CRM software centralizes customer data to support every stage of the customer journey—from outreach to retention. These platforms help sales, marketing, and support teams manage contacts, automate workflows, and track interactions. Advanced CRMs include pipeline management, marketing automation, and analytics. Compare top CRM tools based on user reviews, features, and fit for your business needs.
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Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business strategy that stresses good ongoing relationships with customers. It holds that maintaining these relationships drives growth and profitability. There are two core elements of this customer-centric strategy:
CRM software can help by synchronizing customer communications among business units. Sales, marketing and customer service can all get on the same page. It acts as a system of record for contacts and accounts throughout the customer lifecycle. With CRM tools companies can track, automate, analyze, and optimize customer interactions. At its core, a CRM is a database of contact information and interaction history for each individual contact.
Multiple departments may be using the CRM within one organization. These include sales, marketing, customer success or service, and potentially other teams too.
In general, customer relationship management technology provides the following sets of capabilities:
CRM software collects and organizes customer data. This includes contact information and interactions via email, phone, web chat and social media.
CRM software helps streamline and automate certain sales-related duties. This helps enable sales reps to do their job better and also accelerates sales cycles through automation of repetitive tasks. These tasks may include:
As the original source of sales force automation features, CRM systems are the most established type of sales acceleration technology. They are also considered a tool for sales enablement.
Many CRM software products include some marketing automation features. Others integrate with dedicated marketing automation products. Some features to look for include:
CRM software products often provide customer support-related features. Many also integrate with standalone customer support software (i.e. help desks and contact center software). Customer support features may include:
Some CRM software products also offer project management and social media management capabilities.
Additional considerations when evaluating CRM software include:
CRM systems hold a number of benefits for both small businesses and enterprises. When implemented properly, CRM can:
CRMs are usually sales-focused. But there are benefits for marketing as well. Marketers usually store their leads in a CRM system, and often help with database management.
Integrating your CRM system with marketing automation, CMS, and eCommerce platforms can help improve marketing campaigns performance. Information in the CRM helps marketers target their messages sent through these systems to the right people. These communications can then be tracked within the CRM.
Marketers can also use CRM software to report on marketing goals, like lead engagement and leads passed to sales. Having a shared database can help align sales and marketing efforts as well.
Some marketing automation tools include a built-in CRM system (e.g. HubSpot and SharpSpring). Additionally, some CRM vendors have developed marketing automation capabilities (e.g. Salesforce and GreenRope).
All-in-one marketing tools typically include both CRM and marketing automation functionality. They often also have content management, SEO, social marketing and eCommerce capabilities. These tools are aimed at small businesses looking for basic features. Larger companies tend to favor a best-of-breed approach, integrating their CRM,marketing automation, and other systems.
Here are two key things to consider while evaluating different CRM software products:
CRM software is usually priced by user on a monthly subscription model. Price per user depends on the extent of the features you are looking for. Subscriptions can start as low as $12/mo. per user for small businesses. Enterprise level tools rise to hundreds of dollars per user per month. This tier typically has more automation, reporting, integrations, and customer support features.
Free CRM software can be a great way for new users to get more familiar with using a CRM system before committing to purchasing a tool. Most free CRMs, or ‘freemium’ versions of paid platforms, will have limited functionality when compared to paid tools. But they still offer businesses the benefit of having all of their contact information centralized in one location.
Free CRM platforms are often well-suited for small businesses and startups, especially if there’s the option to upgrade to a paid version of the platform as they continue to grow. There’s also a large degree of overlap between contact management software and lighter-weight CRM software, including free tools.
A few potential pitfalls to be aware of with free CRMs: they’ll have more limited functionality and sometimes a cap on the number of contact records or platform users. They typically have fewer native integrations (if any) with other third-party systems. Many free CRMs also do not offer integrated email tracking, automatic notifications and reminders, and features like lead scoring.
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Top Rated CRM Software includes:
Sales, marketing, and customer success/service teams use CRM software to help keep track of customer information and interactions. For sales, this may involve the creation of quotes, order processing, lead qualification, and sales forecasting.
For marketing, CRM activities may include lead management and nurture, landing page creation, and email marketing. For customer support, CRMs can serve as a knowledge base or ticketing system.
Some of the key benefits of using a CRM system to track and store customer data include:
To learn more about CRM systems and the benefits of adoption one, read TrustRadius’ Customer Relationship Management Software description.