Consumer Advocacy
What you need to know
CRM Software
  • Integrate several systems for greater efficiency
  • Establish a customer strategy before shopping for CRM
  • CRM software can assist in sales and marketing
  • CRM providers should offer comprehensive customer support
Our Approach

How we analyzed the best CRM Software Providers

Platform
The first and most obvious consideration in choosing CRM software is platform. Compatibility with current operating systems is essential.
Customer Management
A robust CRM suite will include a host of categorization and segmenting tools.
Marketing & Lead Generation
Good CRM software shouldn’t just track existing customers, but create leads to increase sales and outreach.
Reporting & Analytics
Common among most CRM software are reporting tools that track productivity and a number of performance metrics.
Employee Performance & Tracking
In addition to tracking external customers, some CRM software tracks internal data as well, including employee performance.
Integration & Customization
We ranked software that allows easy exporting and integration with third-party software higher as it demonstrates greater flexibility.
Support Services
Companies that know their product well and respond quickly to customer queries always rate better in our book.
Costs

Our list of the best CRM Software Providers

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Our Research

More insight into our methodology


Platform

Customer Relationship Management software should be compatible with current operating systems and platforms. This is to make it easier for businesses to integrate CRM software into their existing office systems.

  • Mobile Compatible
  • On-premise
  • Software as a Service

Customer Management

Customer management features enable businesses to create a database that can be used to support its marketing campaigns. Features can include segmenting, categorizing customers and capturing customer feedback.


Marketing & Lead Generation

CRM marketing and lead generation gives businesses the benefit of increasing sales and conversion by giving tools such as email-based or SMS marketing campaigns. Important marketing features should include Integrated Web Forms, Tags, Social Media Integration and Customizable Reporting. These features provide a solid foundation to build or create marketing and lead generation campaigns.

Generating leads and increasing sales is essential to business growth. To increase sales and productivity, a CRM software must include customer analytics and pipeline management. Lead generation gives businesses the opportunity to focus their resources more effectively.


Reporting & Analytics

Reporting and analytic tools helps track productivity and performance. This is a tool that can be used to study customer data and enables managers to make better and more informed decisions. Reporting is a common feature found in CRM software. This gives businesses a snapshot of business’s activity and performance.


Employee Performance & Tracking

Sales representatives will find CRM software that include tracking tools very helpful. This can help them keep track of sales quotas, incentives, sales numbers and other important metrics. Businesses are also able to track performance and have a summary of their activities and achievements. The system can also be used to keep an eye on orders and competitors.


Integration & Customization

CRM software should support a variety of third-party integrations. This makes it easier to export and import data to and from other office software. This also helps save time by eliminating repetitive tasks.


Support Services

CRM software providers should offer a complete suite of online and offline support services. The company should be able to address concerns in a timely fashion especially in cases of system failures. Customer support through telephone and live chat support enables clients to communicate directly with a customer representative.

  • Telephone
  • Knowledge Base
  • Tutorials
  • Email
  • Forums
  • Technical Support

Costs

Helpful information about CRM Software

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a category of software that covers a wide range of applications designed to help businesses manage customer data and support, access business information, automate sales, track leads, and support vendor/partner relationships. Though it’s most commonly used to facilitate interaction with customers, it can also help manage business contacts, clients, and sales leads.

CRS software is a useful tool to help streamline any sort of business, and some even integrates with other sales and marketing systems, eliminating redundancy and making it quicker to accomplish tasks. Small businesses should look for compatibility features, and software that’s equipped to handle sales, marketing, and employee evaluation. Startups should favor integration and intuitiveness, so the software can grow with the company. Sales teams need classification tools for contacts, and an emphasis on customer interaction with data-tracking features and reports.

Features to look out for when comparing CRM software include ease of use, storage limits, and other requirements, such as number of authorized users. CRM should increase efficiency, secure customer loyalty, sort potential customers, and save money and time by combining several features in one program.

Bear in mind that CRM is generally a lengthy process, and should only be implemented once a customer strategy has been established, and your organization has been optimized for customer focus. Many people assume incorrectly that CRM has to be technologically intensive, but well-functioning CRM programs should focus on low, mid, and high-tech. Finally, make sure that your CRM marketing strategies are tailored to your customer’s tastes and values.


Our CRM Software Review Summed Up

Company NameThe Best
Nimble CRM SoftwareBest for managing relationships without data ­entry
Elify Shuffle CRM SoftwareGood choice for capturing new leads
Infor CRM SoftwareGood choice for tracking marketing campaigns
Netsuite CRM SoftwareBest for sales force automation
Sugar CRM SoftwareFeatures multi-language and multi-currency support
Microsoft Dynamics CRM SoftwareFeatures a strong CRM solution
We receive compensation from these partners