solution allows integrations with other programs that your company uses every day, such as chatbots or billing software. You can keep records of support requests, calls, live chats, and emails for each customer.
You can schedule appointments and meetings by comparing them to the events on your calendar . CRM allows you to work on a single platform instead of multiple tools.
#2.Synchronize your service, sales and marketing teams
The success of your organization depends on the alignment of all teams. This collaboration, especially between sales and marketing, facilitates your team’s efforts to optimize all aspects of the shopper experience.
Internal teams can share critical data and customer information as a unified team. This way, customers have a consistent and seamless customer experience from start to finish, encouraging them to stay with your business.
In 2021 and 2022 , 45% of sellers said the importance of sales and marketing synchronization has increased, and 79% of sales reps said their CRM was a little too highly efficient to drive this alignment.
#3.Monitor the development of the customer
CRM allows you to create a strategy map. It can develop an effective strategy at each stage, rather than relying on a spreadsheet, planner, or rolodex. This allows your sales team to focus on closing deals.
In addition, the CRM solution records the customer journey every time a specific customer contacts you and makes it visible on the CRM dashboard.
#4.Simplify the sales process
The main advantage of a CRM solution is that it supports your sales reps at every level – lead generation , customer acquisition and opportunity closing. As the name suggests, a CRM facilitates customer interactions.
A CRM is also beneficial when your sales team needs ramp-up assistance and coordination. CRM facilitates coordination when your team is working on a single task or when specific team members are responsible for separate chain components.
CRM software allows you to organize customer-related tasks and assign them to team members. Every seller has a well-defined function with corresponding goals.
#5.Optimize business processes
CRM can streamline business processes by centralizing customer data, automating repetitive tasks, and providing a unified view of customer interactions across different departments and channels.
This can improve efficiency, improve customer service and increase sales.
In addition, CRM can provide companies with valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, helping them make more informed decisions about marketing, sales and product development.
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Now let’s look at the best free CRM tools for business.
HubSpot
With the help of HubSpot’s CRM tool, you can monitor and analyze sales activity in real time. A visual dashboard that provides a real-time overview of the sales pipeline is helpful. You may gain access to detailed information on sales activity, outcomes, and individual performance and can use these insights to monitor team performance and identify prospects for development.
Live chat, shared inboxes, conference booking, monitoring dashboards, mobile apps, contact management , one-to-one emails, and more features are available with HubSpot ‘s free CRM model. The standard model starts at $45/month and goes up to $3600/month for businesses.
Zoho
Zoho’s CRM tool enables excellent client connections. You can communicate with customers by changing the channel, timing and message. You can also use multichannel availability, classification, KPIs , predictive analytics, and other aspects to provide customized customer experiences.
You can automate your operations, procedures, advertising, user experience, and other processes so businesses can focus on building relationships rather than tools.
Zoho’s CRM solution has a 15-day free trial period. The standard package starts at $20/user/month, where you can automate your sales pipeline, and goes up to $65/month/user for the ultimate plan that helps you scale globally.
Freshworks
Freshworks CRM The platform allows businesses to focus their marketing and sales efforts on the customer. With a single customer perspective that supports efficient engagement across channels and a 360-degree vision of consumers to nurture connections and grow sales.
It helps to coordinate the work processes of the sales and marketing teams to provide individualized customer experiences. This tool recognizes the customer’s intent and sends the message to negotiate deals faster.
In this free tool, you can use sales and marketing departments coordinated with the built-in conversation, email and phone. You get wild social media promotions and customer support available 24/7.
Really Simple Systems
By tracking and organizing your leads and customers, Really Simple System CRM allows you to work more efficiently and focus on expanding your business. All customers, contacts and messages are available at all times. To ensure you rarely miss another opportunity, create tasks and schedules, keep records of them, and keep things organized.
With the help of Really Simple Solutions CRM, you can monitor your sales and promotion funnel effortlessly and effectively. By automating your sales process, you can quickly sort and search your data, view and track transactions from inquiry to close, and prioritize your top leads.
With the free plan, you can store up to 100 business records, unlimited contacts, and 100MB of data. The starter pack starts at $11/month and goes up to $39.10/month at the enterprise level.
EngageBay
Using the EngageBay CRM platform will help you avoid mistakes and incompatibilities between your sales and marketing teams. This tool does not contain ambiguous metrics. When sales and marketing teams are in sync, they can work together as a cohesive team to win customers in ways never imagined.
This CRM’s marketing automation capabilities, which also streamline all business operations and increase revenue generation, enabled better collaboration between the marketing and sales teams.
In the free version, businesses can store up to 250 contacts and use email broadcasts, landing sites, email sequences, and lead capture forms. The basic plan starts at $12.74/month and goes up to $84.99 for enterprise-level businesses.
Capsule CRM
In this CRM tool, you don’t need to install any CRM software. No downloads or disc purchases required; Just create a profile and log in. The CRM software is accessible from any location via the cloud and is no longer limited to machine-specific licenses.
Capsule CRM has several advantages. It has exceptional customer service, constant data backups , automated upgrades, an offline mobile app, and much more. You can use it on any computer.
Capsule CRM doesn’t have a free plan, and the professional model costs $18 per month, comes with a 14-day free trial, and allows you to store 50,000 contacts with a storage capacity of 10GB. It goes up to $54 for the enterprise tier, where you can store up to 200,00 contacts with a storage capacity of 40GB.
BenchmarkOne
The BenchmarkOne CRM Dashboard provides key insights at a glance, prompting you to pull the levers to grow and improve your business.
Companies can use it to track the behavior of their contacts in real time. You can monitor who visits specific pages on your website and send hot-lead notifications to connect with consumers who are about to make a purchase. Task automation and notifications keep you focused throughout the day.
In this free model, you can use tools like marketing automation , email campaigns, landing pages, and contact management for up to 250 contacts. The pricing model determines the number of contacts that need to be stored.
Bitrix24
You can create, edit and convert leads automatically Bitrix24-CRM . With this tool, you can run marketing campaigns, create landing sites, and monitor useful KPIs.
This tool is ideal for remote work and has project management , video conferencing and online assignment functions. It includes a central workstation for creating, modifying and managing projects and data.
You can enjoy up to 5GB of data storage in the free plan, including a corporate workstation, HD video calling, calendar, helpdesk, website builder, and many other features. The basic plan costs $49/month, which goes up to $199/month for the professional-level plan.
Streak
You can stay on top of and access all the details about your workflows, contacts, and tasks in your Mailbox and Pocket with Streak’s CRM application .
This tool is just like using Google Sheets. You already have all the training because you’re familiar with using Google Sheets and Gmail. It is also accessible on mobile devices. Streak’s native interfaces and mobile apps keep you connected anytime, anywhere.
The free model includes a basic CRM with a limit of 500 contacts, an email monitor and an email merge feature. The Solo plan costs $15/month, rising to $129/month for the Enterprise tier.
Insightly CRM
Through customizable record linking capabilities, Insightful CRM helps map and better understand complicated customer interactions. Customers, emails and other data can be “linked” to existing contacts in your database, providing a clear picture of organizational flows and informal networks.
You can easily turn opportunities into projects without compromising any data. It helps you monitor targets, control procedures and integrate with external systems to ensure on-time delivery and happy customers.
The basic plan costs $29/month and allows you to automate and customize emails, create a stronger sales workflow, etc. At the enterprise level, it goes up to $99/month where you schedule outbound emails, email Use templates and much more.
Agile CRM
Agile CRM application allows you to collect leads, tag them, do regular follow-up and view all your leads. You can automate lead routing and create custom workflows, assign leads to your team, and provide appropriate follow-up to help them move through the sales funnel using powerful lead management features.
With easy customization options, it helps track, organize, maintain, and update your contact information all in one place.
You can monitor and control the status of your deals using a simple graphical pipeline visualization. Sales teams can close deals that add value to the company seamlessly and easily.
In its free model, you get 50,000 contacts, unlimited offers, email tracking , two-way email integration, two-way phone and many other features, and this is accessible to 10 users. The starter model starts at $8.99/month and goes up to $47.99/month for the enterprise tier.
Flowlu
The Flowlu CRM tool ensures that your prospects are properly directed to a probable outcome of the sales planning. You can quickly track new sales opportunities, control the business opportunities in your sales pipeline, and generate quality leads.
Within Flowlu you can quickly access your complete mailbox and track your email correspondence. It allows you to email leads directly from Flowlu and lets you know when a prospect opens or clicks a link in an email.
It allows you to run your operations automatically, so no important steps are missed and you and your team can focus on the important things.
The free model is available for two users with 1GB of storage; Businesses can take advantage of unlimited project tasks, unlimited contacts, CRM automation, a project template, a knowledge base, and more.
The team model plan starts at $29/month and goes up to $119/month for the professional level plan.
Summary
Integrating CRM technology into the daily operations of your business is now easier than ever. Many organizations have aggressively deployed CRM tools to maintain efficient organizational operations and robust customer interactions.
To ensure your employees benefit from single sign-on authentication, make sure your CRM software integrates with existing software. Try the CRM tools above and choose what best suits your business needs.