So you’ve been bombarded with ads for CRM solutions; it seems like everyone else is jumping in, experimenting with various CRMs and swearing that they’ve revolutionized the way they do business and their profits have shot through the roof.
photo credit: Dell’s Official Flickr Page via photopin cc
Off the back of this, I’m often asked, “do I need a CRM?” or “which CRM is best for small business?” They’re not easy questions to answer as small businesses have their own unique set of needs; so only YOU have the information at hand to answer that question.
But, let’s assume for the moment that you are at the point with your business where you have too many leads, contacts, marketing initiatives, sales negotiations, and clients to keep the information all straight in your head or on scraps of paper.
There are also many flavors of CRM out there ranging from social media contact integrators through to fully-fledged Customer Relationship Management systems that help you to rationalize and automate some of your processes freeing up time for you and your staff to focus your activities where they’ll have most impact.
As I said before one solution does not fit all. I use a variety of solutions depending on the situation and the client’s needs. The following three solutions are all robust, well supported and have enough professionals to help you mold a solution to fit your needs – in fact you could deploy all three yourself.
Sugar CRM Just Keeps Improving
Website: http://www.sugarcrm.com
A super versatile CRM that’s going from strength to strength. IT gets expensive when you have to integrate systems with each other. The beauty of Sugar is that it can handle many of your processes with less need for other supporting systems. Out of the box, it supports:
- Sales
- Marketing
- Customer Service/Support
- Custom reporting
- Calendar
- Conferencing
- Project Management
- Mobile & Tablet versions – Android and iPhone
- WordPress web-to-Lead integration
You can also extend various parts of the functionality by buying higher-grade packages or by purchasing plugins from the market place. Because it’s open source software, there’s a large community available to tailor anything you need.
It’s available on demand in the cloud and/or on premise. You only need to consider on premise software if you’re in a regulated industry that requires you to store data in a certain way.
Subscriptions start at $2100 per year for five users.
Zoho Is Like a Swiss Army Knife
Website: https://www.zoho.com/
This is the ultimate in scalable online software. It’s modular so you can add and drop modules on a monthly basis and increase or decrease the amount of users that you have as your staffing goes up and down. This means that you are only paying for what you use.
It’s also a self-contained virtual office space with all the productivity software that you might want to offer to your staff. With Zoho you can:
- Run your HR department including applicant tracking
- Accounting
- Manage you sales and marketing process
- Run marketing campaigns
- Custom reporting
- Invoicing
- Website building
- WordPress web-to-Lead integration
- Website monitoring
- Bug tracking
- Remote support
- Create Apps and Forms
- Hold meetings
- Host wikis
- Project Management
- Write documents, build presentations, spreadsheets
All of this is extendable as well as being able to integrate it with a variety of third party applications. You could run your entire business with Zoho as the infrastructure. A large and active community can help to build out any functionality that you need. But, there are already many out of the box plugins for sale that will help you to integrate with shopping cart or ecommerce platforms.
Zoho is a purely online solution accessible from anywhere at any time from any device. The only downside to Zoho is that because it is so modular it can sometimes be a little unwieldy. The major upside is that for startups or very small businesses, they can implement a CRM solution free and only upgrade to a paid account as the need arises. This allows you to set up and optimize your processes from day one.
Infusionsoft Sales and Marketing Software on Steroids
Website: http://www.infusionsoft.com
I’m including Infusionsoft in this roundup because it does have a robust CRM at its heart. If you’re an online business that deals in information, courses, or a bricks and mortar business that relies heavily on online marketing, then this one could really help to boost your conversions. The lead nurturing module is also exceptional.
- Landing page builder
- Social media marketing
- Analytics & custom reporting
- Website monitoring
- Email marketing
- Marketing campaigns
- Sales process
- Calendaring
- Task management
- e-commerce
- Payment gateways and subscriptions
All of the above is extendable via apps, and you’re data is easily exported into other systems that you might need for other areas of your business. The key to this software is that it brings your marketing and sales into alignment.
Infusionssoft comes with a service package to get you started. You have access to a consultant for a several hours to help you to get the most out of your initial set up and to leave you fully capable of setting up and running campaigns in by yourself in the future. Set up starts at around $1,999 and the monthly fees start at $199 per month for two users.
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I wouldn’t hesitate to set up and deploy these three CRMs for clients should they suit their needs. However, if pressed about which CRM is best for small business, then I’d have to say Zoho. I’d recommend it to businesses just starting out because it allows you to start small, get your processes in order which then allows you to scale.
That’s not to say that there aren’t other good solutions out there. There are, and we’ll take a look at those over the coming months. There are some amazing niche specific options out there too!
Next time we’ll walk through a checklist that you can use to show what type of CRM setup might suit your business needs.
Do you use a CRM for your business; if so which one and what do you like about it? I’d love to hear your views.
Kittie Walker
Latest posts by Kittie Walker (see all)
- Which CRM is Best for a Start-up? - June 14, 2013
- If You Are In a Regulated Industry, You Can Use New CRM Technologies - April 29, 2013
- Discover Why Finding Your New CRM Is Not a Solo Project - April 14, 2013
You can always checkout the brand new completely free Open Source CRM – Cobalt. It's a pretty nice system although got a few kinks because it's brand new. But it uses Twitter Bootstrap and overall is a very nice implementation. Hard to believe it's free.
I might take you up on that one Mike! After I've put it through its paces I'll write up my thoughts.
I am a web designer. I used Outlook + Business Contact Manager for 2 years. Its a good one. Now I switched all emails to Google aps. After tried some CRMs, G Apps + Zoho CRM is a good choice for me.
But I am not 100% satisfied. I really miss Outlook + BCM. But I never ever go back to desktop version apps. because its not safe. Still looking for all in one web solution.
I agree G apps and Zoho is a good choice. If you desperately miss Outlook you could use the Zoho/Outlook plugin that syncs everything to the web for you – http://www.zoho.com/crm/outlook-edition.html
I've tried all 3 in the past, but I've really enjoyed Trello as a pipeline manager, to track my potential deals. I also use Ace of Sales as my CRM, since it's my primary email marketing platform.
Trello is a lovely app – I've used it for project management for clients that prefer something more visual, never used it as a pipeline manager though… interesting idea. I love to hear about the innovative ways people use these apps. Thanks for sharing that.
I like my email marketing and CRM to be all in one place as well – you can do that with all three of the above too.
My business partner and I have been trialling Bitrix24, a CRM solution developed in Russia but with a footprint in the USA. A key requirement for us is calendar sharing and integation with Outlook, Google mail and smartphones. There is a bug somewhere, as the system appears to recognise Moscow time only, so if I want to set up an appointment on my iPhone, I have to set it 4 hours ahead – bizarre!
I shouldn't complain really because access is free for up to 12 users.
Hey Ronnie! Bitrix24 isn't one that I've come across yet, sounds interesting, will take a look at it. thanks for sharing. There's some great software coming out of Russia.
I use Google Apps, and like it, will definitely check out Zoho to add on…I have used Trello in the past, might have to check it out again. I have yet find a reasonably priced CRM that covers all the bases. Is it me or am I the only one that trouble finding apps that do everything I want them too…..ughhhh
hehe we've had this conversation before, haven't we Gerry! It's a constant struggle and search for the Holy Grail. You might like Zoho, it is just like a Swiss Army Knife. They have a tool for everything and it plays nicely with Google Apps.
I really like FreeCRM.com — it’s free and has all the same bells and whistles, and it is fast, fast, fast….I can get a lot of data on the screen, been using it for 1.5 years, very happy.
I haven't taken a look at FreeCRM for a while. Sounds like you've found something that suits you well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Bitrix24 is probably the most advanced free CRM with social options right now
I like the look of the UI and I also like the look of the functionality, there are some interesting options in there. Going to try the free version and see how far it takes me under test conditions – from first glance its shortfall is calendering and meetings for the free option and the pricing jumps from free to $99 and then $199 per month which is substantially above the likes of Zoho. Can you do mass email marketing directly from the application?
How funny that you published this yesterday! My post today (which I worked on over the weekend) is on Streak, a really interesting CRM solution that integrates with Gmail. I tried all the ones you mentioned when I was looking around for something that would work for my business AND budget and Streak is the closest I've come so far to what I want. Have you tried it? And no, I have no business/financial connection with the firm, in case anyone is wondering.
Hey Shonali! No I haven't used Streak. It looks pretty good though. I like the idea of having everything within your Google Account and some of that functionality looks pretty advanced. Going to take a closer look. I've signed up to your blog RSS feed too so that I can follow how you get on with it.
After a lot of testing and taking way too long to make a decision I chose to go with Nutshell as my CRM. I do use Trello, but for project management rather than actual CRM.
Nutshell's a lovely looking app too… there are so many of them. No doubt there'll be some rationalization down the line with the bigger players buying some of the others out, but I couldn't call which ones at the moment, could you? We've talked about project management tools before, I'm pretty much where I was using Zoho for the overall projects and then hooking into whatever suits each client best – Trello is great for a lot of them. The new Basecamp didn't float my boat too much, did you try it out in the end? Project Management software is a post I have planned out for March….
p.s. maybe you could tie Nutshell into one of your musical posts in February…
I've sort of been hunting for some options, so thanks for the info. I might have to try a couple of these out!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I hope you find the solution to suit your needs. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you do try any of these out :)
Solid and insightful piece! We've used Salesforce.com, NetSuite and MS CRM. Cost, heavy feature sets and cumbersome user interface are challenging for most SMBs. I like what i'm seeing with Highrise and newcomers like Fuseboard – http://www.fuseboardapp.com. Thank you for helping folks find the right CRM!
Thanks for stopping by and sharing that one. Looks like I need to do a piece on up and comers :) Looks like a nice clean interface, how do you find the functionality and which features do you use the most? Is the project management in it robust?
I've been using Nimble http://bit.ly/RmUfFM for the past couple years and found it to meet all my needs. It's reasonably priced and does everything the other CRMs do. It is unique though in that it integrates social media information into each contact. This has proven to be a great benefit to me. I can open a contact and get the normal information one stores in a CRM. But with Nimble I can also see the social media activity of my contact. This helps me when I make a call and can reference a tweet or a LinkedIn update. Having all this information in one place has been great. I can also manage my own social presence right from Nimble. I've really enjoyed using this product.
Hey Brad! Nimble was on the short list and it's one that I'll do a piece on. I love the integration with HootSuite. It's very useful. Many others are now catching up with the social data, which is a huge bonus for users. Makes the research prior to making contact much easier and faster. The ones above do pretty much the same now too. Quite a few people in the marketing sector swear by Nimble. Glad you've found one that suits you… that seems to be the biggest struggle.
Great write up Kittie! Something tells me this post will turn into a regular series with the amount of new activity in the CRM space! The number of comments and suggestions here would support that! Look forward to keeping up to speed with you on this one.
Hey Rich, thanks! I think so too – it's one of my my new beats for SteamFeed – and one I'm very excited about/invested in. Getting your processes down and supported by the right software for your business is so important. I suspect you and I will be able to have some great conversations with people on here about this topic!