Managing your contacts, as a business, is very important, as it helps you keep track of all your prospects, leads, customers and so on. With a good CRM tool in hand, managing contacts with the entire team is easier than ever – in this blog post, we’ll be going through the best CRM tools for small businesses.

Why do I need to get a CRM tool for my business?

Customer relationship management tools are beneficial for a plethora of reasons, particularly because:

• They help you be more organized: being organized saves you time, effort and a lot of headaches – I’ve learned this the hard way! If you work as part of a larger team, it’s doubly helpful: every member of your team will be able to access any information about any client, lead, cold lead and so on – and when time is of the essence, having this feature can make a huge difference
• You can keep better track of your leads: if you want to turn leads into customers, you need to act at the right time…or, hey, even remember to react! With CRM, you can make sure you know exactly who your leads are, and you can set reminders so that you contact them regularly in order to eventually turn them into clients
• They help you save time: being organized in general helps you save a lot of time, and in this case, it also helps that you won’t have to scour through your emails, social media, and other platforms to find previous conversations, potential leads and so on.
• They help make sure you never lose your most important data, your clients and leads: by using a CRM system, you are ensuring that all your data is safely stored in a centralised database.
• Help you keep track of relevant information about your leads and customers: with a CRM tool, you can enter all of the relevant information about a person or business, as well as all your past conversations in one place.

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Have I convinced you yet? If so, let’s get into the best CRM tools for best businesses:

1. Agile CRM

What sets Agile CRM apart is that it’s a complete, end-to-end business management solution—with comprehensive CRM, sales enablement, marketing automation, and customer support features—all in one platform. It provides everything you need to manage the entire customer journey, from lead generation and prospecting to deal closure and customer support.

Agile offers over 50 sales automation features, such as customizable opportunity tracks, 360-degree contact views, gamification, voicemail drops, call recording, autodialing and project management capabilities. It delivers marketing automation features such as a landing page builder, web forms, lead scoring, drip campaigns, and email marketing. It rounds out the deal with a customer support module, which includes help desk ticketing automation, live chat, service-level agreements, dedicated help desk groups, and more.

All of that, coupled with its open API and third-party integrations, allows companies to manage nearly all of their functions from a single platform. It’s free for 10 users, so it’s a great option small business, while being scalable enough for enterprise-level business.

2.    SalesForceIQ CRM

The SalesForceIQ CRM tool is one of the most popular on the market. To get started, all you need to do is to connect your SalesForce account to your Gmail or Exchange accounts. Once you do so, all of your emails, phone calls and meetings will be automatically added to your SalesForce account, which you will then be able to access on multiple platforms, including your mobile via their app and your browser, via their Chrome extension.  Additionally, for those specifically looking for Salesforce for small business solutions, Salesforce offers a range of features designed to meet the unique needs and challenges faced by smaller enterprises.

In terms of plans offered, there’s something for everyone, including small businesses: their starter plan allows up to 5 users and it is quite affordable, or you can get the Growth plan, which also offers direct integrations and reporting.

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3.    Freshsales

Freshsales, another top CRM tool, is specifically designed for sales teams, in order to help them turn more leads into customers and make more repeat sales.

Freshsales has built-in tools for phone and email, so that you can easily email or call someone from within the tool. They also give scores to your leads, so that you can easily find the best leads, the ones that are showing signs that they are ready to buy, and contact them.

The tool also keeps track of every interaction a lead or customer has had with your business, including sales, pages visited and any action they might have taken. One other cool thing is that you can visualize the entire sales pipeline and follow exactly how your leads are moving up the pipeline.

Whenever someone opens an email, clicks on a link or sends you an email, you will get an alert immediately, so that you can quickly take action.

The best news, though? They offer a free plan for up to 10 different users, and their paid plans are very affordable, although you will need to pay for each individual user you add.

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4.    Hubspot CRM

Hubspot’s free CRM solution is a great option for small businesses. The tool is completely free to use for up to 1 million contacts, no matter how many people there are in your team.

The tool stores all the relevant information you need about each contact, including interactions by email or phone, a log of your meetings and any notes you need to make.

On the main dashboard, you’ll be able to see all of your completed and upcoming appointments and all the most important information about your sales funnel.

You can also sync your account with Gmail or Outlook, so that every customer interaction is entered in the database automatically.

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5.    Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM lets you add all of your contacts, customers and leads from multiple channels (email, social media, etc.) into one centralized platform. You can then use Zoho to connect with them on whichever platform they might be on – phone, live chat, social media, email and so on. You can even use their insights to pick the best times to contact your leads, for maximum results.

One of my favourite things about Zoho, though, is Blueprint. This technology basically allows you to build the exact sequence of actions you want your team to take when moving a lead through the sales pipeline. Once you’ve set it up, the tool will guide your users through the steps they need to take in order to turn a lead into a customer and won’t allow them to take any liberties, unless certain conditions are met.

Zoho also provide in-depth analytics, lead scoring features and many more.

Their prices are affordable, starting at €12 per user, for the standard plan – however, if you have quite a few members in your team, it can get a bit pricey.

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6.    Insightly

Insightly is a CRM and project management tool designed for small businesses – although, they also have features and plans for enterprise-level. What makes it stand out is that it integrates the two – you not only get contact and lead management tools, but you can also use it to manage your projects.

Insightly integrates with all kinds of applications, such as email, Office 365, Quickbooks Online and others.

Use it to keep track of all your leads and contacts and your email correspondence, share files with the team, manage your projects, add notes and comments to your contacts and much more – plus, there’ an Insightly mobile app that you can use when on the go.

And the good news is, there’s a free plan that you can try out for 1 or 2 people in your company. Or, you can try the Professional plan for 2 weeks for free, and if you don’t want to pay for it afterwards, you can easily switch to the free plan.

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7.    InfusionSoft CRM

InfusionSoft’s CRM tool is built specifically with small business success in mind.

You can use it to add and organize all of your business contacts with tags and segmentation, as well as to collect data about them to help you score your leads and prioritize them.

InfusionSoft also offer complex marketing automation features, which allows you to send personalized messaging to your audience based on different triggers.

Overall, it’ a very strong CRM and automation tool, but it’s also quite a bit more expensive than other options – the smallest plan starts at $199 per month for up to 3 users and 2,500 contacts, and includes CRM and marketing automation, but no sales automation or e-commerce features.

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Conclusion

Using a good CRM tool can not only help you be more organized and save time, but it can also help you make more sales and help you ensure you’re not missing any important opportunities.  Smaller affiliate businesses such as Newcasinouk.com have successfully integrated these techniques, which brought to a sharp increase in terms of conversion rates

Are you using CRM tools for your small business? What is your favourite CRM tool? Let me know in your comments and please share:)