6 Best CRM Software For Small Business in 2022

If you are a business owner of a small firm and you’re attempting to replicate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capabilities on a large spreadsheet, you’ve undoubtedly already noticed how unmanageable this is. CRM software solutions are more user-friendly, and they accomplish much more than simply storing customer and contact details.

Business growth during the Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenge for some. However, the global outbreak had contributed to CRM software expansion. With more people working at home, running business and projects from home offices, or completing purchases online, communication between staff and customers become more critical. CRM software solutions addressed this issue by providing structured record-keeping services and efficient product tracking systems.

According to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s Customer Relationship Management Market Size, Share, and Trends Analysis Report, the global CRM market will reach USD 157.6 billion by 2030. The ongoing desire for creative solutions to analyze customer data, collate vital customer data, and translate it into a more personalized client experience strategy drives CRM solutions across all business sizes.

CRM software is quickly becoming a thing across businesses around the world. The growth of this sector of digital business tools has grown rapidly, making the case for becoming the next staple in any company operation.

What is a CRM?

What is a CRM and what does it do? A CRM software, or customer relationship management tool, organizes contacts and facilitates communication with prospective buyers and consumers.. If you’re working with a client, you’ll know how often companies drop the ball on prospects and leads. A CRM does a great job of tracking these leads, nurturing them, and turning them into long-term customers.

Additionally, the top small business CRM software solutions provide a unified platform for managing and collaborating on sales, marketing, and administrative activities, while enabling teams to automate specific processes to boost efficiency.

CRM software usage is increasing. According to Fortune Business Insights, CRM technology is expected to achieve a value of $128.97 billion by 2028, reflecting a 12.1% CAGR over the next seven years. As the field matures, more small firms are considering whether they should invest in CRM software solutions.

Why Use a CRM?

Currently, 91% of companies with more than 10 staff use a CRM. But why do companies use them in the first place? There are various benefits to using a CRM tool in your operation. These are some of the standout ones.

Efficiency

An efficient business is always better performing, whether that’s in sales, marketing, customer service, or others. A CRM platform provides all the tools necessary to run a sales funnel and drive more business growth while cutting on lead time and expenses. CRMs are truly an investment if implemented well in an organization. One study shows that every dollar invested into a CRM could result in up to $8.71 in returns.

Follow-through

So let’s say you have an ecommerce website that gets tons of traffic. Chances are that only a small fraction of those visitors will become clients. Conversion rates in online sales can go anywhere between 2 to 3% average. Imagine if you could increase that rate by just one percent. It would help improve revenue drastically. One way to improve conversion rates is to improve follow-through—ensuring no lead gets ignored. CRMs help build better follow-through by tracking conversations with clients, setting automations, and building task management systems, ensuring that sales staff take care of every lead that comes in.

Collaboration

The best CRM isn’t only a great tool for the individual. It helps improve collaboration amongst teams.

Most CRM software solutions are cloud-based, meaning anyone can access it anytime and anywhere. With an online CRM, sales reps can collaborate on customers or leads that come through their system. Moreover, sales teams can coordinate with onboarding staff, customer service representatives, and marketing teams to improve campaigns that a company might run to generate more prospects and turn them into loyal clients.

There are many other benefits to using CRM tools, of course, but these are the popular ones that have convinced organizations that they are worth the effort.

Best CRM Systems Today

When selecting the best CRM software for small business, there are numerous facets to consider, including pricing and features your business needs.

While each business has unique needs, the best CRM software solutions should assist you in managing your existing and prospective clients and enable actual growth.

Here are the five of the best CRM software for small business in 2022 that you can consider helping you achieve your business goals.

Hubspot

HubSpot is the best CRM software for companies seeking an affordable entry point. The company has become synonymous with digital marketing and business. Hubspot has a wide range of CRM capabilities, including a contact management solution, a deals pipeline, and various integrations to social media channels, websites, and email accounts to handle any inbound marketing.

HubSpot is quite simple to use and offers sales, marketing, and service hubs. This gives you a plethora of tools for managing the client journey effectively.

HubSpot includes a mobile app for Android and iPhone, contact management, real-time notifications, email templates, phone calls, scheduling, and email tracking, among other things.

Integrating small business CRM software with other business applications is critical. HubSpot integrates with over 300 applications and services, including Mailchimp, the industry’s leading email marketing provider and lead-generating tool.

Hubspot is also a great solution for customer service as it has an efficient ticketing system. There’s also a social media scheduling tool, email marketing service, and landing page builder for marketing teams that want to drive more traffic into their funnels.

HubSpot provides a free basic version and has complimentary plans for its CRM software solutions, sales, marketing, and customer service centers. To access additional capabilities, you can upgrade your subscription plan, which starts from $45 per month for one user.

Pricing: There is a free account on Hubspot. Various plans are available for teams, starting at $45 a month.

Salesforce

Salesforce is a renowned name in the CRM industry, and for a solid reason. It’s a great option for growing small enterprises that require CRM software solutions that scale with them. Salesforce is brimming with features, yet its straightforward interface makes it accessible to users of any technical ability.

Customizable reports and live dashboard updates guarantee sales specialists always have the most updated data, and case management forwarding enables team members to escalate or move matters to other teams quickly.

Contact management is the top feature business executives look for in a CRM, with 94% saying it’s a need in their system of choice. So it’s natural that Salesforce, just like Hubspot and virtually every option on this list, will excel in that area too.

Salesforce is great for teams that want a full suite for maximum staff collaboration. The contact manager tracks all potential client information, including past discussions, communications, social mentions, and activity history.

As your business expands, you may upgrade your plan to gain additional capabilities, such as automated lead scoring and collective prediction for cross-team strategy improvement. Easily handle a growing client base or product range with tools for creating product catalogs, estimates, agreements, and sales orders.

Salesforce cost varies significantly depending on the purpose of its use. Plans range in price from $25 per user a month for basic sales and customer service plans.

Pricing: There’s a free trial, then you pay $25 a month and up for a full suite for up to ten users.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is another option that has been excelling in the CRM space over the past few years. One of its top selling points is the simplicity of the system. It has less clutter than the former options above. But that does not mean that it doesn’t have as many features.

This CRM tool assists small firms with managing the sales process following lead generation. It’s been developed to increase sales without being overly hard to use, making it extremely simple to set up and master.

The tool clearly provides an overview of sales performance and helps teams focus on important deals. Some of Pipedrive’s key features include timeline views, simple data importing, sales reports, a contact history, integrations to your email provider, and so on. There has also been an email blasting service in the works.

Pipedrive provides 24/7 email and chat support to all tiers and a collection of articles and a searchable FAQs section, community forum, and training school (a compilation of demos, videos, and courses). The Enterprise tier upgrade adds phone support to the active email and chat assistance.

A small business owner can try Pipedrive for free to determine its compatibility. Following that, rates begin at $12.50 per user per month for the Essential plan.

Pricing: 30-day free trial, then $10 a month per user after that

monday.com

monday.com might be one of the newest names on the list. It’s not primarily marketed as a CRM tool, but a project management solution. But it does give companies an efficient way to track, automate, and streamline the sales process. One great thing about monday.com is how easy it is to customize dashboards and workflows.

Because monday.com is also a great project management tool, it has an edge in terms of internal operations, such as assigning deals to staff within operations. The platform has a wide range of automations that users can easily create and manage to ensure sales funnels run like clockwork.

Pricing: Individual plan for 2 people is free; then it goes to $8/seat and higher.

Freshworks

Freshworks is an excellent option for sales specialist who receives and makes a high volume of calls and want CRM software solutions to capture the data produced by those calls. You can link your current phone number to the CRM system or buy another toll-free number from over 90 countries with a single click.

Call recording, conference calling, call transfer, and a widget that lets you make calls directly from Freshworks’ sales page are built-in phone attributes. To enhance the client experience, you can arrange extensions for fast call forwarding and personalize ringtones that callers will hear before answering the phone.

Phone-tree messages and customized welcomes complete the customization and branding opportunities that help make doing business with you a pleasurable experience for your clients.

Freshworks provides extensive assistance for sales conversations and customer touchpoints, including deal and account administration, email synchronization, and list segmentation. Site visitor activity monitoring is also included so clients can evaluate how to use their sites as a customer magnet and improve conversion.

Pricing: Available for a monthly fee ranging from free to $83 a month. Additionally, you can save up to 17% if you purchase a yearly subscription. Freshworks CRM offers a free 21-day trial of every package.

NetSuite

Developed by software mogul Oracle, Netsuite is another reliable CRM tool provider. It is one of the best in terms of providing organized and structured updates on contact activity and progress. Netsuite also has a great partnership management component that allows a company to manage affiliates, vendors, resellers, suppliers, and any other business that it might be working hand-in-hand with.

Netsuite is great for a company looking for an easy way to track marketing activity daily. This solution has a lot more to offer too, including a sales automation suite, sales forecasting reports, and an employee workflow tracker.

Pricing: Free product tour then $129.00 per month.

Other Honorable Mentions

Here are other CRM platforms that might not have made it in our top five list, but have great value to offer to companies still.
Copper.ai — One of the best CRM for small business because of the ease of use and affordable pricing.
Zendesk Sell — Another great small business CRM software. Zendesk is a brand synonymous with customer support, so its CRM platform meshes great with its support software and dashboard.
Streak — Another bare bones but easy-to-use CRM platform that’s a great option for solopreneurs and sole salesmen.

Starting Your CRM Tool Adoption Process

The terminology CRM might not be as popular as many of the other business suite systems out there, but it’s quickly catching up. Accordingly, it would be beneficial for your company to start actively seeking out the solution that will work best in your company’s context.

According to the Market Analysis Report of Grand View Research, approximately 91% of businesses with more than ten employees already utilize CRF software solutions. These companies understand that effective CRM is necessary for corporate growth.

While selecting the best CRM software solutions for small businesses is not always straightforward, it is a critical decision that will affect your sales and efficiency. Before making a final purchase, you should examine your needs and compare alternative CRM software. You may sign up for a free trial of these CRM software solutions to get a feel for their work before purchasing the full version.

If your sales process is unique and these CRM software solutions don’t meet your requirements, our team can build a custom CRM software for your company that is unique to your requirements.
Contact us today at (437)223-1771 OR info@telkoware.com for a free consultation.