Top CRM Choices for Small Businesses

You finally took the step to start your venture. With the business world evolving at such a high pace, you need to keep up with all the trends and tools for your business to thrive. Well, you have got yourself a good customer base and now you are looking to scale. You do not use excel spreadsheets for managing your contact information instead you require a detailed system that helps you simplify your tasks. A CRM system is what you need at this point.  

What does a CRM do?

CRM stands for customer relationship management. It is a complete and comprehensive software that helps businesses manage their interactions with customers and potential prospects throughout the sales funnel.  CRM system enables businesses to:

• • Track interactions with customers
• • Monitor the prospects along the sales funnel
• • Collect, manage, store, and analyze contact information
• • Automate and manage various processes
• • Visualize sales and customer data
• • Forecast future sales
• • Keep the information centralized; easily accessible for the team
• • Create and personalize marketing campaigns

In short, CRM is a good investment and has multiple uses but the question here is that is it important for small businesses to invest in a customer relationship management system or not.  

Why do Small Businesses need a CRM System?

To grow and compete in the market, small businesses need to stand out among the crowd. For this, they need to improve their operations and customer management strategies. A CRM system can assist in all of these functions. Customer relationship management allows businesses to centralize customer data including contact information, history, and logs all in one place thus improving customer management. Automating repetitive tasks is also a plus point of CRM. Scheduling email follow-ups, social media marketing automation, and creating workflows and sales reports are some tasks automated by customer relationship management. This enables the team to save up some time and put their focus more on the activities that require some attention and concentration.  Moreover, a customer relationship management system offers better collaboration by enabling them to share data easily across teams so that the small business works with more efficiency. It makes businesses take logical decisions based on insights gathered from the data present in the customer relationship management system.  

What makes the Best CRM for Small Businesses?

Finding a CRM that best fits your business seems to be a daunting job. With a lot of options available in the market, a person can get confused easily. As a small business, budget is an important factor to consider. A customer relationship management system is, no doubt, a great investment for a business but at an earlier stage you should make sure that is it the right fit for you. Following are some points you should keep in mind while looking for a CRM:

• • You should be aware of your requirements and what you expect from the software you are putting your money into.  
• • Consider the structure and the size of your organization.
• • The features of the customer relationship management system you are going to get installed. For instance, look into the automation, integrations, and third-party apps the CRM has to        offer.  
• • Look for your ease. Check the user-friendliness of the customer relationship management before choosing.
• • Evaluate the customizations and scalability.
• • Analyze the level of customer support offered by customer relationship management.
• • Look into the analytics and reporting proficiencies of the software.
• • Check whether the system is accessible remotely and on the mobile phone.  
• • Verify the security and privacy of the CRM you choose.
• • And lastly, consider the costs and pricing model.

Cross-checking the system and going through all its features before you decide is a must because you need to make sure that the system you are investing in yields results for you. Below listed are some of the top-notch customer relationship management software that can be a great option for small businesses.

1) HubSpot CRM

Well, it is the most popular CRM system holding a large clientele. HubSpot is a free customer relationship management system that serves great for small businesses. With a good deal of features, HubSpot enables small businesses to manage leads, customers, and potential prospects through lead management, contact management, and sales automation. Moreover, with some affordable payments, you can unlock further premium features according to your needs.  HubSpot promotes teamwork by getting the team to a single page. It offers various automation features along with managing leads. Other than its free features, HubSpot premium packages offer you a full-fledged platform with inbound marketing including emails and blog posts. In short, it offers a free version with basic features.

2) Salesforce CRM

Salesforce has also made its name in the customer relationship management world. It is designed for businesses of all sizes to manage their customer base. It has extensive features that grow with your business side by side. Various Sales, Service, Marketing, and Collaboration tools are offered by Salesforce CRM.  Moreover, it allows customization along with offering customer data insights and integration history. Salesforce further splits into Marketing cloud, Sales cloud, Service cloud, etc. making Salesforce an easy option to work with at an initial level.  

3) Pipedrive

Pipedrive’s functions can be guessed just by its name; it focuses on driving leads and tracking them along the sales pipeline. It is simple yet a very powerful customer relationship management tool that helps small businesses streamline their sales processes. It is useful in tracking and picking up leads along with assisting in prioritizing leads and finalizing deals. It syncs information across channels and puts up your workflow in a centralized place. Last but not the least, it offers a mobile application that enables sales representatives to access information and close deals when they are on the go.  

4) Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is recognized because of its ease to use and integration capabilities. It is affordable and offers various marketing, sales, and customer management tools making it a one-stop customer relationship management shop. It also enables third-party integrations with multiple applications.  Furthermore, Zoho CRM is great for teams working remotely. It is specifically designed to focus on the sales process along with generating leads and closing deals. It also helps measure your performance with great precision.  

Hire a CRM Consultant!

After you have finalized the CRM system, hiring a customer relationship management consultant is a wise job to do. CRM consultants and service providers are experts meaning they have deep knowledge and intel regarding various customer relationship management systems. Implementing a CRM can just be as challenging as choosing a CRM. So, it is better to gain assistance and get the job done the right way. Databeys provides top-tier CRM consulting services and assists businesses implement their customer relationship management systems effectively. Let us help you choose and implement CRM that is best for you!  ‍

Read: Success With Customization: Tailoring Your CRM