The biggest challenge for small businesses (or SMBs) is growth.
And by growth, we mean more exposure, more customers and employees and most importantly more revenue. And as well know, whilst striving for this growth, a lot has to happen. One of the biggest being that the workflows and organisational processes need to be streamlined within your business so that all processes run smoothly. That’s when CRM software becomes of great value to SMBs.
Post updated: April 2021
Previously we created an overview of the best CRM software for Enterprise businesses. However, now we want to focus on the smaller players – the small businesses.
In this post, Mopinion will zoom in on 15 of the best (and top-rated) CRM software for small businesses. But before we get started, let’s look at the benefits of using CRM software.
Three Major Benefits of using CRM Software
The main benefits of using CRM Software include:
1. Organises your contacts
First and foremost are your contacts – hence the name CRM (or Customer Relationship Management). As your business’ customer base grows, you’ll want to have a system for organising that data in a way that works to your benefit. This clean-cut overview of your contacts will also help you run sales processes more smoothly.
2. Reports your sales
CRMs help you keep an overview of sales performance by way of various metrics such as calls made and deals booked. This is ideal for managing your pipeline.
Source: Handshake
Small business CRM Software helps you track and visualise sales performance metrics through customer relationship profiles. These profiles help distinguish prospects at every stage of the funnel while building a pipeline and helping your client base grow with your business. Tracking outreach and booking progress also help your organization better manage its revenue.
Alan Santillan, G2 Crowd
3. Segments your customers
Digital marketers and sales teams are all about customer segmentation these days. This is not only useful for personalisation efforts, but also breaking down prospects into different groups such as deal size, location and more. This segmentation, therefore, gives your sales team a bit more focus.
Source: Medium
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What to look for in a CRM software
There are a couple of facets you – as a small-business (SMB) – should look out for when selecting your CRM software:
- Low budget: Small businesses and startups are always looking for the most cost-efficient option. That is why we’ve selected all budget-friendly tools (some of which are even free!).
- Low learning curve: The learning curve is also an important factor for SMBs. Most smaller businesses don’t have the time or resources to master a complex, enterprise-grade software. There is no IT or CRM expert needed to use the tools listed below.
- Filtering/customisation options: Some tools dissect every minor interaction which can not only produce an overwhelming amount of data, but also keep you from your goal. Try a tool that has a wide range of applications but doesn’t overdo it.
- Integrations with other tools: It’s always good to have a software that can take on all your other tools and mix data for the ultimate results. This way multiple departments can benefit from the data in their own way, with their own tools.
- Customer Support: This is another big one. Because most SMBs have pretty small teams, it’s helpful to have a tool that offers sufficient support to get you up and running.
In general, small companies are latecomers to CRM, so they have the advantage of avoiding the early adopters’ mistakes….
SalesLogix Corporation
Top CRM Software for Small Businesses (SMBs)
Alright, let’s get to it. Here are the top 15 CRM software for small businesses…
1. 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
2. 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 or upgrade to paid version (starting at 41 EUR / month).
Website: www.hubspot.com
3. Salesmate CRM
With Salesmate CRM you can speed up the sales processes and offer customers a personalised 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. Some unique features within this CRM software include: Prospect & Lead Engagement, Sales Pipeline & Activity Tracking, Sales Automation & Sequences and more.
Pricing: Starts at $12/user/month.
Website: www.salesmate.io
4. Zoho
Though we’ve 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 offers a lot in terms of sales/marketing features, including website visitor tracking, lead scoring, sales signals (with pop-up notifications about leads) and more. However, keep in mind that some of the 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
5. Salesflare
If you hate filling out a CRM and want one that actively helps you sell, Salesflare is a good choice for you. It automatically pulls up all the info you need and automatically keeps itself up to date.
Salesflare is built specifically for small and medium-sized businesses who sell B2B. And while it may look simple, it still packs a lot of power. You can even use it to send personal email sequences at scale
Pricing: $30/user/month
Website: www.salesflare.com
6. Agile CRM
Agile CRM is a CRM software 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
7. Freshworks CRM
Freshworks CRM (previously 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
8. Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM is a very easy-to-use CRM software that allows its users to track both relationships and sales pipelines. 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
9. Microsoft Dynamics 365
Source: Microsoft Dynamics
If you are a Microsoft user you probably know that Microsoft Dynamics 365 is an all-in-one platform for sales and marketing. This CRM has rather extensive CRM functionality as well as integration with Microsoft products and LinkedIn.
The only setback with this tool is that it can be difficult to navigate at first for new users and mobile app features are limited.
Pricing: Different modules and licensens offered. Sales Insight i.e. (€ 42.20/user/month)
Website: Dynamics.microsoft.com
10. Zendesk sell
Zendesk sell is a great CRM software for companies looking to customise their sales pipelines. The software includes sales email intelligence, a native dialer, various integrations and APIs, sales prospecting and much more.
Pricing: Starting from 19 EUR/User/Month
Website: www.zendesk.com
11. 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 $15/user/month.
Website: www.streak.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 (£41.60/user/month, 10 user minimum) all the up to Sugar Market (£800/month)
Website: www.sugarcrm.com
13. 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
14. 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
15. 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
The options are endless when choosing a CRM software
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 are the set up regarding 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 (including your customer feedback tool) rather than having to import data manually – which can cost you a lot of time and energy.
Mopinion’s all-in-one user feedback software works with several CRM software providers including SalesForce, HubSpot and Marketo.
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Doing research for your Martech stack?
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