With the advent of AI and digital marketing in 2023, there are numerous tools and features that claim to set your apart from your competitors and truly hone in the growth that you have been dreaming of.
In such a climate, knowing who to trust and whose word to take becomes a daunting task. But, all hope is not lost because we are here to tell you that as long as you don’t become complacent, there are many resources available to help you achieve your big goals.
In this article, we’ll go over the top CRM tools to look for when selecting a CRM, since our firm has spent years researching and evaluating CRM platforms to discover what specific features, benefits, and new additions may contribute to your digital marketing stack.
Carry on reading to find out about our expert advice in this arena!
Criteria to Assess the Best CRMs for Small Business
Let’s first take a look at features that the best CRMs for a small business should offer. First and foremost, a great CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application should be user-friendly, which means that anyone who uses it should be able to navigate the platform. This ensures that your sales managers, project managers, and other team members can quickly understand and apply it without the need for lengthy training sessions.
Another part of having a successful CRM solution is data management. The CRM should efficiently collect, arrange, and store client data, making it accessible to your entire organization.
It should also work easily with other applications and platforms, such as email marketing automation, analytics tools, and SMS marketing. This corresponds to the automated features it should have.
The CRM should save you and your team time by automating repetitive processes such as data entry and follow-up emails. Not to mention, it should include very detailed analytics and reporting dashboards to allow you to collect information on what your customers are interacting with and how your sales process is going, so you can determine where to improve based on the data.
Effective customer service is one of the most important aspects of your CRM, as you would not be able to grow without it. As a result, when problems develop, immediate assistance should be provided.
And lastly, security and data privacy are critical to ensure your and your customers’ safety at all times. To protect your clients’ critical information, strong CRM software should have strong data encryption and backup options.
Best CRMs for Small Business Sphere – Listed
Here is a list of our selection of top CRM tools suited for small businesses in 2023 in terms of value for money, integrations, user interface, and functionality:
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a comprehensive software package that includes sales, email marketing, a business activity feed, self-service portals, help desk tools, and automatic lead scoring. The free plan is inexpensive and offers a lot of basic CRM features required by a small business. However, the more expensive tiers include enhanced reporting, machine learning, and AI.
Although the user interface of Zoho is not as beautiful as that of some competitors, it has robust capabilities such as email marketing, a company activity feed, self-service portals, help desk tools, and automatic lead scoring. The CRM may be coupled with a variety of other Zoho apps, with both free and subscription plans available.
The pricing of Zoho comes in four tiers. The Standard plan costs $20 per user per month, with additional features and caps increasing as you progress through the levels. The Professional package includes additional automation and process management features, whilst the Enterprise plan includes more data analytics and customization features. And finally, the Ultimate plan includes access to Zia, Zoho CRM’s AI model that provides real-time sales funnel performance and chat window responses.
FreshSales
Freshsales is a CRM tool with a low learning curve, but remains very useful. Following onboarding, users are invited to add leads, tasks, and appointments, with each page featuring a “What’s this page about?” link for additional assistance. Freshsales also offers a guide on how to use these tools to help your business succeed. Freddy, a 3D dog that identifies priority contacts, advises follow-ups, and can be put as a chatbot on your website for customer assistance, and is also included in the app!
Additionally, Freshsales can manage paperwork, track merchandise, and communicate via phone and chat. To go a step further, it also offers additional applications, such as marketing and customer support, if you want to increase its features. It also enables integration with Zapier.
Now, let’s take a look at the pricing. The Growth plan, which includes sales features, phone, chat, and AI contact scoring, starts at $18 per user per month. The Pro plan begins at $47 per user each month and includes time-based workflows, AI deal insights, and next-best action. And, the most expensive tier (Enterprise) is $83/user/month and includes advanced AI sales forecasting to help you project revenue better.
NetHunt
NetHunt is a CRM that allows users to use Gmail while working and provides a separate dashboard for making large-scale choices. It lets users to check offers, update contacts, conduct email campaigns, and automate repetitive operations via the web app or Gmail.
NetHunt also provides simple reporting for user activity, pipeline, and stage time, and it can be linked with Looker Studio to provide real-time dashboards and data. It may also be linked to Zapier in order to integrate with other apps.
When it comes to pricing, NetHunt’s pricing is competitive. The Basic plan is the most affordable at $30 per user each month. Automation and native integrations are available only in the Business and Advanced plans; however, they are more expensive than the competing CRMs on this list. To avoid this, users should fully utilise the features provided by each plan. It would be a waste to not utlize it fully as it would incur high expenses and yield little significant return.
Final Word
So, when considering the top CRM tools of 2023 for your business, do not forget to first assess your unique business needs so you only pay for features that are beneficial for your business. Our trusted and seasoned consultants at Techloyce can help you choose the best CRM tool for your small business as well as train and on board your employee base onto these new systems.
If you like the sound of that, please reach out to us to find out more! So, we can help you achieve your business goals faster.
