When it comes to sales leads, having an organized system like any CRM apps, to deal with them can be the difference between closing a deal—or losing it.
But being organized often means using new tools and technologies. Even those of us who are reluctant to have an overflowing tech stack know that the sheer mass of data handled by businesses today is dizzying. But we also need a system to attract, nurture, and close prospects (hint: an old paper Rolodex just won’t cut it anymore.)
Luckily, there is a way for businesses to centralize, utilize, and capitalize on data, instead of drowning in it. And that’s where using a customer relationship management system comes into play.
Research has found that 74% of companies who use a CRM system can improve their access to customer data, and over 60% have a better relationship and lead management processes. Data = Dollar, after all.
Table of Contents
How to Choose the Best CRM App?
With a plethora of CRM tools populating the industry, it gets difficult to choose the one that really suits your business. Each CRM on the market is unique and has its own suite of features and automations. There are a ton of great options to choose from now, and we’ll break some of these down and see what makes them stand out. Then you’ll able to see which works best for your business. Below are the factors you should consider while choosing a CRM app:
- UI & UX
- Setup & Ease of Implementation
- Customization & Automation Features
- Sales Pipeline Management
- Dashboards & Reporting
- Pricing
We’ll be looking at 9 of the Best CRM Apps of 2020 along with 6 bonus CRM Apps that are upcoming & are noteworthy. Let’s dive in and find out which one is the best fit for you.
Best (Free+Paid) CRM Apps
1. Salesforce
Salesforce: Full-Fledged and Customizable CRM App
First up, we have the industry leader, Salesforce.
What makes Salesforce unique?
While CRM app can take up to a year to become fully operational and useful to your business, Salesforce is fast — you’re looking at months or weeks rather than up to a year. That’s a significant saving on time there.
Known innovator, Salesforce is at the frontline of the SaaS industry helping millions of sales teams to automate and maximize their profits. (With over 100,000 companies using it, it must be doing something right.) But perhaps the unique aspect of Salesforce’s CRM is its Trailblazer Community.
Thousands (and thousands) of Salesforce customers frequent the community to share tips, tricks and answer each other’s questions. No other CRM on the market offers this kind of community video, and Salesforce’s own customer service team regularly monitors the community to stay involved with their users.
Salesforce continues to be the top choice for SaaS businesses, and why not. With Salesforce expanding its horizon from Saas to retail and instant messaging by partnering with Yes Bank and acquiring Slack very recently, users have all the more reasons to pick Salesforce CRM.
Also, Salesforce has its mobile application one among the top treasured Winter’20 features list. A sales rep can check deal notifications, appointments, and tasks, on the go with a seamless Lightning Experience similar to the desktop on the Salesforce mobile app.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Any enterprise that’s looking for a full suite CRM that’s future proof with a lot of customizations and numerous integration options available.
How it all works?
Salesforce works to make the circulation of information among your business quick and easy. No more manual data entry. Phew.
Monitor your progress, set targets, and increase your accuracy with sales forecasting, collaboration, and contact management. (Salesforce claims that it can increase your revenue by a whopping 30%.)
Automation Features
Salesforce’s Process Builder lets you automate a whole range of tasks across the sales process — email alerts, task assignment, as well as approval requests for travel and expense reports, etc. Go on, save yourself some time.
Integrations
Salesforce is by itself a powerful CRM but you can empower it even more with Salesforce Integrations by Automate.io. Sales and Marketing Teams can automate their manual import/export and enhance their Salesforce platform. You can push new Facebook leads, automatically create contacts in Salesforce from form submissions, and much more.
Sync leads to your database, collaborate better with your team, and make sure you’re notified about new deals.
Not just that, if you’re an eCommerce business, you can easily connect your eCommerce platform and payment apps to Salesforce.
Pricing: Salesforce Sales Essential package starts at $25 per user/month for up to five users
2. Keap (formerly Infusionsoft)
Infusionsoft by Keap: Best CRM App for eCommerce Businesses
What makes Keap unique?
Put in simple terms, Keap is one of the best CRM apps on the market for e-commerce and marketing.
Unfortunately what also makes it unique is that you can’t sign up to it on their website. But a good old fashioned phone call later, and you can sign up for a platform that will effectively handle your entire e-commerce workflow. Worth getting a top-up then.
Keap is all set to rebrand Infusionsoft as Keap Max by February 2021, unifying the product line. This change will enable small businesses to bring marketing and sales automation easily to their businesses.
Below is how the main dashboard will look like when you log into your Keap account:
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
E-commerce merchants/businesses with 25 people or less looking to nurture their customers in a better way.
How it all works?
Keap is all about keeping your marketing processes running smoothly. As well as managing your contacts and customer database in one handy place, you can use it to create web forms, keep track of ROIs, launch sales campaigns, and then even manage the shopping carts, coupon codes, product pages, etc. that go along with it.
With a range of customizable templates to work from and built-in lead scoring, so you know what’s working and where Keap helps you manage your campaigns with ease.
Automation Features
Keap’s campaign builder is designed to automatically assign tasks, as well as tagging and following up on new leads, according to actions or timescales that you choose.
Customers automatically get a personalized email when they pay, which saves you time and lets them know what to expect next. This level of personalization also helps nurture your customers into returning customers, which is excellent for your company’s bottom line.
Integrations
Keap by Infusionsoft launched its PayPal native integration, especially for eCommerce merchants. So, store owners who fall under the Keap Grow and Pro plans can now accept payments via PayPal directly. Apart from this, if users wish to set up automated one-one or multi-step workflows between PayPal and Keap, Automate.io lets you do just that. Check out the PayPal and Keap by Infusionsoft integration.
Connect Infusionsoft to Marketing, Payments & Form Apps. Sync, Collaborate, and be your Productive self with these Infusionsoft Integrations:
Pricing: Starts at $79/month for 1 user with 500 contacts.
3. HubSpot CRM
HubSpot CRM: All-in-One, Free and best CRM software for Small Businesses
Next up is HubSpot CRM – one of the few CRM apps that have completely free plans available.
What makes HubSpot CRM unique?
HubSpot CRM allows you to add an impressive 1,000,000 contacts, can be accessed by an unlimited number of users, and has a fantastic range of services. Not bad.
Plus, HubSpot’s CRM gives businesses a one-stop-shop for their marketing needs. Because it offers a full marketing suite, HubSpot users don’t have to switch between platforms to pump out marketing material. We all know how essential it is to have all your marketing data inside the CRM and how it can help in closing deals quicker!
HubSpot has free ads tools that are inside right within the HubSpot CRM wherein, you can target based on the buyer’s journey with relevant content. And, you can also clearly see which leads have interacted with your ads and accordingly tweak your email sequences.
So, users can use the CRM as a base for all their marketing across their website and social media channels.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Small businesses looking to get started with a functional CRM and who may want to use the marketing features sooner or later. Also, it’s a good option for those who are conscious of price.
How it all works?
Small businesses looking to get started with a functional CRM and who may want to use the marketing features sooner or later. Also, it’s a good option for those who are conscious of price.
You can sync up HubSpot CRM with Gmail or Outlook and keep all of your correspondences in one place — no more crossed wires.
You can also make calls from within the CRM. Email. Facebook them. Do what you want. The CRM will log it all the data for you and keep it together for when you need to refer back to it.
There’s also one universal inbox so that sales, marketing, and customer service teams can access and interact with all conversations — now that is handy. Combine that with free tools for live chat and bots, HubSpot CRM is your go-to for a free but effective CRM.
Automation Features
As well as automatically tracking and grouping customer interactions into one convenient place, HubSpot CRM will also send personalized emails to clients according to a schedule you set. It’ll even fill in your contact records with valuable info from their pretty vast database of businesses. And all for free.
Integrations
Wish to get notified on every new deal? Never miss the chance to celebrate new deals. Popular HubSpot CRM Integrations:
Pricing: The core functions of HubSpot CRM is free for everyone to use. Paid plans start from $50/mo.
4. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM: CRM App that works well with Zoho Suite
What makes Zoho CRM unique?
>Zoho CRM is just one part of Zoho’s full suite of office software. If a company is looking for a CRM that also links to marketing, invoicing, and even Human Resource solutions, Zoho is a great choice, especially if you are looking for free CRM software to start with.
Its full suite of tools can be used to run entire businesses, not just sections of it.
Not to mention, Zoho is smart – and so is its intuitive SalesSignals feature.
Zoho CRM SalesSignal FeatureHave you ever wondered how your leads are engaging with your site? Are they responding to your email marketing campaigns? Or are they even opening your emails?
With Zoho’s SalesSignals, you can keep on top of everything your lead is doing. If a lead interacts with an email or a social media channel, your sales reps will be sent a notification in real-time so they can respond right away. It’s an easy way for sales reps to qualify a lead and track whether or not they’re sales-ready through buying signals!
Note: Zoho has launched >Zoho Bigin, a pipeline-centric CRM for small businesses specifically. Zoho Bigin is a simple CRM software for small businesses looking for an easy transition from spreadsheets to simple CRM, and pricing starts at $5/user/month.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Teams looking for a full suite of business apps like CRM, Marketing, Service, and Support. Also, forward-thinking enterprise teams who are willing to introduce new technologies such as AI into their salesroom. Small teams can also use Zoho, but they may not find the AI as useful as enterprise companies.
How it all works?
Firstly, we can’t go past Zoho’s own AI conversational assistant: Zia.
This level of artificial intelligence sets it apart, and if your business is up for it, this could speed up your sales cycle as it gets to know your processes and needs more and more.
Studying your sales history and offering pretty much-unmatched predictions on trends, anomalies, and the potential success of deals, Zia is the crystal ball missing from your office desk. She’ll analyze the trends your sales processes follow and offer suggestions to improve the workflow and predict irregularities. She’s a pretty handy assistant to have around.
Zoho is also integrated with Google Ads, meaning you can keep track of how much you’re spending, where — and most importantly, whether it’s working or not. Generate new leads by capturing every website visitor and run your campaigns from entirely within Zoho.
Automation Features
Routine tasks can be automated with Zoho, leads can be assigned according to whichever way you choose, and a combined Macro lets you send an email, update required fields, and schedule follow-up tasks all in one.
Integrations
Keep your Zoho CRM in sync with other marketing, sales, eCommerce, and form builder apps. Automate.io lets you connect Zoho CRM to 100+ apps.
Pricing: They have a free plan and the paid plan starts at $12 per user/month
5. Pipedrive
Pipedrive: Easy CRM App for smaller sales teams
What makes Pipedrive unique?
Pipedrive has just introduced Leadbooster.
Leadbooster is a lead generation tool with, if we may say so, a rather cute, customizable chatbot. Add this to your website with built-in questions of your choice to, as you may have guessed…
… boost your leads.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Smaller sales teams who want to manage and automate their sales process
How it all works?
Pipedrive is a very visual CRM that allows you to monitor your pipeline with ease and customize it according to your business’s needs. See which clients were contacted, which proposals have been approved, get reminders of what needs to be done next.
The CRM also offers email templates and tools to speed up the marketing process. You can call clients directly with Pipedrive and Gold, and Platinum users can send emails to up to 100 users at a time.
Automation Features
Pipedrive’s Workflow Automation completes those everyday, repetitive admin jobs for you. Automatically send personalized emails to new deals and assign follow-up tasks to team members at the pre-programmed stages of the pipeline.
Integrations
Put your Marketing and Sales on autopilot with these Pipedrive Integrations. Say goodbye to manual import/export of contacts.
Pricing: Starts at $12.50 per user/month
6. Freshsales
Freshsales: Best CRM for SMBs using other Freshworks products
What makes Freshsales unique?
Freshsales is all about the quality of your leads.
It will track the engagement of whatever leads you’re working with and intuitively group and assign them accordingly. That way, you can channel your team’s energy where it’s most needed. Combine this with a super easy-to-use and well-designed interface, and you’ve got one very user-friendly, sales-boosting CRM.
Oh, and Freshsales also integrates with their Helpdesk (Freshdesk), so customer service teams can provide effortless customer support in a quicker time frame.
Some cool stuff about Freshsales mobile app – You can set meetings and calls, stay updated on tasks and reminders with push notifications. And interestingly, use Google Maps to navigate to your next meeting and also book a ride with Uber to your meeting location!
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
For sure Freshales is the best option for users of other Freshworks products like Freshdesk, FreshMarketer, Freshchat, etc. This app is typical of packages aimed at small to midsize businesses (SMBs).
How it all works?
So, once your lead becomes a contact, Freshsales will automatically fill in any publicly available info from the web into a special account record. Very handy.
On top of this Freshsales will help you track your emails and events, customize your sales campaigns, produce trendline reports, provide a visual sales pipeline, and pretty much everything short of making you your mid-morning coffee.
Automation Features
Make your workflow processes quick and efficient by automating specific key actions — sending out a notification, changing the status of a deal — using simple trigger-based rules you define. Once the trigger is detected, the action happens. Your job is done.
Integrations
Freshsales integrates easily with their other suite of apps like Freshdesk, Freshchat, Freshconnect, and Freshcaller. Other app integrations include Segment, Xero, QuickBooks Online and you can also sync your calendar with their Google Calendar integration.
Pricing: Growth package starts at $28 per user/month [when billed annually].
7. Insightly
Insightly: Best CRM for Field Sales Reps
What makes Insightly unique?
Insightly isn’t just for digital contacts. It works well with teams that are out in the trenches selling. This tool is not just an ideal CRM but also has features ideal for marketing.
It creates a map of contacts so that your business can understand the informal networks and structure of an organization or group of clients. Plus, you can scan business cards straight into it and save yourself the time of manually entering all those fields.
Scan Business Cards to Insightly CRMInsightly is also known to have some intuitive collaboration features wherein you can define access levels and create projects right inside the CRM platform to make it easy to use across teams. So, all your contacts and projects can be accessed under one platform.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Sales and marketing teams who need a solution for their inside and outside sales reps.
How it all works?
When it comes to leads, Insightly tracks the most relevant info from a whole host of sources and then automatically sends leads to the right person in your team. You can also create and send emails with templates, monitor their delivery, and even see when they’ve been opened. That way, it’s easier to track when a warm lead is turning into a hot lead, and keep nurturing them.
Insightly CRM DashboardAutomation Features
Like other CRMs, Insightly will send email alerts, update records, and automatically assign tasks when leads are won. It also integrates with SAP and Oracle (among others) to make your life easier.
With marketing automation features like AI-driven prospect grading and scoring, advanced segmentation, intuitive landing pages, A/B and multi-variant tests, and advanced analytics in place, Insightly offers a unified CRM platform to small and medium businesses.
Integrations
Automate.io lets you connect Insightly to 100+ other apps from E-Commerce, Marketing & Sales categories. Store your leads, plan your work, and collaborate easily with your team with these Insightly Integrations:
Pricing: Starts at $29 per user/month on their Plus plan
8. Capsule CRM
Capsule CRM: Simple & highly-customizable CRM App
What makes Capsule CRM unique?
Capsule CRM is an excellent option for businesses that need highly customizable and flexible contact storage.
If you need to be able to pull up your contacts in various contexts, you can categorize them with multiple keyword tags. Then with data tags, you can add information to a tag — like customer numbers and associates. Add any social media profiles you want too, and your team will have a wealth of data to draw upon.
Capsule stands out from other CRMs with its storage feature, Capsule Cases, for all the company’s important documents. It can be accessed across all the teams depending on access levels and this way the CRM is adopted more successfully across the business. It can be Cases for Marketing teams which are the marketing collaterals, Cases for Sales & Success teams keeping all the customer information and post-sale notes, and Cases for HR Teams to store the onboarding documents.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Small businesses that are growing and need a Customer Relationship Management software that can be customized to their unique business needs. It’s also perfect for teams looking for a simple CRM to get started with.
How it all works?
Capsule offers the traditional storage you would expect for emails, documents, and files in an incredibly easy-to-use format. Add tasks that need to be done for each contact and share them with colleagues, so everyone’s up to speed.
You can also add your own custom ‘activity types’ to each lead — easily track where your leads are with actions tailored to your sales process.
Automation Features
When it comes to automation, Capsule has the standard task generation features for your team to keep your pipeline in order. Still, it’s not the CRM for you if you were hoping to send bulk emails or automate your marketing with instant responses.
Integrations
Integrate Capsule CRM with your Marketing, E-Commerce, Payments, and Form Builder Apps. Automate your contact sync, email triggers, and more:
Pricing: Freemium plan available for up to 2 users, then $18/user a month on the Professional plan.
9. LionDesk
LionDesk: Best Real-Estate CRM Software
What makes LionDesk unique?
Now we have LionDesk: the ultimate text machine that has ranked as one of the best CRM software for real-estate 2021. Using the CRM, teams can send out individual or bulk texts for various campaigns with just a click. Or, tailor your texts to your audience by programming specific messages or videos to be sent out to leads depending on where you found them. So a lead acquired through a Facebook ad can be sent a different text than a lead who entered your sales funnel on your website, and by segmenting these leads, your marketing will also become more targeted.
LionDesk also lets you record and send videos directly from the platform which makes for a smooth, seamless messaging process.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
LionDesk is explicitly built for teams in the Real Estate industry. It’s a robust real estate CRM software that’s perfect for keeping in touch with your leads, without becoming overwhelming agents (which is an all too common trait in the industry.)
How it all works?
LionDesk gives you a phone number, which you encourage leads to text you on for more info about a particular listing.
Then, when a client responds with a text, LionDesk automatically replies with the relevant info, as well as saving the contact number to your database. You get to monitor customer engagement with your ads, you’re building up your phone numbers, but clients have the option of texting instead of calling.
LionDesk also offers basic transaction management features — not the whole accounting hog, but enough to track deals, save documents and keep everyone on the same page.
Automation Features
LionDesk’s ‘Blended Campaign’ approach automatically prompts you to send out messages to your clients in various forms at different times.
The idea is that you tailor your medium and message to the moment for a more significant impact — you might want to have set times for emails, texts, or videos. You might want to have set channels for set clients. However you decide to play it, LionDesk will help you optimize your outreach.
Integrations
Best LionDesk CRM Integrations that you should give it a try:
Pricing: Starts at $25/month/user
10. Nimble
Simple and smart CRM for Office 365 and G-Suite teams
What makes Nimble unique?
>Nimble goes by the tagline as the “only CRM that builds itself for you”. Nimble is a smart CRM that is easy to customize and organize contact history and streamline your entire sales process. It is compatible with the Office 365 ecosystem and Google services.
Nimble has been continuously named as one of the leading CRMs back to back by platforms like G2, Capterra, Codie, and GetApp.
Nimble comes with an intuitive dashboard that helps you to organize your sales pipeline, social signals, tasks, and appointments easily.
It is designed to aid in social profile matching. It automatically builds live profiles of each contact with details like who they are, where are they from, which company they are working for, what is their current role, which year the company was founded, revenue, social profiles, contact details, etc. This means, prospecting new contacts is very easy with Nimble.
Add to all these details, you can also see the entire conversation history with this contact across multiple platforms. Whether you converse on Twitter or through emails, everything is synced and tracked for you.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Nimble is ideal for small and large teams using Office 365 and/or G-suite. Since large organizations mostly rely on G-Suite, Nimble is a perfect choice for SharkTanks as well.
How it all works?
Nimble has comprehensive contact prospecting, tracking, and pipeline management features making it an all-rounder and one of the leading CRMs. With Nimble, you can add notes, log entries, send email templates, add tags and files, and set up reminders to always stay in touch with your prospects and customers.
The Prospector in Nimble updates all contacts automatically with all the details. Since it includes detailed company details along with the contact, it is easier for businesses to verify if a company is genuine or not and target businesses accordingly.
Connect with your prospects and customers across multiple touch-points like web, social, and email with Nimble, and nurture them to build better relationships.
Integrations
Nimble integrates with a host of apps like 366 Degrees, PieSync, Wufoo, Mailchimp, PandaDoc, AWeber, Quickbooks, Shopify, Magento, Zoho CRM, Zendesk, and more. Here is the full list of >integrations.
Pricing
Nimble has a free trial of 14 days. Paid plans start at $19/user/mo [when billed annually].
Noteworthy CRM Apps of 2021
1. Copper
Copper: CRM App for G-Suite Users
What makes Copper unique?
A firm favorite with Google, Copper, really hits the G-suite spot.
Fully integrated with all of your go-to G-suite programs, and with a user interface that mirrors Google’s, Copper makes for a smooth and consistent experience across inbox and browser. Easy.
Copper is incredibly user-friendly, but for those who want it, they offer an onboarding package to help you get the most out of it — larger clients will even have their manager. Where a simple email inquiry will do, you’ll be guaranteed a response within 24 hours.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
SMBs, creatives, agencies, and consultants looking to organize their leads and sales processes without a learning curve.
How it all works?
Copper is great for tracking growth. It records sales and revenue per person — tracking missed opportunities too — so you can spot trends and see exactly where you’re winning and losing those leads. The CRM creates a leaderboard, providing you with a quick overview of the company’s performance as a whole, as well as its members.
In other words, Copper will show you who’s coming in gold, silver, and bronze in your sales team. This means you can set personalized targets for each sales rep to keep everyone selling at their best.
Automation Features
Set up reminders and customized triggers with Copper, and you won’t let any potential clients slip through your fingers.
Copper will help you manage your leads by setting up reminders to chase up any inactive contacts and to complete any follow-up actions needed. It’ll also automatically assign onboarding tasks when leads become customers so you can relax knowing that new clients are being looked after every step of the way.
Oh, and Copper will automatically fill in your lead list with any information it finds online (from social media accounts, for example) to help you identify the most promising leads.
Integrations
Copper integrates with your favorite apps like Slack, DocuSign, Zendesk, HubSpot, Quickbooks, etc. to automate tasks and get done more. Recently, Copper has integrated with Square for a friction-less invoicing and payment automation within the CRM.
Pricing: Basic package starts at $25 per user/month
2. EngageBay CRM
EngageBay CRM: Trending Free CRM App
What makes EngageBay CRM unique?
Not every CRM has a fully-integrated marketing & customer support suite within its CRM platform.>EngageBay does! This is what makes it unique and the best option for businesses looking to use a single platform across their teams.
It provides you with Customer Engagement Analytics which not only pulls data from your CRM, but also from the full-suite of marketing tools that EngageBay provides. You can get a 360-degree view of a user right from acquisition to closing the deal.
Just like HubSpot CRM, EngageBay CRM has 100% free to use forever and is emerging as the best option for small-startups who want to just get started.
Who is this CRM for?
As we mentioned before, this CRM is the best for small and upcoming businesses who just want to get started with a simple and easy-to-setup CRM and who are also price-conscious.
How it all works in EngageBay?
The visual sales pipeline feature automatically does the lead scoring and helps you understand which hot-leads to follow up and lets you act on them quickly. Below is how the sales pipeline dashboard looks like:
Users love EngageBay CRM for its easy appointment scheduling and task management for internal sales processes.
Automation Features
Automation in the EngageBay CRM is pretty similar to any other CRM wherein, you can assign rules to what happens when a high-quality lead comes in. Like, trigger an email with a targeted proposal, then add a task for the sales rep, and based on the action the user does in the email, either book a demo or send a follow-up email.
Apart from the basic CRM automation, you can set up automation rules right from acquiring the lead via the landing pages (created using EngageBay). Put these leads on a drip campaign and whenever a specific high-intent action is performed, add them as contact and assign a sales rep to it.
Integrations: The native integrations include Xero, SendGrid, Mailgun, and Mandrill.
Pricing: Forever Free plan available with unlimited users, and paid plans for CRM & Sales Bay start from $12.99/mo per user.
3. Streak
Streak: Best CRM Plugin for Gmail
What makes Streak unique?
Named as Google’s 2018 Technology Partner of the Year, it’s safe to say that it’s worth checking out Streak.
Like Copper, Streak is fully integrated with all of the Google Suite, so it’s ready to link up with and boost the tools you’re already using. (We’re talking: Gmail, Sheets, Chat, Drive, Forms; as well as Facebook, Mailchimp, Trello, and Slack.)
Just open your Gmail on your desktop or mobile, and it’ll be there, gathering everything you need in one place.
Streak also has a Fast fill & Auto-fill Sales pipeline. That means Streak will find the best leads from each team member’s inbox and generate a list of suggested people and companies for your pipeline. This makes it fast and easy for your whole team to contribute to populating your pipeline.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Because it is limited to Gmail, Streak is ideal for freelance and small business. However, larger organizations that rely on Google’s email client will find the plugin useful. Streak is used by top tech companies like Uber, Weebly, Twitter, and Yelp.
How it all works?
Although it’s not technically a CRM, Streak is a CRM plugin that focuses on your Gmail Inbox.
Streak will become your go-to way of tagging emails as well as grouping them in stages across a pipeline, so you know exactly where you are with your leads — just by checking your email.
With Streak, you can automatically share this info — emails, notes, and call logs with your team for maximum ease of productivity.
Integrations
Streak has native integrations with Gsuite Apps, Mailchimp, Slack, Trello, and more. It also has an open API to go ahead and connect your Streak with any app of your choice.
Pricing: Free plan for individuals available. The Solo plan starts at $19 per user/month.
Miscellaneous Apps Worth Using in 2021
4. Microsoft Dynamics 365
ERP CRM software built for teams powered on Microsoft suite.
What makes Microsoft Dynamics 365 unique?
>Microsoft Dynamics 365 sews together customer relationship building and enterprise resource planning. With real-time customer data, you get to know your customers better.
Microsoft Dynamics 365, a Microsoft CRM software, has predictive insights based on customer behavior data making it easy to drive better sales.
It is more than just a CRM that focuses on relationship building and sales pipeline management. Microsoft Dynamics 365 plays pivotal roles in:
- Marketing: Helps in finding the right leads to nurture.
- Services: Reduces operational costs by optimizing resources and delivering positive customer experiences.
- Finance: Automatically handles complex finances and builds efficiency in finance management.
- Operations: Automate manufacturing and supply chain management.
- Commerce: Create an end-to-end seamless shopping experience for target customers.
- HR: Optimize process and programs.
Sales is one part of this application, and that too quite comprehensive. With Microsoft Dynamics, you can quickly adapt to the changing demands of your customers, thanks to this adaptive and intelligent system that is pre-built to get started with actionable insights instantly.
Who is this CRM best suitable for?
Microsoft Dynamics is ideal for medium-sized and large enterprises. Since it is by Microsoft, it works great with teams using other Microsoft services. Given its high pricing structure, it is mostly tagged as enterprise CRM software.
How it all works?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 has AI working at its core to offer predictive insights and let you focus only on the customers that matter. You focus on building relationships with your target customers through unified solutions and data sync across Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. From shortening the sales cycle to enabling sales teams to scale their efforts, Microsoft Dynamics 365 lets you manage the sales pipeline, drive revenue, and use analytical data to scale your sales efforts.
Integrations
You can integrate Microsoft Dynamics 365 with more than 200 work apps using Automate.io.
Pricing
Paid plans start at $58/user/month [Dynamics 365 Sales Professional] and come with core sales force automation and Microsoft 365 integration.
5. Intercom
A customer support app that can act as a CRM
How is Intercom unique?
>Intercom is mostly counted in the list of support apps but there are several companies who use Intercom as a CRM as well. Infact, Intercom is one such app that serves as a support and CRM app together.
Intercom, like all CRMs, has detailed customer profiling. It saves and tracks all customer details like name, age, conversation history, gender, previous touch-points, employee, role, etc. This makes Intercom work more like a CRM where the customer or prospect details are collected automatically.
Who is this suitable for?
Intercom is primarily designed for support teams. It suits the needs of small and medium businesses as well as large enterprises. However, a small startup can use Intercom as a CRM but when your business expands, it may be a little tough to continue using Intercom as a CRM with their pricing model.
How it all works?
Intercom automatically captures user information. Rather than sending out emails, Intercom offers the possibility of resolving a sales query through real-time chat. This is why companies prefer to use Intercom both as a support as well as CRM. Add to this, you can add notes and tags for your team members against each contact so that your team knows how to handle the customer or if there is any pending issue to resolve.
However, if you want to go beyond just conversing with your target customers, you need to integrate Intercom with a proper CRM. Intercom, as a CRM, serves very basic functionalities.
Integrations
Intercom integrates with a host of apps. You can choose any app from >their app-store to connect Intercom and retain more customers. You can also integrate Intercom with your choice of CRM or marketing app that is not listed in their app-store using Automate.io to build powerful automated workflows with over 200 different apps.
Pricing
Intercom paid plans start at $39/month. Free trial for 14 days available.
Final Thoughts on Choosing the Best CRM App
| Best CRM Apps 2021 | |||
| Unique Features | Best Suited For | Pricing | |
| Salesforce | – Fast and known for being at the frontline of the CRM industry
– Salesforce wins in the easy to use category hands down. |
Any enterprise that’s looking for a full suite CRM that’s future proof with a lot of customizations and numerous integration options available. | Salesforce Sales Essential package starts at $25 per user/month for up to five users |
| Keap by Infusionsoft | – While a lot of other CRMs in the market are geared towards sales teams, Keap by Infusionsoft is a unique blend of CRM and e-commerce marketing automation rolled into one. | E-commerce merchants/businesses with 25 people or less looking to nurture their customers in a better way. | Starts at $23/month for 1 user |
| HubSpot CRM | – HubSpot’s CRM gives businesses a one-stop-shop for their marketing needs.
– 1,000,000 contacts, unlimited users, and your free access to the CRM has no time limit. |
Small businesses looking to get started with a functional CRM and who may want to use the marketing features sooner or later. Also, it’s a good option for those who are conscious of price. | The core functions of HubSpot CRM is free for everyone to use. Paid plans start from $50/mo |
| Zoho CRM | – Its full suite of tools can be used to run entire businesses, not just sections of it.
– Zia – Artificial Intelligence to offer predictions on trends, anomalies, conversions, and deals closing – Zoho Bigin for small businesses |
Teams looking for a full suite of business apps like CRM, Marketing, Service and Support. Also, forward-thinking enterprise teams who are willing to introduce new technologies such as AI into their salesroom. | The standard plan starts at $12 per user/month |
| Pipedrive | – Allows users to blind carbon copy a project-specific e-mail address, which will automatically populate into the CRM
– The CRM has just introduced “Leadbooster”, a chat plug in |
Smaller sales teams who manage intricate or lengthy sales processes. | Starts at $12.50 per user/month |
| Freshsales | – Super easy-to-use and well-designed interface
– Leads can be grouped and then assigned to specific people present in your team. This way, you can channel your team’s energy where it’s most needed |
For sure Freshales is the best option for users of other Freshworks products like Freshdesk, FreshMarketer, Freshchat, etc. This app is typical of packages aimed at small to midsize businesses (SMBs) | Growth package starts at $28 per user/month [when billed annually] |
| Insightly | – Customizable customer record linking
– You can scan business cards into the CRM using their purpose-built app |
Sales and marketing teams who need a solution for their inside and outside sales reps. | Starts at $29 per user/month on their Plus plan |
| Capsule CRM | – Highly customizable and flexible contact storage using tags | Small businesses that are growing and need a CRM that can be customized to their unique business needs, yet keeping it simple to use. | Freemium plan available for up to 2 users, then $18/user a month on the Professional plan. |
| LionDesk | – Bulk text messages – Can click to call, text, or email, individual contacts, or send bulk emails, texts, and even video, based on which campaign you have them on. |
This CRM is built specifically for sales teams in the Real Estate industry. | Starts at $25/month/user |
| Nimble | – Nimble’s ‘Smart Contacts’ app will work its magic and gather as much social information from the web will provide. | SMBs! Nimble been named the market-leading small business CRM by G2 crowd for six years running. It’s also perfect for companies who use social media to drive sales and nurture their relationships. | Starts at $19 per user/month |
| Copper | – Gsuite integration
– Once your account is in order, you can access Copper right from Gmail or Inbox by Gmail, as well as from the browser |
SMBs, creatives, agencies, and consultants looking to organize their leads and sales processes without a learning curve. | Basic package starts at $25 per user/month |
| EngageBay | – Simple and easy-to-setup CRM
– Fully-integrated marketing & customer support suite – Customer Engagement Analytics |
this CRM is the best for small and upcoming businesses who just want to get started with a simple and easy-to-setup CRM and who are also price-conscious. | Forever Free plan available with unlimited users, and paid plans for CRM & Sales Bay start from $12.99/mo per user. |
| Streak | – It’s not really a CRM. It’s more of a CRM plugin
– Plugin focuses on your inbox, specifically Gmail, and groups email threads based on your workflows. |
Because it is limited to Gmail, Streak is ideal for freelance and small business. However, larger organizations that rely on Google’s email client will find the plugin useful. | Free plan for individuals available. The Solo plan starts at $19 per user/month. |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 | – ERP CRM software built for teams powered on Microsoft suite
– Predictive insights based on customer behavior data |
Microsoft Dynamics is ideal for medium-sized and large enterprises. Since it is by Microsoft, it works great with teams using other Microsoft services. Given its high pricing structure, it is mostly tagged as enterprise CRM software. | Paid plans start at $58/user/month |
| Intercom | – A customer support app that can act as a CRM
– Has detailed customer profiling |
Intercom is primarily designed for support teams. It suits the needs of small and medium businesses as well as large enterprises | Intercom paid plans start at $39/month |
So, we’ve looked at some tried and tested performers as well as some up-and-coming new players. And there are a lot of great CRM options out there for businesses.
But remember, it’s crucial to pick a CRM that’s going to work well with your business — and not investing in one because of its bells and whistles. If you’re in the e-commerce space, you now have the luxury of picking a CRM that’s built just for e-commerce businesses. On the flip side, if you’re a freelancer who wants a CRM app to integrate with your inbox, you can have that, too.
Whatever your business needs are, there’ll be a CRM app that will help you boost your sales, improve your contact management, and help you make the most of the data you already have. If you want to offer better customer service and win more deals — get a CRM!
