It all started with traditional Customer Relationship Management (CRM) where back-end analytics were the only factor; on which discussions were held. Gradually, online self-service came into play and as the time passed, with the launch of smartphones, integration of mobile applications with CRM became a hot topic and the traditional CRM transformed and revolutionized into social CRM as almost all social media websites and applications, including Facebook and Twitter, started to interact directly with the Customer Relationship Management System. Now, with 2019 around the corner, all major companies are looking to invest in the best CRM in order to serve and satisfy their existing customers as well as gather new customers under their hood.
“When CRM tools are used consistently by all team members and associates to capture information about prospect and client interactions, you can target communications to individuals or client segments that are highly personalized. This can lead to deeper relationships resulting from meaningful interactions even when the process is completely automated.” (Carson, Forbes 2018)
How do we define CRM?
Before we discuss the top 4 CRMs going into 2019; it is vital to know as to what exactly a CRM is? CRM or a Customer Relationship Management System is defined as a plan of action for the effective and efficacious management of a company’s relationships and interactions with the existing customers as well as working towards the conversion of leads or probable customers into actual customers. Altogether a CRM aids and assists a company in achieving the desired level of profitability by providing satisfaction and happiness to the customers in the form of exceedingly efficient business products or services. Good customer policies and efficient CRM systems always keep the customer at the center of everything.
Grant Cardone, a leader in sales training states: “You have to stay organized to stay in contact with customers. Many stores have invested in CRM, but the staff doesn’t use it. I know most CRM’s are a pain, but not using a CRM is a bigger pain. Buy the easiest CRM software solution you can find for your staff and commit to actually using it. The ability to bring up customer information at a moment’s notice is a game-changer.” (Cardone, entrepreneur.com, 2018)
Best 4 CRMs going into 2019
Salesforce is, undoubtedly, the global leader in CRM. Being named as the number one CRM provider since last 5 consecutive years; Salesforce enables the companies to link up with their customers in a completely new, effective and interactive way. A company is able to get a complete view of the customer’s profile including his/her activity history, communication logs, discussions as well as mentions over the social media websites and applications enabling the company to impeccably and immaculately judge as to what are the current trends and needs of the customers. This, along with a fantastic customer service, plays a key role in accelerating the productivity as well as the profitability of the company.
Salesforce also provides mobile applications for Android and iOS devices to access information, in real-time, on the go.
HubSpot is, indeed, one of the top CRM platforms available today. The reason as to why HubSpot is exceedingly popular is because it is free and extremely simple to use. Hence, companies which are just starting to utilize a CRM application or those which are looking for certain optimizations into their existing CRM solution, largely, prefer HubSpot as there is no cost involved in using the same.
If the platform is available for free, it doesn’t mean that it is less powerful than paid CRM solutions. In fact, it is much more flexible compared to many paid CRM solutions. The best part is that there is no hard work involved in merging HubSpot in the existing processes. It blends in quite easily and, almost, automatically. HubSpot can, effortlessly, connect to all the locations of a company’s sales processes.
Pipedrive is another popular name in the list of top CRM providers. Designed and developed by sales professional themselves; Pipedrive allows company’s sales executives to concentrate on priority deals first and facilitates the provision of a perfect and complete overview of the sales done by a company. Similar to HubSpot, Pipedrive is extremely easy to set up and blend in with the existing sales processes of the company.
Pipedrive offers effortless integration with third-party business applications such as Google Contacts, Google Calendar and much more. The best part of this CRM provider is that it offers mobile functionality as well. On-field sales agent can access Pipedrive on their mobiles and get the required information in real time.
It doesn’t stop here. Pipedrive is available in 13 languages and depending on the size of the company; the business can select any one of the flexible pricing packages of Pipedrive.
The biggest benefit of Freshsales is that it can be effortlessly checked as to from where the leads are coming, making Freshsales a perfect CRM solution for small and mid-sized businesses. Setup is extremely easy and the entire operations and processes can be stored in the cloud.
It has a pretty useful feature of email tracking and calls can be directly brought in to the system without any requirement of any sort of additional hardware or software. Besides this, the analytic tools are extremely comfortable to use and provide exceedingly valuable insights in less time.
Conclusion
In the current and upcoming time; an effective CRM solution has become mandatory for a company if it really wants to have a positive impact on the consumers and achieve its aims and objectives in a timely manner.
Paul Cannon, CEO of Cloudland Technologies, a CRM consulting company, says “Find a CRM that fits your needs, keep it simple, and let the CRM automate as much of the non-customer focused work your teams have to do.”
