CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM tools help companies in establishing and sustaining long-term connections with customers, by examining customers' needs and behavior, comprehending their preferences, and offering tailored services.

With CRM functionalities, startups, and small businesses can easily handle leads and sales. They can manage customer contacts, automate repetitive work, provide better customer service, and raise customer satisfaction while also saving time and effort.

It is one thing to know how to effectively use CRM tools and another thing to know which one to choose for your business. So this article talks about the top 10 CRM tools that best suits small businesses and startups like yours.

We carefully sour Ed these tools based on the following criteria: affordability, ease of use, outstanding customer support, personalization, integration, and rereporting. These are the core values that guide every business.

What is CRM?

Customer Relationship Management as the name implies refers to a strategy and procedures businesses use to control and manage their interactions with both present and potential customers using technology.

With CRM tools, companies of all sizes make monitor customer interactions and data across many channels. For instance email, phone number, social media, and in-person contacts. The information that CRM tools unify can range from demographics and purchasing patterns to customers' preferences and comments.

Robert Shaw and Kate Kestnbaum, pioneers of database marketing, planted the seeds for contemporary CRM in the 1980s. using statistical analysis of customer databases and direct marketing techniques.

Kestnbaum and Robert Shaw offered innovative ideas and techniques, such as customer lifetime value and channel management. These have grown to be essential components of contemporary marketing and strategy.

However, there are disagreements about who created CRM. While it is widely believed that Bob Kestnbaum is a credible candidate because of his contributions to contemporary marketing and strategy.

Others contend that the two Texans Pat Sullivan and Mike Muhney, who developed the product *Automated Contact Tracking " (ACT), deserve the recognition because many people believe it to be the first automated CRM.

Do startups and small businesses need a CRM system?

Without a doubt, the answer to this question is a resounding yes. When it comes to startups, building strong customer relationships from the start is crucial. And a robust CRM can go a long way in aiding the process for you.

First, it can remind you of important tasks, help you schedule meetings quickly, and even provide a space for you to take notes about your potential customers. This way, you can ensure that your conversations are effective and that you're guiding your customers down the sales funnel.

But it's not just about making sales. Providing excellent customer experiences is just as important. Did you know that consumers define brand loyalty more by feeling valued and understood rather than being offered discounts or perks?

With a CRM, you can organize and analyze your customer data.  To deliver tailored messages, content, and cadences that make your customers feel valued and understood. It's like having a personal assistant who knows everything about your customers' needs and preferences.

Centralizing your data is another key reason you need a CRM system even as a small business or startup. Storing all customer data in a central location can greatly improve your company's data organization and data flow.

After all, effective data management is critical for a startup since it dictates decisions for current and upcoming projects. And with sales CRM like Freshsales (more on this later), you can seamlessly import your data and connect with existing data to stay on top of the information that matters.

Imagine having a tidy desk where you can easily find everything you need.

Providing clarity within your team is also important and another reason you need a CRM system. Remember that a supportive team is one of the pillars of a successful startup.

With a simple CRM, your employees can easily access customer information or essential updates related to the sales cycle. This can include anything from customer lifecycle stages and CRM bug reporting to deal with information or new feature releases they can use to pitch potential customers.

And finally, streamlining the sales process is essential. A CRM can provide visibility into your entire sales pipeline by sorting sales, labeling opportunities, and grouping customers as you, please.

With an advanced platform like Freshsales CRM, you can even use custom dashboards to quickly view deal progress, sales figures, team performance, and more.

How to choose the best CRM software for your Startup business

There are a few key considerations to take into account when selecting a CRM system for a startup or small business. The three most important considerations based on my research are affordability, ease of use, and outstanding customer support.

Let’s start with affordability. Every dollar counts, and for start-ups and small businesses, budgets are frequently limited. So it's crucial to make sure you're getting the most value for your money. Because of this, picking a CRM system that won't break the budget and is reasonable is crucial.

But cost is not the only factor to be taken into account. A user-friendly system is something else you want. You probably have a lot on your plate already as a small business owner or startup founder.

You don't want to spend time teaching your employees how to use a challenging CRM system or attempting to figure it out yourself. Because of this, ease of use is crucial. Select a system that is simple to use, intuitive, and doesn't need a lot of technical know-how to get up and running.

Good customer service is yet another important factor. You lack the resources and personnel necessary to resolve complicated challenges on your own as a small business owner or startup founder.

Because of this, picking a CRM system with strong customer support is crucial. To ensure that you and your team get the most out of the system, look for a solution that offers several support channels. Such as phone, email, or chat, has a responsive support team, and offers resources like tutorials or a knowledge base.

Personalization comes under what we may call secondary criteria. It's crucial to choose a CRM system that provides customization alternatives. You'll want to be able to customize the tool to meet your demands because every company has different workflows and processes.

You should make sure that the CRM system complies with your unique requirements and work procedures by having the option to personalize it.

Integration is the next standard to take into account. An ideal CRM software integrates with other tools and services without much difficulty. You automate numerous procedures with seamless integration.

Which will save you time and lower the possibility of errors. To keep track of all your activities and communications in one place, you can connect your CRM system to your email, calendar, or project management application, for example.

The last important factor to consider is reporting. You can track your actions and create reports to display your data with the aid of a decent CRM system. Reports are crucial since they give you important information about how your company is doing. You can decide what's working and what's not using this knowledge.

And you can modify your strategy accordingly.

10 Best CRM Tools for Small Businesses and Startups

These tools are carefully sourced based on the criteria that I discussed in the session about how to choose the best CRM software for your startup. That is affordability, ease of use, outstanding customer support, personalization, integration, and rereport.

#1. HubSpot

Because of the criteria discussed, HubSpot is our top pick for the finest CRM program.

HubSpot's free basic CRM is a fantastic choice for organizations on a tight budget. The premium version is quite affordable too and embodies very important features your business needs to thrive.  You can quickly manage and organize your contacts with HubSpot, and you can keep track of the deals that you win and lose.

HubSpot's frictionless integration with your Gmail or Outlook account is among its strongest features. This makes your sales process even more effective because you can capture and track emails without ever leaving the platform.

Searching for a CRM with a user-friendly interface that is stylish and simple to use? HubSpot is one of the platforms to look at. It offers a variety of capabilities in addition to being straightforward to use. Making it a desirable option for companies of all sizes.

One of the best features of HubSpot is the unrestricted storage of users' data, and up to one million contacts with no time limit. Additionally, it interfaces with more than 300 applications, including well-known ones like WordPress.

Additionally, you can carry your CRM with you everywhere you go thanks to the mobile app for both Android and iPhone.

Using custom filters to sort and arrange your contacts is yet another noteworthy feature of HubSpot. Additionally, you may plan tasks, emails, and even tickets directly from the platform.

Also, HubSpot provides ad management and pop-up form solutions to assist you engage with your audience if you're trying to enhance your marketing game.

Pricing: Of course, HubSpot has a price, just like any CRM. The fundamental CRM is free, but you'll need to subscribe to a plan if you want to access more sophisticated features like phone calls, meetings, and email tracking notifications.

The premium version starts at $45 a month. The added functionalities in the premium version and its simplicity make it an appropriate CRM choice.

#2. Constant Contact

Although Constant Contact is best known for its email marketing platform, you can also use it as a CRM tool. It's great for small businesses because you can use it to manage contacts and run email campaigns.

Constant Contact's interface is uncomplicated, uncluttered, and straightforward to use. From your dashboard, you can easily monitor customers' activity, view data, send emails using the drag-and-drop tool, and store contact information.

What more can you do on constant contact? With the help of its drag-and-drop builder, you can create attractive emails. You can utilize over 100 email templates for your email campaigns. You can set up emails.

You can establish a sales funnel. To nurture leads, use marketing automation. It has a straightforward e-commerce platform integration. To expand your email list, you can run advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

Pricing: Constant Contact costs vary depending on the size of your email list. The basic plan is $9.99 per month. While the Plus plan costs $45 per month. Additionally, you have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

#3. Pipedrive

One of the most user-friendly CRM software options available is Pipedrive. It is intended to make managing and accessing contacts easy and quick for you.

You can see your complete sales process with its pipeline management tool. You can take action, keep organized, and maintain control over your sales funnel with the help of this fantastic CRM. Simply log in, add contact information to the pipeline, and begin selling to your clients.

Pipedrive is highly recommended for startups and small businesses since it provides more intriguing features that you might desire from a CRM. For instance, you can integrate into the email templates.

You can also track your goals and actions. It has adaptable pipelines. There are sales forecasting and reporting features.

With the mobile applications for iOS and Android, you can go everywhere with it with easy software integration and lastly, data security methods include backups and encryption.

Pricing: Pipedrive has a 30-day free trial period and monthly fees that start at $14.90 per user when invoiced annually.

#4. Capsule

This CRM is quite effective, and it comes with a solid project management tool. Like any successful productivity tool, it recognizes the value of the user experience. It contains a dashboard that controls the overwhelm and an easy-to-use user interface.

This is crucial because discipline for increasing productivity is similar to that of an all-you-can-eat buffet: if you fill your plate to the brim, you'll either overeat and become exhausted or waste food and leave things undone.

Three views are available on the Projects screen: List, Kanban, and Calendar. You can include whatever you need to do, designate the appropriate individuals, and include all necessary files here. Return to the dashboard after that to find all of your tasks listed on the left and ready to be completed.

The most recent action for you and your team is displayed to the right of this list in a stream of finished tasks, calls, and deal updates.

You can review the reports after doing some tasks for a few weeks to identify any productivity issues. This report is in addition to the standard sales pipeline information seen in practically all of the apps in this category.

Use these to see which jobs take longer and who is having problems finishing projects. Remember, these team members may require assistance, guidance, or a word of encouragement.

If your projects require the use of additional apps, you can link Capsule to Zapier to transfer all the crucial data in and out.

Pricing: The entry-level plan costs $18 per user per month and comes with 50,000 contacts and all the essential features. The Team's plan, which increases the contact limit and adds automation, advanced analytics, and user roles, is very affordable at $36 per user each month.

The most expensive option, Enterprise, costs $54 per user per month and increases storage and contact limitations without unlocking any notable app features - hough the continuous priority support is wonderful with that plan if you need it.

Depending on your company size, it might make more sense to remain on the Team's plan before you have to switch to an enterprise-grade software package because the Enterprise plan doesn't feel as competitive as the others on the list.

#5. Folk

This CRM software is quite different and unique. For instance, complex sales pipelines and glitzy reports with pie charts are not supported. Instead, it provides a straightforward method for managing all of your contacts and sending mass ultra-personalized emails to your lists.

You'll feel comfortable if you use Notion. Then you can click the links on the left to access the settings, view a breakdown of your emails, and begin a search of your contacts database. You can see all of your contact lists a little farther down.

Folk helps manage several categories of customers. For instance, you might work with customers in the traditional sales niche and then with investors who are at various phases of work too. There are 50 other templates in the template collection that you can choose from if you need more samples.

Since one of its basic features is email personalization, to include any of the contact's data fields in the email body as you write, type a forward slash. Their name, business, or any other custom text field you have for your contacts can be added.

But even with this amazing feature, note that without your customers' data, personalization won't be possible.

The contact enrichment feature on the software fills in any missing contact information automatically to offer you a full view of the person you're writing to.

Its robustness, simplicity, flexibility for many relationships, and customization options make up for the absence of sophisticated analytics and reporting. Consider using Folk as a rank-and-file, in-person sales tool rather than a manager-level, boardroom-based enterprise solution.

By using the Chrome extension, you can bring it with you to Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Gmail. If you want to continue extending, you can connect people to Zapier and invite hundreds of other apps.

Even though Folk may lack in-depth analytical capabilities, these multiple functions and features can compensate for and cover various CRM demands for your company.

Pricing: Pricing for the Standard plan, which includes 100 templates and 500 messages per month, is $14 per user per month - quite affordable. The next-highest-priced option, Premium, raises the cap to 500 and 2,000, respectively, and is $29 per user each month.

If you offer expensive goods or lengthy sales processes, this feature set and price range may be more appropriate.

#6. Freshsales

One of the greatest and most feature-rich CRMs for small businesses is Freshsales. Let's just say it was created with small businesses in mind. It allows you to manage contacts, capture leads, build a sales funnel, make phone calls, and send emails all from the dashboard without ever leaving the CRM.

Freshsales' reporting features are among its best qualities. You may utilize your dashboard to display up to 6 reports, build simple to complex reports, and present sales and revenue statistics with graphical graphics.

The 360-degree customer view of Freshsales is another feature that contributes to its strength. With this, you can locate client touchpoints, view their activity on a single screen, and access their social profiles.

Here are some additional fantastic aspects of Freshsales:

• A full picture of the sales funnel
• Utilize the mobile apps for Android and iOS to follow offers.
• AI-powered lead scoring facilitates lead prioritization.
• updates contact profiles automatically
• Make segments for various lead types.
• Appointments, notes, file management, and file sharing.
• Through the dashboard, learn more about transactions.
• Make calls and create call logs automatically.
• Give your team local or toll-free phone numbers.

Pricing: Freshsales has three different pricing tiers that start at $15 per user per month (paid annually), after which it offers a free version.

#7. Vtiger

Here is one of the finest all-in-one CRM software for small businesses and start-ups. It keeps all of your business transactions organized. While incorporating marketing, customer service, project management, and document management.

The user interface is not bombarded with all these features. Vtiger is refined because there is a panel for each significant feature set, with clear navigation at the top.

So you click the hamburger menu in the top-left corner to transition between screens. Such as when you're looking at your inventory and want to return to your sales pipeline. By doing so, a large menu will open, allowing you to navigate directly to your desired location.

Because it is an all-in-one CRM tool, you'll find amazing features like:

A brief form appears when you add a new contact. Allowing you to complete it quickly in between calls or emails. When you have time, you can open the main contact page and provide all the necessary information there.

A visual pipeline is available on the sales page to assist you in managing your deals. You can view the following task and all the specific details about the associated data by clicking on a transaction.

You may create campaigns and autoresponders using the email marketing screen. To customize each message using the recipient's information, you can design and save your templates with dynamic fields.

You may add all of your projects to the projects tab, queue tasks inside, and assign them to anyone.

It features a separate activity stream where you can publish updates or send messages. Everything here may be linked and attached to make this a comfortable workspace.

Regarding inventory, you can handle product-related taxes as well as maintain track of goods and services, invoices, and purchase orders.

What you should know about this software is that all these attributes are linked to one another.

In any situation where your use case is not covered by Vtiger, you can link it to Zapier.

Pricing: Each pricing tier for Vtiger has two different user categories. The price for admin users is greater. Starting at $30 per user per month - one professional standard plan.

Subscribers in this category have access to all features and rights. However, the cost is reduced to $20 per user per month - One Professional Single App plan - if you have a large number of employees who just need read/write access to one of the feature sets. For example, if they exclusively handle customer care.

#8. Flowlu

You may incorporate sales with projects, financial features, collaboration, client portals, and knowledge bases with a slick user interface and an exhaustive onboarding job list with Flowlu. It is a comprehensive CRM that leans more toward business and project management.

Every day when you log in, a feed of recent messages will appear. To get everyone in your company on the same page, you can write announcements or conduct a fast poll.

With shortcuts to create new projects, deals, or contacts without having to click twice or three times, the menu on the left side of the screen may take you wherever you need to go from there.

Because Flowlu focuses on project management, it lets you link projects with the contacts you're building them for. And you can store all the information in one place for simple access.

Pricing: There is a no-cost option from the start. However, if you outgrow that, Flowlu's entry-level Team plan starts at $39 for 8 users. Making it $4.87 per user per month. Which is quite affordable.

Depending on your roster, the fee is per fixed number of people, so that can be advantageous. The Enterprise subscription is $199/month and unlocks all the features for a fixed price rather than a per-user rate like most of the competition. It is the best option if you're more than 25 on your team.

#9. Zoho

One of the top CRMs for small businesses is Zoho. It is an effective cloud software package that provides various SaaS applications for companies of all sizes.

Use Zoho CRM to convert leads, interact with customers, and increase sales. Utilize a single platform to easily manage and automate various processes, such as email, social media, live chat, and more.

These are some features that Zoho CRM provides:

• Manage and capture leads
• Deal administration
• Connect with clients through various channels
• Automate processes
• Make a customized customer experience
• Omnichannel assistance
• acquire analytics reports

Pricing: Annual billing for Zoho starts at $14 per month. You can also start using it for free with the trial version.

#10. Agile CRM

Another well-liked and potent CRM tool for startups and small businesses is Agile CRM. Agile is a free CRM with 50,000 connections and organizations for up to 10 users. It is user-friendly, and you can automate your sales, marketing, and customer service with a straightforward interface.

You can manage contacts, track deals, automate calls and voicemails, and do a lot more with Agile CRM. The CRM is perfect for small organizations because it is packed with functionality and has reasonable pricing options.

You might wish to consider the following features:

• Building landing pages
• Follow emails
• Create campaigns
• Automation in marketing
• Utilize email templates to produce eye-catching emails.
• Insert forms.
• Social room for chats.
• Web rules can be used to add pop-ups and push alerts.

Pricing: The free plan can only be utilized by 10 users. You may also choose subscription plans, which begin at $8.99 per user each month and provide you access to even more fantastic features if you're more than 8 in your company

Conclusion

Affordability, ease of use, and good customer support are the first three critical considerations when choosing a CRM system for your startup or small business. Other key considerations are reporting personalization and integration.

By choosing a system that meets these criteria, you can ensure that you're getting the best possible value for your investment and setting your company up for success.

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