Are you a small business looking for the best CRM software?
The secret to small business success lies in the ability to adapt, innovate, and stay ahead of the curve. But what sets apart the winners from the losers? For many small businesses, the answer lies in how they maintain their customer base, which ultimately boils down to using a customer relationship management (CRM) solution for their business. By helping streamline operations, improve customer relationships, and make data-driven decisions, a CRM can take your business to the next level.
- The Need for a CRM
- CRM Benefits
- State of customer operations report
- Top CRM Features
- Best Small Business CRMs
- Vertical CRMs vs Horizontal CRMs
The definitive guide to the best CRM software for small businesses
On this page, we'll dive into the world of CRMs and explore why they're
a must-have for small businesses. We'll examine the tangible benefits they can deliver and highlight the top CRMs in the market. From Bigin by Zoho CRM to HubSpot Sales Hub, we'll explore the best options to help you streamline
operations and drive growth.
We'll also weigh the pros and cons of vertical and horizontal CRMs, and uncover the top features that can drive real value for your business.
By the end of this page, you'll have a clear understanding of , why a CRM is a worthwhile investment what to look for when selecting the right solution for your small business, and the top CRMs that can help you achieve your goals.
Why does your small business need a CRM solution?
As a small business owner, you often juggle a million tasks at once—from managing client relationships to tracking your financial performance to keeping your team organized. It's a lot to handle, and it's easy for things to fall through the cracks. That's where a CRM software tool can be transformative for your small business. Let's take a look at five reasons why your small business needs CRM software:
To stay organized and aligned
Between meetings, emails, and client calls, it's easy for small business owners to feel like they're always playing catch-up.
A CRM helps you streamline your workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and keep your team aligned. Say goodbye
to sticky notes and lost documents; a CRM brings
everything together in one place. Plus, you'll have more time
to focus on what really matters: growing your business.
To manage your clients with ease
Remembering every detail about your clients and leads can
be a real challenge, especially as your business grows.
A CRM system acts as a centralized hub to store all your customer information, communication history, and interactions. This makes it easy to provide personalized,
top-notch customer service to every single client.
To gain full pipeline visibility
As a small business owner, it's crucial to make the most of
every sales opportunity. With a CRM, you can easily track the revenue you generate from each of your clients, deals, and product/service offerings. This visibility enables you to
double-down on the parts of your business that are driving the most growth and continually expand your revenue streams.
To maximize your revenue
As a small business owner, it's crucial to make the most of every sales opportunity. With a CRM, you can easily track the revenue you generate from each of your clients, deals, and product/service offerings. This visibility enables you to
double-down on the parts of your business that are driving the most growth and continually expand your revenue streams.
To monitor your key metrics
How are your marketing campaigns performing? Which
sales approaches are most effective? What kind of customer tickets are most common? Chances are, these questions
have crossed your mind at some point. A robust CRM gives
you data and reporting tools to monitor the key metrics that drive your business forward. Stay on top of what's working
(and what's not) so you can make informed,
data-driven decisions.
In a recent study commissioned by Bigin by Zoho CRM, in partnership with the SMB Group, over 1,500 US small businesses (with fewer than 100 employees) were surveyed. The results were quite startling: 56% of these small businesses still don't use a CRM solution to manage their critical customer data.
While many small business owners may view a CRM as an unnecessary expense or a tool only suited for large enterprises, the reality is that a quality CRM platform can be revolutionary for companies of any size.
The benefits small businesses gain from using CRMs
A quality CRM platform has the potential to give your small business a big competitive advantage. By centralizing your customer data, streamlining your workflows, improving data quality, and providing valuable insights, a CRM can deliver substantial benefits that drive growth for you in the long run. Let's explore five ways a CRM can benefit your small business.
Elevated customer experience
Your customers are the heart of your business, so providing them with quality customer service should be your highest priority. A CRM helps you deliver personalized, consistent service across every touchpoint. When customers feel valued, they're more likely to become loyal users of your product/service.
Tailored user experience
A CRM solution built for small businesses can accommodate the unique needs and constraints of compact teams with limited resources. It delivers a user experience designed to facilitate quick adoption and minimal disruption to daily operations. An intuitive and simple interface ensures small teams can get up and running without long implementation cycles or complex training processes.
Improved data quality and accessibility
Managing customer information across various spreadsheets, word docs, sticky notes, and inboxes leads to inaccurate data and disorganization. A CRM unites all your customer data into one central hub, which ensures your team always has access to accurate and up-to-date information. Remember: Ensuring data quality is crucial for making well-informed business decisions.
Streamlined workflows
As a small business owner, your time is precious. You're already looking at ways to work smarter as opposed to working harder, so why not add a CRM to your toolkit? A CRM can automate repetitive tasks, help you track your sales pipeline, and keep your team on the same page. With your operations running smoothly, you'll have more time to focus on crucial high-level objectives like growth.
Powerful analytics
It goes without saying: Data is the foundation of any successful small business. But going through endless spreadsheets can be exhausting. CRMs often provide custom reporting and analytics capabilities that bring to attention your most valuable customers, your top-selling products, your team's productivity, and other important KPIs. You can use these insights to make strategic, data-driven decisions.
Enhanced team collaboration
When your entire team has visibility into your customer relationships, it encourages a culture of transparency and accountability. A CRM can enable your employees to work together, share information, and provide a top-notch customer experience for every client on a consistent basis. This collaborative approach can be a major competitive advantage for SMBs.
2023 State of Customer Operations for U.S. Small Businesses Report
In partnership with the SMB Group, Bigin by Zoho CRM conducted a study that surveyed more than 1,500 small businesses in the US (companies with 100 employees or less) about how they use CRM technology and handle customer-facing operations. The results highlight the considerable benefits that CRM systems provide to small businesses in managing customer interactions and operations. Let's go through some of the key insights.
To begin with, it's quite clear that a significantly higher proportion of CRM users rated the customer experience they provided to be excellent (55%) as opposed to non-CRM users (39% to 42%).
This implies that small businesses with CRM systems in place have more
confidence about the customer experience they deliver.
Furthermore, it's clear that among those who don't use a CRM system, the
consensus is that from an operational standpoint, their customer-facing work
would become much easier with a CRM in place—which is clear evidence of
their far-ranging utility.
This final data point was collected from businesses that use a CRM system.
Around 44% of their users say that a CRM solution helps save them over 10 hours
of work per week.
So is a CRM really worth it?
The verdict is clear: A CRM isn't just nice to have for SMBs; it's an essential tool that has the potential to transform the way they operate. The reality is that small businesses who use CRM technology are better equipped to excel in today's customer-centric business environment. While some may view CRMs as an unnecessary expense, the long-term benefits in terms of efficiency, revenue, and customer loyalty make it a worthwhile investment.
For business owners who have already used a CRM and weren't impressed
If you had a negative experience with a CRM in the past, it's very likely that it was simply a bad fit—just another CRM designed to cater to enterprises, carefully retrofitted for small business merely as an afterthought. Bigin seeks to change that.
The top CRM features for small businesses
To ensure you get the maximum value from your CRM investment, it's crucial to understand the key capabilities that can drive efficiency, productivity, and growth for your company. Let's dive into the CRM features that pack the biggest punch for small businesses:
Pipeline management
Your sales pipeline is the backbone of your business, so having full visibility and control over every stage is essential. A robust CRM like Bigin enables you to track all your deals and leads in a centralized location, giving you complete transparency into your sales process. This makes it easier to identify roadblocks, prioritize follow-ups, and forecast revenue with greater accuracy.
Customer management
As a small business, your customers are your lifeblood. A CRM acts as a single source of truth for all your customer data, interactions, and communication history. By keeping this information organized and accessible, you can deliver personalized experiences that build loyalty and foster long-lasting relationships.
Multichannel communication
Customers expect to connect with businesses through various channels: email, phone, social media, live chat, and more. A CRM that supports multichannel communication enables you to meet your customers where they are, which helps streamline your interactions and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Team collaboration
Small businesses thrive on teamwork and collaboration. CRM platforms enable teams to share customer data, deal updates, and task assignments—ensuring everyone is on the same page. This transparency and alignment leads to better decision-making and improved customer experiences.
Automation
A CRM with automation capabilities can streamline repetitive tasks like data entry, lead nurturing campaigns, and follow-up reminders. By automating these processes, you can focus your efforts on higher-value activities that drive growth.
Analytics and dashboards
Data empowers informed decision-making. A CRM can provide detailed analytics and customizable dashboards, giving you real-time insights into key performance indicators like sales metrics, customer behavior, and team productivity. These insights help you identify areas for improvement and capitalize on opportunities.
Integrations
No business operates in a silo, which is why it's essential for your CRM to integrate with other tools and software you rely on. From accounting platforms to marketing automation software, the right integrations can streamline your workflows, eliminate data silos, and create a cohesive technology stack.
By using these key CRM features, small businesses can boost their efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction, which helps them stay ahead in a competitive market and sets them up for long-term success.
Let's take a look at some of the best small business CRMs in the market
Zoho is a company built with small business DNA, serving over 100 million users across 150 countries. While Zoho CRM is our flagship product—catering to over 250,000 businesses of all sizes—we've recognized the unique challenges small businesses face. These insights led to the creation of Bigin, a modern pipeline-centric CRM specially designed for customer-facing teams in small businesses.
Bigin by Zoho CRM transforms day-to-day customer processes into actionable pipelines. From qualifying leads and closing deals to managing important after-sales operations, Bigin connects different teams and enables them to work together so that small businesses can offer the best possible customer experiences. Since its global launch in 2021, Bigin has grown under the banner of Zoho CRM. Small businesses around the world depend on Bigin as their primary platform for providing exceptional customer experiences.
Pricing
- Express
- $ 7 /user/month/billed annually
- Premier
- $ 12 /user/month/billed annually
Support
Bigin stands out among small business CRMs for having the most extensive support repository for prospects and customers in all stages of the buyer journey. Take a look at what it offers:
An interactive guide to help new users become familiar with Bigin's features and terminologies.
A comprehensive knowledge base that provides in-depth information about Bigin's features and how to set up and implement Bigin for your business.
A collection of frequently asked questions that resolve the most common questions users face with Bigin.
An extensive video library with detailed setup guides and feature walkthroughs, including a video that demonstrates how you can set up your CRM in under 30 minutes.
Personalized training programs tailored to your business needs.
Regular webinars that cover the basics of Bigin, from pipelines to automation—and more.
A dedicated portal where users can submit tickets and get in touch with the Bigin support team if they can't find answers to their questions in the available resources.
In addition to the extensive self-service support resources, Bigin also offers direct call support for users who prefer to speak with representatives. Users can easily get in touch with Bigin's support team over the phone to get personalized assistance and have their questions addressed directly.
Bigin is home to an active community where users can participate in discussions, access articles, and receive updates from the Bigin team and partners.
Bigin offers API documentation to help integrate Bigin with third-party applications, as well as a Developer Center, where developers can build and publish toppings (add-ons and integrations) in the Bigin Marketplace. With such a comprehensive support ecosystem, Bigin ensures that small businesses have all the resources they need to make the most out of their CRM.
Top features
Pipeline management
Bigin's pipeline management tools provide you with a comprehensive view of all your business operations, enabling you to streamline processes and enhance efficiency. Pipeline management features include:
This gives you a centralized view of all customer data across your teams.
If you need to monitor customer journeys across different stages, you can create workflow automations to connect pipelines.
You can even manage your tasks and activities directly from within these pipelines.
Customer management
Bigin's customer management features help you stay organized, automate processes, and increase your chances of converting leads into loyal customers.
Create customized forms to capture data from your customers and prospects across multiple channels.
If you ever need real-time updates, Bigin's Signals feature will notify you about new emails, missed calls, and other activities.
You can automatically import data from spreadsheets into Bigin and export or back up your data whenever required.
Multichannel communication
Effective communication is the key to building strong customer relationships. Bigin's multichannel communication tools ensure that you never miss an opportunity to engage with your customers by enabling consistent communication across various channels.
Your leads and customers are just a ring away; you can connect with them over calls from within the CRM.
Incoming emails are automatically associated with relevant contacts, and you can analyze the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
Bigin integrates with WhatsApp, so you can store all the necessary contact details and chat with customers via WhatsApp from within the tool.
Automation
Automating repetitive tasks can save you valuable time and resources. Bigin's automation features help you work smarter—not harder—by eliminating manual processes and reducing the risk of human errors.
Workflows enable you to automate routine tasks, track deals, set up email alerts, and much more.
You can even automatically trigger specific actions based on stage transitions in the pipeline.
Team collaboration
Effective collaboration is essential for any successful organization. Bigin offers features that help your teams and team members remain in sync, ensuring seamless coordination across your organization.
Get comprehensive customer information and visibility into each team's operations.
Get an overview of tasks, calls, and events. Notify teammates with @mentions to collaborate.
Integrate with Microsoft Teams so your reps can manage customer information during calls, chats, and meetings.
Customization
Every business is unique, and Bigin recognizes the importance of tailoring the CRM to suit your specific needs. With its robust customization features, you can make Bigin fit your business and ensure that it aligns with your processes and workflows.
Customize fields and modules to reflect your operations.
Set a home currency for your organization when creating deals for international customers.
Personalize documents easily with the merge template feature available via Bigin's integration with Zoho Writer.
Bigin by Zoho CRM pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Users have commended Bigin's ease of use. There's no steep learning curve, and users don't need prior experience to get the ball rolling with Bigin.
- Some users have noted that they would love to have more options for reports to dig deeper into their sales data, as the current reporting feels a bit basic.
- Bigin is the most economically friendly CRM in the market, priced at $7/user/month (billed annually).
- Some users have flagged the absence of a direct lead import function from LinkedIn. This could be a drawback for users seeking seamless integration.
- Bigin's interface and design are widely recognized for their ability to facilitate quicker actions and provide a smooth user experience on both web and mobile devices.
- Some users have requested for more customization features. They can find these features by exploring Zoho CRM, as it provides more robust customization.
- Bigin offers a wide suite of integrations. Business owners have noted its ability to integrate with other Zoho tools—like Zoho Invoice—is quite useful. When the time comes for your organization to scale, the process of migrating to Zoho CRM is quite straightforward.
- Users have noted that setting up email and WhatsApp integrations is easy and significantly beneficial.
- A host of different pipeline templates offers small business owners a substantial amount of flexibility when matching their specific requirements.
- The CRM and sales pipeline functions interact seamlessly with each other, and the software has a user-friendly design.
Pipedrive positions itself as a sales-focused CRM designed to help users close deals, nurture pipelines, and build long-standing relationships with customers. With over 100,000 paying customers, it has built a strong reputation among small and medium-sized companies across the globe. The platform resonates strongly with salespeople because it was built by salespeople, with a strong focus on helping sales teams. Users find it to be an easy-to-use, visual platform that streamlines processes and helps them get more work done. The platform's sales-focused approach has enabled organizations to grow revenue and expand their teams with ease.
Pricing
- Essential
- $ 12 /seat/month
- Advanced
- $ 24 /seat/month
- Professional
- $ 49 /seat/month
- Power
- $ 59 /seat/month
- Enterprise
- $ 79 /seat/month
Support
- Type of support
- Does Pipedrive
offer it?
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Chat support
- Call support
- Knowledge base
- Video tutorials
- User community
- Developer center
- Self-service portal
- Training course
- Guided onboarding
- FAQs
Top features
Sales automation system
Automation plays a critical role in all of Pipedrive's sales-focused features, from triggering personalized emails upon deal creation to advancing deals along a pipeline. You can even get personalized tips from an AI-powered mentor that helps identify ways to boost productivity by taking advantage of tools and integrations within the platform. Some of the sales automation features you should look for within Pipedrive include the following:
Gain personalized guidance with behavior-based cards offering performance tips, recommended features, app integrations, and other valuable insights to enhance your productivity.
Streamline your workflows with automated processes that handle repetitive tasks and enable you to focus on more critical objectives.
Uncover valuable insights about your customers and leads so you can make informed decisions and qualify prospects effectively.
Distribute leads across your team with the automatic lead assignment feature to ensure a balanced and efficient workload.
Lead management
Pipedrive's lead management functionality enables salespeople to make the most out of every opportunity. It helps with lead qualification and prioritization, ensuring that focus remains where it should. Below are some of Pipedrive's lead management features:
Pipedrive has a visually intuitive pipeline interface that makes managing pipelines a breeze. You can even create and customize pipelines per your needs. It also uses colored cue cards to help you visualize higher-priority deals.
Pipedrive provides a centralized location to store and qualify incoming prospects. You can filter, sort, and edit leads, then add activities to keep them engaged.
Create highly-customizable webforms for your website and share them on social media via links.
Not satisfied with the built-in filter options? Pipedrive allows you to create your own customer filters and share them with team members.
Email and communications
No one likes it when emails slip through the cracks. Rest assured: With Pipedrive, you won't be missing any emails. Pipedrive's email features ensure you stay on top of every lead and prospect. Let's explore some of the features that help users engage with leads and close more deals:
Efficiently manage all your contacts and their information within Pipedrive's centralized database, ensuring seamless communication and access to critical details.
Eliminate back-and-forth scheduling hassles with Pipedrive's intuitive scheduling tool, which enables you to book meetings effortlessly while respecting everyone's availability.
Reach out to multiple prospects simultaneously through targeted group emails.
Use pre-designed email templates to ensure professional and on-brand messaging.
Pipedrive pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Pipeline management and simplicity are standout features. Users also value the activity view.
- The initial learning curve can be steep, making it difficult to understand for first-time users. Repetitive data entry tasks can become tedious.
- The seamless integration with email and calendar, along with the ability to set reminders for follow-ups with prospects, is a significant advantage. Users recommend the software for its effectiveness.
- Integrating with third-party tools can be confusing, especially for non-technical users. Most integrations require an additional subscription to Zapier.
- Pipedrive encourages deal progression and offers excellent pipeline customization options for various sales campaigns. The new caller app is a valuable addition.
- The inability to navigate among contacts within the same list without returning to the main list page is a time-consuming limitation.
- Pipedrive is competitively priced compared to other popular CRM tools. It offers almost all the necessary features along with process automation capabilities.
- Users consider the online app practically unusable.
Insightly is a modern CRM solution that scales as your business scales. The platform is not only relatively easy to use and simple to customize but also an affordable option for small businesses. It's especially handy because it offers a lot of flexibility and allows for many integrations. Small businesses across the world use Insightly CRM to accelerate sales, build and maintain customer relationships, and track key metrics.
Pricing
- Plus
- $ 29 /seat/month/billed annually
- Professional
- $ 49 /seat/month/billed annually
- Enterprise
- $ 99 /seat/month/billed annually
Support
- Type of support
- Does Insightly
offer it?
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Chat support
- Call support
- Knowledge base
- Video tutorials
- User community
- Developer center
- Self-service portal
- Training course
- Guided onboarding
- FAQs
Top features
Sales lead tracking and opportunity management
Insightly enables teams to capture and prioritize leads based on customizable criteria, while providing a real-time view of each deal's progress. You can distribute leads and leverage pipelines to nurture opportunities efficiently and gain valuable insights into how you can drive business growth.
Business workflow and process automation
Streamline operations by automating repetitive manual tasks using Insightly's workflow automation capabilities. No more grunt work and human error; reduce redundancies and scale faster with email reminders, onboarding stages, and more. In other words, with Insightly operating in the background, you have more time to focus on high-value activities.
Validation rules and advanced permissions
Did you know Insightly helps preserve data integrity and capture quality data? You can set validation rules for every business-critical field and object to ensure accuracy and data compliance. Advanced permissions deliver data access to the right roles and profiles, empowering your teams to perform efficiently. Take control of your data and ensure the right people always have the right access.
Products, price books, and quotes
You can drive process improvement and clarity by adding the right products to the right opportunities at the right price—thereby optimizing deal velocity. With Insightly, you can even configure and price quotes directly from opportunity records, keep track of quote status with quote pipelines, quickly generate branded PDF quotes, and email them directly.
Project and task management
Insightly allows for seamless post-sale transitions by converting opportunities to projects after the deal is closed. This process copies all corresponding details, records, tasks, and customer requirements from the opportunity for complete visibility.
Insightly pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Insightly includes a comprehensive feature set, making it a popular choice for companies looking to streamline operations and drive growth.
- Some aspects of Insightly, such as the Service module, need improvement, as they have glitches and functions that don't work properly despite revisions and fixes.
- The robust reporting features in Insightly enable users to provide detailed data to stakeholders and supporters.
- If a request is closed and marked as lost/abandoned, the Actual Close Date field will not automatically populate.
- Insightly streamlines processes and operations, making it easier to manage business missions and goals.
- The interface for customizing objects and fields in the system settings could be more user-friendly.
- The software is user-friendly and easy to use, allowing for efficient onboarding and customization without requiring a developer.
- The Insightly system has minor glitches that can disrupt the flow of updates, requiring users to refresh the screen.
- Insightly offers customizable fields, enabling users to tailor the software to their specific needs.
- As more features have been added over time, Insightly has become more expensive.
- The customer support team at Insightly is responsive and follows up on requests to help users achieve their goals.
- The app has some minor glitches, and the bulk editing feature doesn't function properly.
- Insightly has helped companies achieve their goals by providing a user-friendly platform for managing their operations
- The support teams at Insightly have been inconsistent and unhelpful at times, with simple requests taking multiple emails to receive a response.
Next up on the list is Monday.com's sales CRM platform that has taken the market by storm since its launch in 2022. It's a fast, intuitive, and fully customizable CRM system built to unify all customer processes on one platform. While it provides all the essential tools one would need to manage sales leads and deals, the real standout is how it handles the entire customer journey. Once you win a deal, the CRM automatically creates a new account record for client onboarding. This gives your account managers a complete view of all the relevant data for that account right from the start—meaning no more juggling between different systems or losing context.
Pricing
- Basic
- $ 12 /seat/month/billed annually
- Standard
- $ 17 /seat/month/billed annually
- Pro
- $ 28 /seat/month/billed annually
- Enterprise
- Contact Monday.com for more information
Support
- Type of support
- Does Monday.com offer it?
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Chat support
- Call support
- Knowledge base
- Video tutorials
- User community
- Developer center
- Self-service portal
- Training course
- Guided onboarding
- FAQs
Top features
Deal management
The deal management features in Monday.com's Sales CRM provide you with a complete overview of your sales pipeline and the tools you need to drive deals forward. You can track every opportunity through its various stages and get real-time updates on deal progress.
With customizable webforms, you can easily capture new leads directly into your CRM. This ensures no potential opportunities slip through the cracks.
Once captured, you can manage and qualify all your leads in one centralized place. You can assign owners, set tasks, and schedule follow-ups to nurture leads until they're sales-ready.
Store all your contact information, including leads and existing customers, in an easy-to-access database within the CRM. This way, you'll always have their details on hand.
Automatically log call details like duration and notes against each contact's timeline. This ensures important contextual details aren't lost.
You can even get a chronological view of all activities and touchpoints related to a specific deal or contact. The transparency keeps your entire team aligned.
Email management
Effectively managing email communication is critical for sales success. Monday.com's email management tools ensure you stay on top of every email conversation.
All your email correspondences are automatically synced and logged with the relevant deal or contact record within the CRM. You'll even get real-time notifications when emails are opened.
Compose professional emails quickly using built-in templates and AI-assisted email composition. You can also use merge fields to personalize emails effortlessly.
Run targeted email marketing campaigns right from the CRM to nurture leads and drive engagement.
Analytics and reporting
Get comprehensive insights into your sales team's performance and use data to forecast and drive better results.
With predictive forecasting, you can accurately estimate future sales revenue based on your current pipeline and past win rates. Manage your sales projections effectively.
Highly visual dashboards display all your key sales metrics and KPIs at a glance. You'll always have a real-time pulse on your team's performance.
The deduplication tool merges any duplicate data into a single master record, keeping your contact database clean and free of redundant information.
Monday.com sales CRM pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Monday.com's customer support team is responsive and helpful. The comprehensive documentation and tutorials provided make it easy for teams to onboard and fully utilize the platform's capabilities.
- Some users have reported that the dashboards don't fully align with their preferences and lack the ability to fully customize them to their specific requirements.
- Monday.com integrates with popular third-party tools such as Google Workspace, Slack, and Zoom. These integrations save users time and ensure that all project data is centralized in one location, eliminating the need to switch between multiple platforms.
- While Monday.com offers various pricing plans, the overall cost can be high, especially for smaller teams, startups, or companies operating on tight budgets.
- One of the standout features of Monday.com is its intuitive and user-friendly interface. The platform is easy to navigate, and the customizable dashboards allow users to personalize their view of tasks and projects.
- For users who heavily rely on in-depth reporting and advanced analytics, Monday.com's platform may fall short of expectations as it lacks robust analytics capabilities.
- Monday.com consistently updates and expands its features, making the platform even more effortless to use over time. Users have found that they can continuously discover new features to enhance their workflows.
- Users have expressed a desire for more flexibility to create custom automations tailored to their specific workflows, as they find the automation features in Monday.com limited.
- Users often praise Monday.com's platform for its reliability, as they rarely encounter bugs or issues.
- The selection of pre-built templates may not cater to all industries or use cases, with some users finding a lack of templates specifically tailored to their needs.
- Monday.com offers a browser-based interface, desktop app, and mobile app, enabling users to access and stay up-to-date whether they're at their computers or on the go.
- As teams grow, the cost of Monday.com's subscription plans can become less cost-effective, making it a less viable option for organizations in the early stages of growth.
You can also read our in depth guide dissecting the Top 10 Monday.com CRM alternatives.
Freshsales is an AI-powered CRM for sales teams under the Freshworks banner. They offer AI assistant capabilities with Freddy AI to help run targeted campaigns, generate leads, and close more deals. Freshsales is good option for businesses of all sizes and its integration capabilities with other Freshworks products makes it an ideal choice for those already signed up for the Freshworks suite.
Pricing
- Growth
- $ 9 /user/month/billed annually
- Pro
- $ 39 /user/month/billed annually
- Enterprise
- $ 59 /user/month/billed annually
Support
- Type of support
- Does Freshsales
offer it?
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Chat support
- Call support
- Knowledge base
- Video tutorials
- User community
- Developer center
- Self-service portal
- Training course
- Guided onboarding
- FAQs
Top features
Automation
Sales automation is a powerful feature set that enables teams to streamline repetitive tasks and focus on high-impact activities. Freshsales offers a suite of powerful automation features that boost productivity.
Segment and prioritize prospects based on certain rules and identify key territories using built-in metrics.
Get better context about your leads with accurate, auto-filled details derived from publicly available information.
This AI feature enables users to auto-route conversations to the right customer expert or team based factors like skill level and limits on conversations to prevent burnout.
Deal management
Deal management is crucial for sales success, as it provides visibility into pipeline health and ensures seamless opportunity tracking. Freshsales equips teams with robust features that help them forecast accurately and drive deals to closure efficiently.
This feature enables you to assign probabilities across stages, track your deals' conversions, and forecast revenue—which is very handy for sales teams looking to become more efficient.
Different businesses have different needs. Multiple sales pipelines give you the flexibility to create custom pipelines so you can visualize deal progress and define sales stages that align with your needs.
Improve accountability within your sales teams by defining and tracking goals based on the number of closed deals and revenue on a daily, weekly, or quarterly basis.
Sales intelligence
Sales intelligence arms teams with data-driven insights to prioritize efforts and maximize results. Freshsales leverages Freddy AI to deliver contact scoring, intelligent workflows, deal insights, and much more, enabling sales professionals to focus on the most promising opportunities and drive better outcomes. Let's go over some of these features briefly
Freddy AI assigns scores based on positive and negative signals. Using these scores, you can identify and prioritize the most sales-ready prospects.
Automate sales processes and reduce manual effort using event-based triggers.
Freddy AI's insights—all based on historical sales data, engagement, and activities—are also useful when you have to predict deal closures.
Customization
Every business is unique, and sales processes should reflect that individuality. Freshsales understands this need and offers customization capabilities, enabling teams to tailor customer sales activities, contact lifecycle stages, and more
Create activities specific to your sales process. Define outcomes that are relevant to your business and keep tabs on their progress.
Track a prospect throughout their buying journey with customized contact lifecycle stages and sub-stages.
Freshsales pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Freshsales does a good job of helping visualize sales processes, which enables teams to create intuitive pipelines that streamline the path to closing deals efficiently.
- Some users have complained about the inability to sync email accounts according to a salesperson's territory.
- A standout feature praised by users is the powerful filtering capability and landing page, which enables them to segment leads precisely according to their daily workflow needs.
- The app version of Freshsales can sometimes be cumbersome.
- Simplicity and ease of use are widely lauded strengths of Freshsales. Users can get set up with just a few simple clicks and filtering options.
- There's no option to use automation involving arithmetic operations or relative field value comparisons, limiting functionality for non-technical users.
- Freshsales empowers users to build comprehensive knowledge about companies by adding multiple contacts, notes, credit scores.
- Freshsales doesn't allow customer forms to update existing deal fields—only to capture initial information to create deals.
- Users have reported that there's no built-in way to review all tasks for a group easily, requiring clunky workarounds with reports.
- Users are unable to sort by certain fields, which necessitates a series of automations as a workaround and has caused concern among some users.
- Users have reported frustration with having to recreate contact views as segments for exporting purposes, as there's no direct export option for views.
- The customer support chat is prone to failing mid-conversation, resulting in the complete loss of chat history. This frustrating experience has wasted hours of valuable time and cost some customers a substantial amount of money.
HubSpot's Sales Hub is a CRM platform designed to help sales teams sell more efficiently. It offers tools for lead management, deal tracking, email integration, and automation of repetitive tasks. With its user-friendly interface and real-time data synchronization, sales reps can access up-to-date customer information and insights to personalize their outreach. HubSpot also provides sales analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling teams to monitor their performance and optimize their strategies.
Pricing
- Sales Hub Starter
- $ 15 /user/month/billed annually
- Sales Hub Professional
- $ 150 /user/month/billed annually
Support
- Type of support
- Does HubSpot Sales Hub offer it?
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Chat support
- Call support
- Knowledge base
- Video tutorials
- User community
- Developer center
- Self-service portal
- Training course
- Guided onboarding
- FAQs
Top features
Lead management and prospecting
HubSpot's prospecting software provides a personalized workspace for sales reps, giving them access to relevant data and tools and enabling them to qualify leads efficiently and stay focused throughout their workday. The software provides a consolidated view of all tasks to streamline the process of converting leads into deals.
Sales automation
Sales reps often juggle multiple tasks, which makes it easy for repetitive actions and prospects to fall through the cracks and leads to inefficiencies and lost sales opportunities. HubSpot's sales automation tools help combat this by enabling reps to automate personalized and timed emails, A/B test messaging, and set up automated follow-up tasks for each prospect to ensure consistent outreach.
Email templates
Crafting relevant sales emails from scratch for multiple prospects can be extremely time-consuming. HubSpot streamlines this process by enabling users to build personalized email templates quickly using an intuitive interface and pre-made designs that match their brand and content requirements.
Email tracking
HubSpot's free email-tracking software notifies sales reps when prospects open their emails or click links within them. This provides clear insights into which prospects are engaging and what content interests them. HubSpot's Smart CRM database saves these interaction details, which enables reps to personalize follow-ups and establish meaningful connections with engaged leads.
Call tracking
HubSpot's call-tracking software streamlines the process of managing daily incoming calls by enabling reps to route calls based on customer preferences and uses AI-powered conversation intelligence to collect valuable information that can inform and enhance sales and support processes.
Playbooks
Integrated into HubSpot's sales software are playbooks, which are interactive cards that provide guidance and structure for sales conversations with prospects and customers. While engaging with leads, sales reps can access these playbooks to create detailed notes that are then made available across the entire HubSpot customer platform.
Payments
Payment links in HubSpot enable businesses to collect credit, debit, or ACH payments directly from customers in a fast and convenient manner. This streamlined payment process accelerates payment collection, saves valuable time, and ultimately increases revenue.
Scheduler
HubSpot's meeting scheduler seamlessly integrates with the apps and tools teams already use and is directly connected to the contacts database, thus ensuring that every time a prospect books a meeting, their information is automatically added and synced within the database.
HubSpot Sales Hub pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- HubSpot's app marketplace offers numerous integrations and enables users to connect the platform with various other tools and enhance functionality.
- HubSpot's startup plan, advertised with a 90% discount, has limitations. The company locked one user into a 5-user plan for the first two years, resulting in monthly costs of up to $500 and making it difficult for the user to break out of the contract. The yearly contract requires cancellation notification on the exact renewal day, which can be easily missed.
- HubSpot's user-friendly interface extends beyond desktop computers to mobile devices, positively impacting users' daily workflows and routines.
- Some HubSpot features need help from a HubSpot expert, but this goes against the idea of no-code tools where users should be able to customize their experience without advanced tech skills.
- Making HubSpot work with other sales tools is simple, and HubSpot's customer service team is easily accessible to help users if they have any problems.
- While HubSpot offers texting integrations, a better natively integrated texting tool could provide a more seamless experience compared to relying on plugins.
- The ability to track email opens, including the number of times a recipient has viewed an email, provides valuable insights into their level of interest. This information empowers users to follow up with phone calls more effectively.
- The relationships between companies, contacts, and deals feel disconnected, making it challenging for entry-level sales representatives to keep all data organized within the CRM.
- Users have reported that there's no built-in way to review all tasks for a group easily, requiring clunky workarounds with reports.
- For new businesses seeking a cost-effective yet capable solution, HubSpot proves easy to set up and implement.
- HubSpot doesn't let you buy extra calling minutes separately. If you use up all your minutes, you must upgrade to a higher plan, which can be costly if more minutes are what you need.
- HubSpot simplifies tasks like sending marketing emails, updating contact information, and tracking activities within a centralized platform.
- Transferring sequence ownership when a team member changes roles isn't simple; there's no easy way for a new representative to take over and continue sequences where the previous owner left off.
- Users who primarily use Gmail can seamlessly integrate HubSpot with their email system to ensure a cohesive workflow.
- Lower-priced HubSpot packages don't include A/B testing capabilities, which can be a valuable feature for optimizing marketing and sales processes.
- HubSpot's automation tools lack the level of customization some users expect. Furthermore, these tools reportedly have a success rate of only 60% for their AI-driven features.
A behemoth of the industry, Salesforce has been a well-known name in the CRM market for over two decades now. They were the first movers in the category and an organization that revolutionized the software-as-a-service business model. They have a host of CRM suites dedicated to different industries, business functions, and customer types. With their small business starter and pro suites, they offer a host of marketing, sales, service, and commerce tools aimed at maximizing ROI.
Pricing
- Starter suite
- $ 24 /user/month/billed annually
- Pro suite
- $ 100 /user/month/billed annually
Support
- Type of support
- Does Salesforce
offer it?
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Chat support
- Call support
- Knowledge base
- Video tutorials
- User community
- Developer center
- Self-service portal
- Training course
- Guided onboarding
- FAQs
Top features
Lead management
With Salesforce's deal management features, you can expand your reach and target new audiences with precision, delivering the right messages at the right time for maximum impact.
Users can preview the visual design of their emails before testing, improving, and optimizing their content.
Dynamic lists update automatically and help users target the right audience with messaging that resonates. It saves small business owners the hassle of manually sorting out target list for campaigns.
Deal management
You can incorporate built-in sales stages to guide your team in taking the appropriate next steps, ultimately accelerating the deal process. You can even combine stages with activities and tasks to manage work and convert deals more efficiently. Additionally, you can take advantage of the following functionalities:
Get access to ready-to-use reports that your teams can use to generate actionable insights. Customizable dashboards offer you a real-time view of your business.
Advanced forecasting helps you predict sales revenue and get a deeper understanding of your team's sales performance. Get pipeline visibility, identify opportunities, and access insights that will help you maintain your sales cycle momentum.
Improve accountability within your sales teams by defining and tracking goals based on the number of closed deals and revenue on a daily, weekly, or quarterly basis.
Automation
Use automation to your benefit and resolve customer queries efficiently using the following features:
Provide customer service reps with a 360-degree view of customers, including past interactions, open cases, and upcoming renewals. This enables reps to deliver personalized experiences with every interaction.
Streamline case handling with omni-channel routing, which assigns cases to the most suitable agents based on skills, capacity, and support types. Additionally, you can automate repetitive tasks like updating case statuses and sending emails to save your agents' time.
Payment solutions
You can create a payment portal to accept various payment methods and send embedded payment links from your CRM to boost sales productivity and free up reps to focus on high-value tasks.
Salesforce pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Salesforce has a large and active community of admins, developers, and experts who offer support and guidance.
- Salesforce has a complex and vast feature set, which can be overwhelming for new users.
- The platform offers guided skill-based training modules to help users learn and master its features.
- It is a relatively more expensive option than other CRM for small businesses.
- The user interface is simple and intuitive, making it easy to navigate.
- Implementing Salesforce requires significant time and resources, which can be a challenge for small teams or organizations.
- The Salesforce support team is responsive and provides timely resolutions to issues.
- Salesforce requires a significant amount of IT support and maintenance, which can be a challenge for small businesses with limited IT resources.
- Users commend the platform for its strong focus on security and trust.
- Difficulty in closing or rejecting cases due to open queues that may not be relevant to the current case makes it challenging to integrate and close cases efficiently.
- Users can customize various aspects of the platform to meet their business needs.
- Many users have noted that dashboards aren't easily customizable.
- Some default steps may not be optimal and require a time-consuming process to change, which involves submitting a ticket.
Out-of-the-box
vertical CRMs vs. horizontal CRMs:
Choosing the right fit for your small businessOut-of-the-box vertical CRMs
A vertical CRM caters to the unique requirements of a particular industry, such as real estate, legal services, education, or healthcare. These solutions come pre-loaded with industry-specific features, terminologies, and workflows, allowing for a seamless integration into your existing processes.
Out-of-the-box vertical CRM pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Quick implementation and minimal setup required
- Limited flexibility and customization options
- Intuitive user experience tailored to your industry
- May lack advanced features required as your business scales
- Pre-configured reports and dashboards for instant visibility
- Potential vendor lock-in, making it difficult to switch solutions
Horizontal CRM
A horizontal CRM is a versatile platform designed to adapt easily to a wide range of industries and business models. While these solutions may require more initial configuration, they offer unparalleled flexibility and scalability.
Horizontal CRM pros and cons
- Pros
- Cons
- Highly customizable to meet your unique business needs
- Steeper learning curve and more setup/configuration required
- Robust feature set with room for growth and expansion
- May lack certain industry-specific features out of the box
- Easy integration with other business tools and software
- Customizations can become complex as your business evolves
Ultimately, the decision between a vertical or horizontal CRM comes down to your specific business requirements.
Say you're in a well-established industry with clearly defined processes; an out-of-the-box vertical CRM could be the perfect fit, as it would provide a streamlined and industry-tailored experience right from the start.
However, if you have unique business processes, operate in a niche industry, or anticipate significant growth, a flexible horizontal CRM may be the better long-term solution, allowing you to mold the platform to your exact specifications.
Bigin by Zoho CRM offers the best of both worlds: the flexibility of a horizontal CRM coupled with the convenience of industry-specific workflows. While technically a horizontal platform, Bigin comes pre-built with multiple workflow templates designed to cater to the unique requirements of various sectors.
Think of it as a highly customizable CRM that also provides out-of-the-box solutions aligned with industry best practices. If you prefer a fully customized experience, you can mold Bigin to fit your exact specifications. However, if you prefer to hit the ground running with proven processes for your industry, those pre-built templates have you covered.
Choose what works best for you
Ultimately, you have to go with what works best for your small business. The great thing about Bigin is that it's super flexible and customizable for any industry. You can tailor it to fit your exact needs, or just use one of the pre-built workflow templates.
If you're unsure about which CRM route to take, don't worry! The Bigin team is just a call away to help you figure out the perfect setup. They'll make sure you get a CRM that's a perfect fit, so you can focus on killing it with your customers.
30,000+ customers from across the world love Bigin
We initially thought Bigin was a small tool that only stores client data but once we started working on it, we knew its depth. We are very excited to use the new features like Team Pipelines, Email-in, and File Cabinet. We 100% recommend Bigin to everyone!
When you work with software that is structured with features that make it so easy to use—that's when you realize you've struck gold and you don't want to go anywhere else. The pricing is also just right and ideal for small businesses.
Bigin and its affordable pricing has allowed our small business to make more money by giving us access to the tools we need without breaking our bank upfront. Bigin continues to be a crucial part in achieving our financial goals.
Highly rated by both critics and users
The names and logos for Zoho are trademarks of Zoho Corp. All other trademarks, brand names, or product names belong to their
respective holders. Comparison information as of 21/10/2024. Prices mentioned are in USD. Ratings as of October 2024.
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FAQs
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a software tool that helps businesses manage their customer interactions and data.
A CRM can help small businesses organize and analyze customer data, streamline sales and marketing efforts, and improve customer relationships.
When choosing a CRM, consider your business needs, budget, and scalability. Look for ease of use, customization options, and integrations with other tools.
The best CRM for small businesses depends on individual needs. However, Bigin is a great option for its affordability, ease of use, and scalability.
- Why a CRM?
- Benefits
- Customer operations report
- Top features
- Best SMB CRMs
- Vertical vs Horizontal CRMs