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Did you know? The global CRM market size was valued at 43.7 billion USD in 2020 and is projected to expand at a CAGR of 10.6% from the year 2021 to 2028.
The demand for CRM is rising globally with the passing time, inferable from factors like expanding interest for automated engagement with customers, improving customer experience and services, and improving the scope of digital operations.
The developing significance of understanding customer behavior and their inclinations during the increasing competition is inciting brands and organizations to adopt CRM strategies to serve their customers to the best and outclass their competitors. According to a study, approximately 91% of organizations with 10+ employees use CRM systems.
Organizational departments like sales, marketing, and customer services, and support are rapidly incorporating CRM systems into their business operations to handle customer information and utilize significant bits of knowledge obtained from unstructured datasets to settle on data-informed decisions, improving customer experience and thereby increasing business effectiveness.
As the world is rapidly heading towards digital transformation, companies across several industries are replacing their existing array of digital solutions that were used for creating, managing, and enhancing their digital presence with a unified CRM solution.
So, if you have been planning to incorporate CRM into your business, however not able to pick the best among top-performing CRM, you are in the right place. Here we have compared the top 7 most popular CRMs in 2021. So, assess your business requirements, match them with CRM features, and pick the one that aligns best with your needs.
7 Essential Criteria for Choosing the Best CRM
Every business has its unique demands and hence varying criteria in terms of CRMs, like how a CRM should perform? What are the issues which the CRM should address? Does it fit your budget? Considering the factors, we have listed some of the most essential criteria to consider while choosing the most suitable CRM.
- Ease of use
- Price
- Seamless Accessibility
- Sales and Marketing related features like Sales forecasting & Lead Management
- Customization and Reporting
- Supports Integration with ERP and Other Apps
- Customer Support
7 Best CRM for Scaling up a Business
1. HubSpot CRM
Introduced in 2005, Hubspot CRM has come a long way, growing to 70K customers. Hubspot CRM was built keeping in mind initially targeting small companies, however now it has steadily scaled and serves larger businesses with up to 1K employees.
Its products and services aim to provide tools for customer relationship management, social media marketing, content management, lead generation, web analytics, search engine optimization, live chat, and customer support.
The most popular thing about HubSpot is its inbound marketing expertise. From Deal tracking, Pipeline management, Email tracking & notifications, Prospect tracking, Meeting schedules, to contact management and Live chat, Hubspot CRM handles everything at its end, giving you full visibility into the sales pipeline in real-time .
Companies using HubSpot in their tech stacks:
Accenture, Mollie, GitBook, Trello, Thunderbird, and Vivo net.
Feature Highlights
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Ease of Use
The HubSpot interface is extremely user-friendly and intuitive, making the powerful and complex processes comprehensible, making it easier for beginners to adopt it. Hubspot offers smoother navigation, by allowing you to create shortcuts on the screen for faster and easier access.
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Price
Hubspot offers four products:
- Hubspot CRM(Free Version)
- Marketing Hub
- Sales Hub
- Service Hub
All these products are available via four plans, with varying features and add-ons:
PACKAGE MARKETING HUB SALES HUB SERVICE HUB FREE $0 $0 $0 STARTER $45 per month $45 per month $45 per month PROFESSIONAL $800 per month $450 per month $360 per month ENTERPRISE $3200 per month $1,200 per month $1,200 per month -
Seamless Accessibility
HubSpot is accessible both on mobile(Android and iOS) and desktop. Also, you scale it to your business needs, opting for “Hubs” availed by Hubspot.
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Customization and Reporting
It enables you to customize your dashboard, placing the most used features at the top. It also helps you to synchronize the marketing department. Hubspot CRM generates a detailed report on the sales activity, productivity, and individual performance, allowing you to track your team’s work progress as well as performance.
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Support for Integration with ERP and Other Apps
Hubspot can integrate with more than 300 different third-party applications, liberating you from the pain of modifying your current tech stack to add functionality. You can integrate your CRM with various software to make your business processes easier like Advertising software, Account-based marketing software, Calling and Connection Software.
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Customer Support
Hubspot offers amazing customer support, providing various study material for reference as well as allowing you to connect to their support executive as well.
Verdict: HubSpot is a wonderful CRM that takes care of your entire marketing process. The free version comes with very limited features. If you scale your business and need extra features, you will have to pay for it, even for the additional technical support.
2. Freshworks CRM
Freshworks CRM, formerly branded as Freshsales, is a web-based multifunctional CRM software that incorporates marketing automation, sales pipeline management, and collaboration tools to maximize the productivity of your sales team. Offering tools like event tracking, built-in phone and email, deal management, advanced reporting, lead scoring, and workflow automation, empowers you to map out and manage the customers’ journey and push deals forward.
Companies using Freshworks in their tech stacks:
Caratlane, Lenskart, Wallypark and TVS
Feature Highlights
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Ease of Use
Freshworks CRM comes with a very user-friendly interface, making it easy for the user to understand and hence allowing them to focus more on the business strategies instead of wasting time on understanding the software.
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Price
PACKAGE Customer-for-Life Cloud SALES CLOUD MARKETING CLOUD GROWTH $28.71 per user per month $28.71 per user per month $19.13 per user per month PRO $69.73 per user per month $58.79 per user per month $58.79 per user per month ENTERPRISE $125.80 per user per month $99.82 per user per month $99.82 per user per month -
Seamless Accessibility
Freshworks allows you to access data from anywhere, at any time through their mobile, allowing you to sync with google maps, Gmail, and outlook, allowing you to update check-in, add voice notes to records. This helps businesses to manage their customer relationships more effectively.
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Customization and Reporting
Freshworks CRM is exceptionally customizable making it an extremely flexible platform to use. You can create custom fields, custom sales activity, custom currency and language, and custom modules as per your requirement. You can also customize your contact lifecycle stages based on your unique business process. Freshworks CRM also gives you action-oriented insights through its detailed visual reports.
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Supports Integration with ERP and Other Apps
Freshworks allows you to expand the capability of your CRM by integrating with hundreds of applications, using webhooks, and pushing data to third-party applications securely and reliably.
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Customer Support
Freshworks offers amazing customer support. Freshworks offers customer support services 5 days a week. You can contact them through calls and emails, during business hours from Monday to Friday. You can also go through various study materials, videos and guides present on the website.
Verdict: Freshworks CRM is a budget and user-friendly platform, however, lacks lead generation tools.
3. Oracle Netsuite CRM
NetSuite CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) solution that combines traditional and innovative CRM capabilities. Netsuite is suitable for both small and midsize organizations.
It gives you a comprehensive view of the customer interaction and information, giving you real-time insight into your marketing efforts performance and how your relationship with your customers is becoming at an instant.
NetSuite CRM also includes powerful sales performance management, campaign management, order management, and partner management seamlessly integrated with your NetSuite ERP and eCommerce investments
Companies using Netsuite CRM in their tech stacks:
Wells Fargo & Company, Audi of America, State of Wisconsin (the United States-based Government organization), Accenture, and Cummins Inc.
Feature Highlights
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Ease of Use
Netsuite claims that with the addition of many advanced features, it has improved the usability in its latest version Netsuite 9.0 CRM.
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Price
NetSuite CRM does not have any free version. The pricing starts at 129.00 USD per month. NetSuite 9.0 is available now. The entry-level price of Netsuite 9.0 is $4800/year for two users, $75 per month extra is charged on each additional user.
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Seamless Accessibility across Devices
Netsuite allows access to real-time business information on mobile devices. You can view, enter and update key customer and sales data, submit timesheets and expenses with an easy snap and attach receipts and manage everyday activities, tasks, and calls from your smartphone.
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Customization and Reporting
Netsuite allows you to customize your dashboard in real-time based on your requirement and choice.
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Supports Integration with ERP and Other Apps
NetSuite allows integration with several on-premise applications and third-party cloud environments using their SuiteCloud technology platform.
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Customer Support
Netsuite provides the customer service center with a 360-degree customer view. You can track support cases according to product, issue, case type, partner, or customer and also enable online self-service with case submissions, status tracking, and communications.
Verdict: Netsuite CRM works great in team collaboration, accounting, sales, and marketing, however, the cost of CRM exceeds depending on company size and ERP maintenance. Also, the implementation of the CRM is time taking.
4. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is one of the most popular and user-friendly CRM apps on the market, that majorly focuses on the sales funnel. Having a clear and ordered visual interface, Pipedrive brings you an extremely comprehensible overview of your sales pipeline- considered as the ultimate feature that makes the sales cycle more transparent. A clear view of the pipeline empowers you to track deals as well as activities from the first touchpoint to the deal closure.
Companies using Pipedrive CRM in their tech stacks:
Amazon, Vimeo, Skyscanner, Montrail, Media Vision, and Festo
Feature Highlights
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Ease of Use
Pipedrive is consistently easy to use, requiring minimal setup while starting. Along with this, all the other tasks like sales and contact management, communication, etc. are also straightforward. The alerts present in the CRM adds to the user experience, intimidating him about the required action.
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Price
There is no free version in Pipedrive.
PACKAGE PRICE ESSENTIAL $12.50 per user per month billed annually ADVANCED $24.90 per user per month billed annually PROFESSIONAL $49.90 per user per month billed annually ENTERPRISE $99.00 per user per month billed annually -
Seamless Accessibility across devices
The Pipedrive is accessible on various devices like tablets, desktops, and mobile phones(iOS and Android). With the fully featured Pipedrive mobile apps, you can access the CRM anywhere anytime.
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Customization and Reporting
The Pipedrive CRM is customizable, allowing you to create your custom fields based on the requirement. It facilitates reporting, however, you need to add third-party integrations for this.
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Supports Integration with ERP and Other Apps
Pipedrive allows you to choose from 200+ integrations from the Apps marketplace, and increase the capabilities of your account.
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Customer Support
Pipedrive offers excellent customer service 24/7. Not only in the English language, but it also facilitates communication in multiple languages including Portuguese, French, Spanish, and German.
Verdict: Pipedrive is a simple to use CRM platform, offering a comprehensible visual sales funnel, however, it is expensive and lacks lead generation features.
5. monday.com CRM
monday.com, introduced in 2012, is one of the most successful and comprehensive business solution and project management collaboration tools that can be used by different teams with different functions in the market. It is suitable for all sizes of businesses small to big. It has numerous features to help pipeline management as well as progress monitoring, and an incentive system.
It is one of the most reliable tools for task management or project management, as it synchronizes all information in a single and accessible hub, enabling you to view all the data instantly, leading to better decision-making.
Companies using Monday CRM in their tech stacks:
Adobe, Uber, Genpact, Unilever, and Abott
Feature Highlights
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Ease of Use
monday.com is considered as having one of the best-designed UI, which is simple to set up and easy to use, however, it is limited in features.
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Price
PACKAGE PRICE INDIVIDUAL Free BASIC 600 Rupees per seat per month STANDARD 750 Rupees per seat per month PRO 1200 Rupees per seat per month ENTERPRISE Custom -
Seamless Accessibility
monday.com is also easily accessible on all devices with the internet.
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Customization and Reporting
It facilitates you to customize your CRM through ready-made templates. You can also tailor any of the elements like the sales pipeline, or workflow, whenever required. With monday.com, you can easily create, share, and download reports using the current as well as the imported data.
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Supports Integration with ERP and Other Apps
Monday.com offers over 30 integrations like Slack, Salesforce, and Shopify, allowing you to expand the capabilities of your CRM. You can easily set up any integration very easily in just a few clicks.
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Customer Support
monday.com offers 24/7 customer support to the users. Along with this, it also offers various self-learning tools as well, to help the user to understand the CRM better and use it to their benefit.
Verdict: Monday.com is an excellent project management tool however lacks some important features, like calendar views, which can only be accessed in the higher packages.
6. Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is a powerful business management software, used by 40 million users across the globe. Zoho is a highly scalable CRM that provides end-to-end solutions to businesses of all sizes- small, medium, and large enterprises.
Being packed with numerous modules for management, Zoho takes care of the entire operations, allowing the managers and sales as well as marketing teams to regulate the entire process workflow, right from scheduling, managing, to performance monitoring. This leads to higher deals and better business profit.
Being a multichannel CRM, Zoho allows you to interact with your customers through various communication channels like email, live chat, on-call, and social media. By automating numerous marketing and sales processes, Zoho allows you to focus on more creative ways to nurture your customers and business.
Companies using Zoho in their tech stacks:
Hyatt, Amazon, Netflix,IIFL, Saint Gobain, Purolite,Tassal, Suzuki, etc.
Feature Highlights
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Ease of Use
Zoho CRM guides you throughout the setup process, providing you step by step instructions about the same. Not only this, the entire user interface of Zoho CRM is extremely user-friendly which makes it impressively easy to use.
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Price
PACKAGE PRICE FREE Free up to 3 users STANDARD 800 Rupees/ user/ month billed annually PROFESSIONAL 1400 Rupees/ user/ month billed annually ENTERPRISE 2400 Rupees/ user/ month billed annually ULTIMATE 2600 Rupees/ user/ month billed annually -
Seamless Accessibility
Zoho is device-friendly, accessible on devices with the internet. You can easily edit leads, contacts and generate reports and workflows. The unique thing about Zoho is that it uses image recognition i.e. detecting data from the picture of the business card and adding the information to the new contact.
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Customization and Reporting
Like other CRMs, Zoho is also customizable. You can customize your dashboard at your convenience. Along with this, you can also generate reports and derive useful insights from the data.
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Supports Integration with ERP and Other Apps
Zoho CRM empowers you to choose from 400 integrations, including HubSpot, MailChimp, Google Drive, Slack, Google G Suite, Twitter Zoho cloud-based solutions, etc.
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Customer Support
Zoho offers customer support to its users. You can contact them through emails, which are responded to on the 5 working days of the week.
Verdict: Zoho CRM stands out at lead capturing and management, however, the layered arrangement structure makes it expensive for smaller companies.
7. Salesforce CRM
Salesforce CRM is perhaps the most popular CRM platform that helps you regulate, monitor as well as accelerate your sales and marketing, automate tasks, and analyze the performance anytime anywhere. The best thing about Salesforce CRM is that the user need not be technically versed to operate it.
With the facilities like Lead & Contact Management, Workflow Rules & Automation, Mobile applications, Sales Opportunity Management, Customizable Reports & Dashboards, Salesforce makes the business processes much more smoother and effective.
Handling everything at its end, the platform gives you a unique experience, providing you a unified view of the client interaction, redefining the business and customer relationship. Salesforce is not limited to small businesses instead you can scale it for large businesses as well.
Companies using Salesforce in their tech stack:
Spotify, Amazon Web Services, U.S. Bank, Toyota, Macy’s, T-Mobile, The New York Post, Accenture, Adidas, American Express, and AT&T.
Feature Highlights
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Ease of Use
Salesforce is known for its simplicity. Being extremely handy, it is considered as a best-fit for non-tech users.
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Price
PACKAGE PRICE ESSENTIALs $25 per month PROFESSIONAL $75 per month ENTERPRISE $150 per month UNLIMITED $300 per month Source: G2
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Seamless Accessibility and Scalability
You can access salesforce from multiple devices at the same time.
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Customization and Reporting
Salesforce allows you to build and customize your dashboard by dragging and dropping the icons required. You can view various sales activities as well as monitor your business performance directly through the dashboard. Not only the dashboard, but you can also customize your reports as well, adding custom fields to it.
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Supports Integration with ERP and Other Apps
Salesforce allows you to connect to any system, on any platform- cloud, on-premises, on a unified platform. You can integrate any application or tool you want.
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Customer Support
Salesforce offers customer support 24/7. Salesforce claims to respond to the user,s critical issues within 1 hour.
Verdict: Salesforce is a staggeringly incredible CRM stage loaded with various astonishing highlights, however, is a bit costly.
Are You Ready to Harness the Power of CRM in Your Business?
Customer relationship management is not just confined to the product and price, it is about competing in the relationship dimension. Merely offering an alternative product at a lower price won’t be of use, if a long-term and sustainable competitive advantage is something you are anticipating. The thing that can only work here is the relationship with your customers, how he feels about your brand. This is where good CRM software can provide you an edge.
So, if you are planning to incorporate CRM software in your business or already using one and planning to switch, you might have reached a conclusion by now. However, if still on the fence, consult the experts. Our CRM experts at Ace, will not only choose the best-fit CRM for your business but also implement it flawlessly.
