Best CRM Software

By Manogna Matta, Market Analyst and Technical Content Writer at SelectHub

CRM software is a crucial element in managing your sales process and improving both conversion and retention rates. Customer relationship management systems do exactly what they sound like - manage your organization’s relationships with your customers. The most robust, all-in-one CRM platforms typically involve elements of marketing automation, sales force automation, client management and customer service

In this guide, we’ll start by going over what customer relationship management software is and help you choose the right platform for your business by providing a top CRM software list, requirements, pricing, features and more.

Executive Summary

• Customer relationship management software helps streamline critical parts of the sales process like building relationships, managing leads, closing deals and supporting customers post-purchase.
• The platform enables marketing teams to create targeted, personalized content at various stages in a customer’s journey.
• Key features include contact management, lead management, sales force automation, campaign management, dashboards and reports.
• CRM systems offer many benefits, such as better data organization, improved collaboration, and enhanced sales and marketing performance.
• Be sure to consider requirements like mobile accessibility, scalability, type of CRM, integrations and user interface to find the right fit.
• We recommend asking software providers targeted and specific questions about the system and vendor support before committing to a purchase.

While CRM applications are valuable and make life easier, they’re unfortunately not genies that can do everything. CRM platforms are only as effective as you use them. They specialize in data management, but if sales teams don’t regularly use them to manage client interactions, systems have fewer data to work with, leading to inconsistent information.

Standalone CRM applications provides many useful features. However, for advanced capabilities like marketing or sales automation, project management, landing pages and invoicing, you need a more expensive all-in-one solution.

CRM solutions aren’t as helpful with backend operations like inventory, warehousing, production and shipping. While they save a ton of time with automation and templates, they alone can’t fix inefficient business processes. CRM systems can’t replicate the human touch, and excessively relying on them without human intervention can reduce sales.

CRM vs. ERP and Marketing Automation

Some ERP and CRM functionalities may overlap, such as automation and revenue generation, creating confusion between the two systems. But they do entirely different things for your business. While ERP is primarily concerned with financial data, customer relationship management software centers around managing and logging customer information.

On the other hand, marketing automation tools help streamline marketing campaigns and automate activities like campaign management, communication management and customer segmentation. These solutions focus on people at the top or middle of the sales funnel, like website visitors or email subscribers.

Does that mean you need separate customer relationship management and marketing automation software? The answer is as inconclusive as the ending of Inception. It mostly depends on you.

Most marketing automation systems allow you to sync data with CRM platforms, ensuring marketing and sales teams are on the same page. But if you’re not looking to invest in two different software, many CRM vendors offer marketing automation as an out-of-the-box functionality.

You can check out our articles on ERP vs. CRM and customer relationship management vs. marketing automation for a more in-depth comparison.

For a quick comparison of the top CRM software, watch the following video, otherwise, read on!

Best CRM Software

Now that you have the lay of the land, let’s examine the top CRM software in the market. There’s really no such thing as an objective list of “best solutions.” Ultimately, “best” for you means the customer relationship management software that addresses your company’s needs most effectively.

With that in mind, here’s a quick overview of the highest-rated products according to our analysts.

Zoho CRM: Best Overall

What It Does

Zoho CRM caters to sales teams with capabilities like sales enablement, performance management, automation, lead and contact management, and team collaboration. One notable feature is its AI assistant Zia, which aids productivity, enhances data accuracy and helps users work smarter. With seamless connection to Zoho’s extensive suite of business offerings, it’s a good option for companies looking for a one-stop-shop provider.

Reporting in Zoho CRM. Source

Product Overview

What It's Best For

Pros and Cons From User Reviews

Salesforce Sales Cloud: Best for Enterprises

What It Does

One of the best CRM software in the market, Sales Cloud offers a vast array of cloud-based capabilities for sales teams. Besides basics like pipelines, contact management, lead management and dashboards, it offers email integration, file capabilities and more.

Advanced features such as territory management, AI and partner management make it an attractive option for large companies. As part of the extensive Salesforce ecosystem, it can seamlessly integrate to provide marketing, service, commerce and analytics services.

Salesforce Sales Cloud’s Activity Management Dashboard. Source

Product Overview

What It's Best For

Pros and Cons From User Reviews

HubSpot Sales Hub: Best for Lead Management

What It Does

Equipped with a multitude of sales functions, HubSpot Sales helps users save time by easily managing processes. Its user-friendly feature set includes configurable pipelines, quote tools, templates, meeting scheduling, sales automation, playbooks and call tracking. You can easily extend its capabilities by adding other HubSpot products to achieve coverage across the entire customer lifecycle.

Pipeline Management in HubSpot Sales. Source

Product Overview

What It's Best For

Pros and Cons From User Reviews

Dynamics 365 for Sales: Best for Workflow & Process Automation

What It Does

Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 for Sales is loaded with functionality, including AI, that boosts selling activities, marketing efforts and productivity. It delivers a real-time, 360-degree customer view, prescriptive insights and recommended actions. Other features range from contact management and interactive dashboards to partner relationship management and sales insights. Both cloud and on-premise deployment are available.

Sales Forecasting in Dynamics 365 for Sales. Source

Product Overview

What It's Best For

Pros and Cons From User Reviews

SAP Sales Cloud: Best for Team Collaboration

What It Does

SAP Sales Cloud delivers basic and advanced capabilities, including account management, lead routing, billing, sales force automation, predictive analytics and mobile accessibility that provide real-time data to users anywhere. It also offers productivity tools and seamlessly integrates with marketing, service and other customer management products for a unified experience.

Forecasting in SAP Sales Cloud.

Product Overview

What It's Best For

Pros and Cons From User Reviews

Primary Benefits

The right CRM systems brings a bevy of benefits. With a CRM platform deployed, your company can expect:

Better Data Organization

CRM solutions let you store all relevant information like customers’ social, personal and demographic data in a unified single-view platform. The contact management capabilities aid in decision-making and eliminate clutter and data deduplication. You can also use views, tabs and dashboards to understand data in a visual, comprehensible manner.

Sales reps can easily learn about customer interests from previous interactions, allowing them to create relevant sales pitches and improve customer communication. They can also use filters, templates and tags and grant hierarchical data access to certain groups for better data distribution.

Enhanced Customer Experience (CX)

CRM software helps track customer interactions, including calls, texts, emails and website visits. With a central profile for each client, you can manage all customer data from any channel or device where the customer chooses to interact.

Salespeople can use this information to determine the appropriate way to contact and upsell or cross-sell opportunities. You can customize client engagements to cater to unique needs and preferences. According to a report, 49% of customers say they’ll become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience.

With marketing and sales automation, you can tailor communication and follow up at the right time based on a customer’s recent activity. Many CRM solutions also offer advanced email management capabilities that help track email deliverability, conduct surveys and assess customer feedback.

Improved Collaboration

When a business is large enough to establish separate departments, proper coordination often becomes difficult. A major advantage of CRM systems is that they help improve collaboration throughout the entire internal process. This prevents sales, marketing and service teams from operating in silos.

Users can communicate and leave notes and comments to help contextualize customer interactions. Cloud software gives the option to collaborate, update and access data offline, something beneficial for work-from-home and remote teams. You can also set reminders, arrange meetings, record customer data and track the team’s progress to boost collaboration and performance.

Greater Marketing Performance

CRM systems help improve your marketing game with the help of:

• Segmentation. You can split your contacts into groups based on shared characteristics, which enables targeting when sending campaigns.
• Workflows. This lets you create email sequences ranging from simple to complex.
• Social Media Marketing. Integrating with networks like LinkedIn and Facebook allows you to closely monitor every aspect of your social media campaigns.
• Campaign Management. This feature lets you oversee marketing campaigns across multiple channels and mediums. Analysis tools make it easy to track how each campaign performs.
• Metrics. You can view and report on all critical KPIs to get a clear idea about sales cycles, where your teams excel and where they need to improve.

High-quality Sales Performance

Sales forecasting enables sales teams to make better business decisions. It helps analyze data stored in a CRM system to discover recurring patterns and insights into customers, products and competitors. Incorporating these insights to enhance product development, sales strategies and customer interactions translates to improved sales for your business.

You can identify and nurture quality leads from multiple sources. This means your sales reps won’t have to chase leads that are less likely to convert. It also reduces keystrokes, logically sequences process steps, triggers next steps or reminders, delivers alert notifications and offers simple desktop integration.

Workflow automation allows sales reps to focus more on converting leads, reduces human error, and saves time and resources. By automating routine, manual tasks, the platform facilitates higher efficiency, greater productivity and increased ROI in the long run.

Basic Features & Functionality

It’s important to do your research, as customer relationship management software has a wide range of capabilities, and the features will vary from provider to provider. However, here are some standard features found in the majority of products:

Advanced Features & Functionality

Depending on your needs, you may want to consider CRM platforms that offer advanced functionality. Some common features include:

How To Choose Software

Requirements

With so many vendors in the market, it can get overwhelming to decide what’s the best CRM software for you. Jumpstart your search by considering the following aspects:

Preferred Features: It’s vital to explore the “why” behind getting a CRM. Why exactly do you need it? What are the most common problems you face? Which features can help solve them? Your software options should excel in marketing automation, contact management, reporting and pipeline management.

They should also provide alerts, reminders, calendar integration, communication templates, tracking, opportunity and project management, quote/proposal management and lead scoring.

Mobile Platform: CRM applications that you can access anywhere, on any device you want, are especially beneficial if you have remote or hybrid teams. It’s a bonus if you can use the platform offline, something helpful in cases of spotty service.

Budget: You need to be honest about your budget and how much you can afford to spend. Thoroughly consider all variables like the number of users, hidden costs and maintenance fees before making a purchase.

Business Size: There are different CRM solutions available for businesses of all sizes. As small and midsize businesses (SMBs) generally manage a higher volume of interactions and activities for each customer, they need a feature-rich CRM system to facilitate the process. On the flip side, large-scale operations need more sophisticated security models, collaboration apps and platform functionalities.

Type of CRM: There are three main types of applications in the market — collaborative, operational and analytical.

Collaborative CRM is good for businesses with multiple locations and communication channels and allows teams to be on the same page. Operational CRM gives a high-level overview of customer lifecycles and helps keep customer-facing teams more organized and efficient. Analytical CRMs are for companies that have a lot of data and need assistance optimizing it.

For more information, check out our article, Types of CRM Software, which covers what each type of CRM system offers and how it can uniquely benefit a business.

Integrations: Your ideal solutions should integrate with your preferred apps, enabling you to streamline communication. Systems that sync with your calendar, eCommerce, webinars and other communication tools are handy.

Scalability and Customizations: What customizable features does the software offer? Does it come with any pre-built templates? What about scalability options?

David H. Deans, a technology and media consultant, said, “Assuming that the software has the basic features, the ability to customize the solution is essential because no two CRM systems use cases are totally identical.” Investing in a solution that can scale up is a good idea so your business doesn’t risk outgrowing its software capabilities.

Vendor Support: Does your vendor provide hands-on customer support? What data security and privacy measures do they have in place? What do their installation, onboarding and training processes look like? Choose CRM providers with industry-specific experience and expertise to meet your business requirements.

User Experience: “Instead of focusing on the depth and breadth of features, consider the software's ease of use. The way it benefits the users to do their job is most important” Dean said. CRMs that are intuitive and easy to use help save valuable time and money that would otherwise go into costly and time-consuming software training.

Deployment

Along with the above-stated requirements, the deployment method also greatly affects the type of CRM platform a business can use. Cloud CRMs and on-premise solutions are two such systems.

The software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud model provides many advantages for companies, including reduced upfront and maintenance costs, as well as automatic upgrades to the latest version. It also comes with greater flexibility, as users can access it from anywhere with an internet connection. Additionally, cloud systems have closed the security gap so that previous concerns over data security are now much less viable.

On-premise solutions, by contrast, don't rely on vendors and don’t require an internet connection. There are also vastly more customization options.

Generally, the type of deployment that’s best for you depends on your company size. Small and midsize businesses usually opt for cloud CRM applications, as they lack the IT resources and technical expertise required from on-premise software.

Large enterprises have more flexibility, and the best choice comes down to internal needs. For example, whether a cloud CRM system would integrate well with legacy on-premise software, such as ERP software.

Pricing Considerations

How you deploy the customer management software will have a significant impact on cost and how much you pay upfront versus over the long term. The biggest difference is the base cost of using the CRM platform.

With a cloud product, you pay an ongoing subscription fee, usually based on the number of users. On-premise software, by contrast, involves a license purchase - one-time or recurring depending on the provider. While most CRM vendors charge monthly or per person, organizations can also opt for annual payment plans (some vendors tend to reduce monthly costs if businesses opt for yearly billing).

For small businesses, low-cost CRMs that cost between $10-$20 per license per month are available. Additional capabilities with deeper integrations can range anywhere from $20 to $50 per month. These are best suited for SMBs.

For enterprises that require advanced capabilities and integrations to connect with their heavy tech stack, CRMs usually range from $50 to $80 per user per month. High-end solutions with advanced customizations, extensive implementation and migration support cost around $250+.

Beyond that, you need to also consider the total cost of ownership - every cost associated with operating the customer relationship management system. Common additional costs include:

• Version upgrades
• Add-on capabilities
• Services such as data migration or customization
• Training, particularly for large, complex software
• Maintenance, more a concern for on-premise software where the vendor isn’t responsible for keeping the CRM application up and running
• Implementation support

How To Implement a CRM

Installing customer relationship management software with a poor or even no strategy, is the number one reason for lagging adoption, low CRM system utilization and overall project failure. After making a list of requirements and purchasing a CRM platform for your business, it’s time to finally set it up and use it. In order to maximize the effectiveness of a CRM system:

1. Assess the Costs and Benefits

Draw up a budget plan taking into account implementation steps like migration, training and onboarding. Keep in mind that your general expenses may increase due to various setting-up costs. Productivity and profits may dip a little during user adoption and as your teams get comfortable with new guidelines. Calculate the costs and benefits six months and twelve months after adoption to assess how useful the product has been.

2. Assign a Team To Handle the Process

Dedicate a person or team to manage a smooth transition from your previous system to a new CRM platform. The team should ideally have one person from each department, including sales, marketing, service, project management and IT. They should be able to:

• Handle any technical issues that may happen
• Prepare CRM training and answer employee questions leading up to implementation
• Make an implementation timeline with key dates for milestones
• Create a list of implementation tasks and monitor their progress
• Ensure all employees are on the same page whenever there’s a process update

3. Create an Implementation Timeline of Key Events

Some of the major tasks include:

• Data Migration:s Make an action plan for how and when you’ll transfer and import files into your system. It’s a good idea to do a test run with a small data set to get the hang of the solution. Adjusting to new layout or data entry fields may take time, so don’t rush this step.
• Platform Customization: If you’re a medium or enterprise business with many teams, it becomes essential to personalize the CRM system’s layout, dashboards and navigation to fit different needs. You also need to set up notifications, automation, custom fields and filters and give permissions for different types of data access.
• Third-party Integrations: Connect the CRM system with the business apps you use. Assess how compatible they are with each other.
• User Training: The vendor or an IT expert can give a detailed rundown of how the system operates. You can also conduct live sessions, create training videos for different modules and make FAQs that employees can refer to.
  
  The most important implementation goal is, Deans said, “to get the intended users to adopt the CRM software, and then ensure they know how to use it to achieve their desired business outcome.” It’s critical to thoroughly complete this step as faulty training can lead to lost time, resources and data.
• Test Drive: Make custom reports, tabs, templates and follow-ups to test the platform. Sales and service teams can do multiple rounds of testing, assess collaboration tools, and make trial video and audio calls from the system. Checking for errors will make operations smooth when the CRM platform goes live.
  
  Deans advises to “Get your CRM platform users involved in the final selection process (demo and proof of concept testing)” because we need to research and assess the solution “from the end-user's perspective, not the sales manager's.”
• Go Live:s This step should happen gradually in different phases. Whenever any issues arise, be sure to notify the implementation team to make the process more efficient.

4. Regularly Evaluate User Feedback

Monitoring and measuring the CRM platform implementation progress is vital. Take note of its benefits and rectify errors to reduce productivity issues. You can run into common implementation issues like poor adoption rate, insufficient training or technical troubles, so it’s useful to have a plan of action to solve these challenges.

Lastly, create an easy feedback loop and make it a point to assess it regularly. This is not a one-time thing but rather an ongoing process. It helps evaluate where the solution falls short and if it’s time for you to get a better platform.

Questions To Ask Yourself

Use these questions as a starting point for internal conversations:

• How does my team communicate and collaborate?
• What will help me better measure my team’s performance?
• Which relationships and workflows do I need to manage?
• What’s a more important requirement — cost-effectiveness or customizable advanced features?
• Will a collaborative, analytical or operational CRM platform suit my needs better?
• Will an out-of-the-box software do, or would I need a custom CRM platform?
• What apps, integrations and extensions do I use on a daily basis?
• Is on-premise or cloud-based deployment better for my organization?
• Who’ll use the software consistently (managers, sales reps, marketers)?

Questions To Ask Vendors

Use these questions as a starting point for conversations with vendors:

About the Software

• What level of customization is available? What about templates? Do they cost extra?
• Are marketing and help desk capabilities built in, offered as part of a larger product suite, or do they require third-party integrations?
• How intuitive is the UI — navigation, wording, feature accessibility and screen layout?
• Can the software help communicate with leads on multiple channels?
• Does the platform offer alerts, follow-ups, reminders and calendar integration?

About the Vendor

• How often are updates and enhancements offered, and do they occur automatically? Does this impact the software's accessibility?
• How much customer support do you provide? Is there an existing knowledge base? Does it come at an extra charge?
• How long do implementation and onboarding take?
• Does your company have a proven track record of customer success?
• What security and redundancy protocols are in place to protect data?

FAQs

Should I consider a free CRM platform?

While free CRMs seem affordable and risk-free, they’re not scalable and have reduced functionalities that may hinder your sales and customer service progress. They also don’t provide data privacy and consume a lot of time and resources.

If you’re a small business that can do with limited features, free CRM is a good option. However, if you’re looking for data privacy, support, core functionalities and customizations, paid solutions are better.

How do I know I need a CRM application?

• You’re finding it hard to manage the lead flow.
• You lack clarity as to what your sales teams are up to.
• Your customer data is hard to locate and interpret.
• Your customer service is falling short.
• You don’t know which leads you should prioritize.

What are some examples of CRM software?

There are various CRM solutions available that offer dynamic functionalities like lead tracking, marketing automation, contact management and lead scoring. Zoho CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud, HubSpot Sales, Dynamics 365 for Sales and SAP Sales Cloud are some of the top CRM platforms in the market.

What does a good CRM platform look like?

A good CRM is easy to use, provides remote access, integrates with your favorite business apps and optimizes your sales processes. Workflow automation, customization, lead management, tracking and reporting are other features to look out for.

Next Steps

CRM solutions streamline critical parts of your sales process, enabling you to stay on top of leads and follow-ups to build customer relationships more effectively. It allows marketing teams to create targeted, personalized content delivered at critical stages in a customer’s journey.

Customer relationship management software improves communication, collaboration, efficiency and overall effectiveness of marketing efforts. The right platform provides countless benefits, so it's important to do your due diligence and get the best CRM for your company.

If you need further help, check out our free comparison report for more information on the top CRM software vendors in the industry. Good luck!

Product Comparisons

• Salesforce Sales Cloud vs. HubSpot Sales
• Zoho CRM vs. HubSpot Sales
• Zoho CRM vs. Salesforce Sales Cloud vs. Act!
• HubSpot Sales vs. Dynamics 365 For Sales
• Dynamics 365 For Sales vs. SAP Sales Cloud
• Zoho CRM vs. Dynamics 365 For Sales

Additional Resources

• Top 36 CRM Features and Functionality List
• Critical CRM Trends To Keep an Eye on
• Free CRM RFP Template and Step-by-Step Guide When Requesting a Proposal
• CRM vs. Marketing Automation: The Difference Between Them
• Best Sales CRM Software for Sales Teams