Are you looking for ways to simplify the way you store all your potential customers and clients data?
Do you need a system to track your sales pipeline and contacts?
In sales you often feel overwhelmed by the amount of data and facts you need to remember. Finding new clients is a huge task itself, let alone keeping in mind about every smallest thing relating to your clients and prospects.
However, it is extremely vital for any sales to keep track of their client data, from all aspect of the sales process, customer support calls to simply their contact details. In other words, if you sell, you need to know what is going on with your prospects and clients and you should have access to that data no matter where you are.
With that in mind I prepared a list of the best Customer Relation Management applications on the market.
Salesforce
Salesforce is possibly the best known CRM and sales management system available and this is not by accident. It seems to be the most advanced yet the most user-friendly system used by many small businesses. It comprises of various smaller apps creating together this extremely powerful CRM solution.
Cost: depends on what applications you use, from $4 to $270 / mo
Big Contacts
I used Big Contacts only briefly a few years ago as my first CRM app, mainly due to a free account they were offering at a time. BC offers quite advanced options for managing your client relations and sales process, however, I found its interface to be quite tiresome to use for a longer time.
Cost: from $26 to $99 / mo depending on edition
Pipeline Deals
This is what we used as our primary CRM in my previous business. Pipeline Deals is a powerful tool to track your entire sales process. It is incredibly simple and intuitive to use and offers a set of extremely advanced sales management and reporting tools. It now offers syncing with Google apps too which makes it even more powerful.
Cost: $15 / mo
Highrise
My choice of CRM software at present. Highrise doesn’t offer as many options as the majority of it’s competitors. It is ideal for tracking leads, contacts and deals but if you are looking for a tool with more advanced tools to track your sales funnel then Highrise might not be for you.
Cost: from free to $99 / mo depending on the options you choose
ZohoCRM
ZohoCRM is a part of a larger group of online applications for businesses under the Zoho brand. The CRM offers all the major options to track your leads, contacts and sales and offers integration with many business suites and systems like MS Office, Outlook, Google Docs and more.
Cost: from free to $25 / mo
Sugar CRM
Sugar CRM offers a wide tools to manage customer integration on many levels, from tracking and automating your sales, marketing to customer service and support. SugarCRM comes in many editions so it is a good idea to check their website to find out which one would suit you best.
Cost: from free (self hosted) to $600 / year
Dashboard
A relatively new player on the market. I watched dashboards development and I was impressed by what these guys did with the software. The app offers all that you would expect from a CRM solution but packed in a lovely, web2.0 interface.
Cost: $14.95 / mo
Tactile CRM
I only discovered Tactile CRM while preparing this article. This seems to be less complex CRM system bridging a gap between the simplicity of Highrise and more complex systems like Pipeline Deals for instance. It offers a clear, Highrise-alike interface but adds more sales management functions than 37Signals’ CRM product.
Cost: from free to $18 / mo
Batchbook
This is another new player on the market. Batchbook can not pride itself with the nicest looking interface however it offers one unique option of social networking monitoring, possibly making it on the run for a title of a CRM workhorse.
Cost:from $14.95 / mo
Commence
Commence claims to be one single system for Sales, Marketing and Customer Service. This is one system I haven’t used for longer time but from what I could see so far it looks really promising for a small business.
Cost:Quote based
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About Pawel Grabowski
Pawel – Commence has been providing CRM software solutions for small to mid-size business for over two decades. In the past the company’s products were sold under private label and as such the company is not as well known as some of the other players. The products are always rated in the top 10 and the company’s service is excellent. Commence is perhaps one of the best alternatives to the higher priced harder to use solutions.
[Links and competitors names edited out by admin]
Hi Larry, thanks for the update and good to see you guys doing so well!