9 Best CRMs For Small Business
Looking for the best CRMs for a small business? Keep reading to learn about nine top-rated CRM software that has features suited for small businesses.
RELATED: 15 Sales Management Software and CRMs Used by Sales Teams
In this article:
- Benefits of Utilizing a CRM for Small Businesses
- The Criteria to Find the Best CRM for Small Business
- Top CRM Systems Tailored for Small Businesses
Best CRM for Small Business: What You Should Consider
What is CRM? Short for “Customer Relationship Management,” this refers to the strategy of managing the organization’s interactions and relationships with their prospects and customers. In sales, CRM often refers to a system that helps salespeople with their productivity and performance evaluation, among others.
Benefits of Utilizing a CRM for Small Businesses
Small businesses have to be very careful with where they invest and put their resources since they don’t have a lot to spare. This is probably why a lot of small businesses are hesitant to invest in CRMs.
However, this means you might miss out on some of the benefits of CRMs. Here are some of them.
1. Organized Contacts
Using a CRM tool can help you organize the customer data you gather. This works to your benefit, as it will be easier for your sales team to run sales processes when they have a clear overview of prospect and customer data.
When you have an interface that makes it easier for you to access customer data, you become more efficient at managing your customer relationships. Relationship management is an important part of creating strong connections with current clients, which is what CRMs are there to help with.
2. Efficient Sales Reporting
Sales reports are essential to gauge the performance of each sales rep and the team in general. It also helps you manage your pipeline.
For your sales report to be accurate, you need to have the right data. A CRM software can provide the data you need to ensure that you hold each team member accountable for their performance.
Aside from that, the best sales CRM are able to organize your data in a way where sales reports are more meaningful to you. Meaning, you’ll be able to focus on key performance indicators that matter to you.
3. Segmented Customers
Each customer is important, but sometimes there’s a need to focus on a particular segment. With a CRM tool, you can categorize which segments your customers belong to.
There are some CRMs that are able to gather customer data from a variety of sources. Additionally, there are some CRM features that help make segmented customer data easier to understand for your perusal.
This helps your sales team personalize customer experiences and lets you execute efficient and targeted sales efforts.
4. Improved Customer Service
One of the main things CRMs help improve for businesses is their customer service.
Some CRMs are able to integrate social media accounts into it. This will be useful for immediate or faster conflict resolution between the business and the customer.
As much as small businesses would like to provide intimate and deeply personal customer service, sometimes this isn’t possible. By using CRM, it’ll be much easier to provide high-quality customer service both to prevent and resolve issues.
5. The Best CRMs Automate Repetitive Tasks
Another reason why a small business should use a CRM solution or software in their operations is because of the convenience it brings.
Due to the fact that the manpower in small businesses is much more precious, it’s going to be a waste if efforts are focused on menial administrative tasks. This is where CRMs come in.
Most, if not all of the best CRMs, help automate a lot of repetitive tasks. From marketing automation to marketing campaigns, CRMs help small businesses focus on more critical business processes.
The Criteria to Find the Best CRM for Small Business
Another reason why small businesses might not be considering CRMs to help their business is they wouldn’t know where to start.
There are a lot of CRM solutions out there. Thus, the confusion is understandable.
However, for a small business, there are several factors that should be taken into consideration.
To narrow down your options, here are the criteria you should consider when finding a CRM system for your business:
- Cost-efficient: Since small businesses don’t have much leeway in budgeting yet, this is an important factor to consider.
- User-friendly: Small businesses don’t have the time to get down and dirty with new software. Thus, it should be user-friendly.
- Customizable: Each business has a different need and business model. Therefore, the CRM should be able to adapt to the differences in each business.
- Integrates seamlessly with other business tools
- Provides customer support
Top CRM Systems Tailored for Small Businesses
You don’t have to look any further for the best CRMs that can best serve your small business’ needs. Here are nine CRM systems you should consider getting:
1. Agile CRM
Agile CRM
There are three primary reasons to choose Agile CRM:
- All-in-one CRM — With it, you can automate your sales, service, and marketing in a single platform. This lets you seamlessly process data and enables consistent messaging.
- Easy to implement — You won’t have difficulty taking advantage of Agile CRM’s latest features and integrations as they’re easy to implement. It also offers great support for your business. The downside is the free version only offers limited features.
- Cloud-based — Agile CRM’s service is a cloud-based SaaS. It’s convenient because it’s simple, fast, and mobile-ready.
This CRM software is free for 10 users, with the following paid packages:
- Starter: $8.99
- Regular: $29.99
- Enterprise: $47.99
2. Apptivo
Apptivo CRM provides an all-in-one cloud solution for your sales team’s needs, such as CRM, invoicing, and project management. It also provides customizable business solutions so you can pick only what your business needs.
Apptivo supports your go-to devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops. This makes it very convenient since it allows users to use it any time and anywhere.
It also integrates with other services like G Suite, Office 365, Dropbox, and PayPal. To top it all off, it has reliable customer service that’s always ready to assist you.
Apptivo doesn’t require a contract and credit card for you to avail their services. It’s free for three users, and offers the following paid packages:
- Premium: $8 per month
- Ultimate: $20 per month
- Enterprise: Contact them for the pricing
3. Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM gives your sales team a complete view on its user interface. It’s conveniently divided into five segments — dashboard, sales pipeline, people and organizations, calendar and tasks, and cases.
Additionally, you can also use it on both desktop and mobile. Capsule CRM integrates with popular applications like G Suite, Twitter, Zendesk, and Xero.
This software is safe, secure, and always backed up. It also offers dedicated customer support for its users.
You can cancel your Capsule CRM subscription anytime, and it’s free for up to two users. Their paid plans include:
- Professional: $18/user per month
- Teams: $36/user per month
RELATED: What Is CRM | Understanding Customer Relationship Management
4. ConvergeHub
ConvergeHub CRM
ConvergeHub’s CRM has the following features and benefits useful for small businesses:
- Unified Platform — All its features are in one platform, so they all have the same look and performance. This lets you avoid having duplicate data within your system and gives 360-degree visibility on all your data.
- User-friendly — It’s easy to navigate, making it simple to use for anyone in your sales team.
- Easy Set Up — You can immediately implement ConvergeHub within your sales team as it’s easy to set up.
- Enhances Productivity — It provides advanced and automated sales productivity tools that can help improve your sales process.
- Customizable — ConvergeHub flexibly meets your needs with its customizable software. Its aim is to adapt to the way your small business works.
- Seamless Integration — You can set it up to integrate with leading third-party tools like WordPress, Box, and GoToMeeting.
You can opt to pay either quarterly or yearly for your ConvergeHub subscription, and you can also try it for free. On that note, here are its paid plan packages:
- Starter: $9/user per month
- Pro: $29/user per month
- Premium: $59/user per month
- Industry Edition: Contact them for the pricing
5. Insightly
Insightly CRM prides itself as a leading CRM platform based on the number of organizations that use it. It deserves a spot as one of the best CRMs for a small business as it is among the top choices in the market.
Insightly’s interface is user-friendly. In fact, it’s easy-to-navigate, offers customization options, and also allows integration.
However, there is one disadvantage. The only downside — it doesn’t generate dashboards and custom reports.
Its pricing plans are as follows:
- Plus: $29/user per month (eligible for free trial)
- Professional: $49/user per month (eligible for free trial)
- Enterprise: $99/user per month
6. Nimble
If you prefer to access your CRM data from your inbox, Nimble is a good fit for you. It allows you to access insights, update contacts, and manage deals straight from your G Suite or Office 365 inbox.
This is a great CRM software if you want to combine your email, contacts, and social media interactions (particularly on Twitter) in just one platform. All-in-all, Nimble is an excellent CRM for a multitude of app integrations.
Nimble also works well with mobile so you can use it anywhere. It offers a free trial and its premium plan, Nimble Business, starts at $19/user per month.
7. OnePageCRM
OnePage CRM
If you want to promote more action within your sales team, go for the task-based OnePageCRM. It helps your sales reps be more productive by creating a simple and focused to-do list.
Aside from that, you can also download the OnePageCRM app on your mobile device to check your to-do list on-the-go. What’s more, it connects to other business systems you use, so it’s easier to streamline your data.
OnePageCRM offers a free trial and a $12/user per month subscription plan.
8. PipelineDeals
Pipeline Deals is another high-quality CRM that’s easy to use for small to medium-sized businesses.
Here are the features and benefits you can expect from PipelineDeals:
- Contact management
- Sales pipeline tracking
- Unlimited reports and dashboards
- Customizable fields
- Integration with other business tools like Gmail, Outlook, and MailChimp
- On-the-go access through the PipelineDeals mobile app
It offers a free trial and the following paid plans:
- Start: $25/month per user
- Develop: $33/month per user
- Grow: $49/month per user
9. Streak
If you’re a big fan of Gmail, you might find Streak as the best CRM for small business. It’s a Chrome plugin that allows users to work directly from their Gmail inbox.
With Streak, it’s easy and convenient to schedule emails, send group emails, and create individual email threads for each team (e.g. sales, marketing, HR, etc.).
It offers the following price points:
- Personal: Free
- Professional: $49/user per month
- Enterprise: $129/user per month
Each of these customer relationship management tools can help your business thrive. Now the only thing you need to do is to narrow down the list to help you find the best CRM for small business that will work well for you.
Take the time to figure out what your sales team needs and explore your options. This way, you can make the right choice for your own small business.
It’s important that you look into what you want to get out of a CRM first before making your decision. That way, it will be easier to narrow down your choices.
Aside from that, it can help make it easier for you to know how you want a CRM to work for your business. Good luck in your search!
Which of these CRM software do you want to try, and why? Let us know in the comments section below!
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on May 8, 2019, and has been updated for quality and relevancy.