Purpose of CRM systems
CRM is designed for customer relationship management. They can help your organization manage sales, marketing, and customer service activities. Most CRMs like salesforce include features such as contact management, lead management, opportunity tracking, task management, and reporting.
Salesforce is one of the most popular CRMs on the market. However, there are a number of Salesforce alternatives that offer a similar or even better experience. We would like to list some alternative CRM systems here.
What is Salesforce?
Salesforce is an American company that develops a CRM system of the same name, which is offered to customers exclusively in the SaaS model. Under the name Force.com, the company provides a PAAS system for self-developed applications, and under the brand name Database.com, it provides a cloud-based database management system. Among the products obtained as a result of the purchase, we can mention Heroku platform services, Muleesb service bus, Tableau data visualization system, and Slack company messenger.
Salesforce was founded in March 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Mollenhoff, and Frank Dominguez with the original idea of specializing in the CRM market and making them available exclusively as a subscription service, hosting all the instances of this system in their own data centers. . Eliminating the installation of systems in customers and end-user access to systems through the web. Recognized as one of the pioneers of SaaS, PaaS, and Cloud Computing since 2012, it has been the global market leader in CRM systems 2012.
Salesforce Platform is an enterprise platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution that allows developers to build, test and resolve defects in cloud applications before deployment. The salesforce platform provides tools and services to automate business processes, integrate with external applications and provide a responsive layout to users.
Salesforce Lightning Design System provides guides and code to developers for building apps. Users can deliver salesforce apps by using reusable building blocks including maps, calendars, buttons and number-entry forms. The platform allow…
The best Salesforce options for 2022
1. Freeagent is a complete CRM platform and a powerful work management system
FreeAgent helps teams get everything in one place, work to achieve more, and track and improve performance.
FreeAgent also automatically organizes and organizes your team’s emails, calls, and meetings so you can cross the boring tasks off your to-do list. By eliminating time spent searching for information and reducing manual data entry, FreeAgent enables managers to optimize sales, marketing, customer success, project management, and more.
This platform gives you visibility into your customer experience, so you can get an instant text from all your customer relationships and see the activity associated with any pipeline changes and their impact.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Tracks customer engagement across all channels, automatically centralizing and updating data.
- It has a configuration engine called Composer that allows you to tailor the operating system to your specific workflow and business needs.
- Freeagent has a large list of integrations to help it work with your existing business tools. There’s real-time sync with Gmail, Twilio, Office365, and Google Calendar, as well as two-way sync with MailChimp.
- Price can be a deterrent for some startups, especially given the high-cost jumps when moving from one app to another.
2. SAP Customer Experience (formerly SAP Hybris) – a customer-centric system
It is a comprehensive digital CRM system for customer relationship management that automates key CRM processes, optimizes operator staff costs, expands the Telco provider’s service portfolio, reduces customer churn and increases average revenue for Becomes a customer.
All communication channels can be integrated into a single system. Each specialist sees the communication with the client, the history of requests through all channels, and proposed solutions to the problem. The subscriber does not need to explain the issue’s essence when re-applying.
It is also possible to independently order and pay for telecommunication services, search for a solution to a problem, feedback on the quality of services, and exchange opinions and experiences in communities on social networks. Create networks and service requests on the site.
Simple work of the technical support department. Automation of processing requests, complaints, and programs using the ticket system.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- In this system, flawless customer service for the telecom operator.
- Everything is done to optimize field services.
- All tools are configured for end-to-end customer service.
- Effective ongoing customer support.
- It’s easy to install and run, but there are a lot of features that take time to learn.
3. Oracle Cloud CX Platform – Innovative, flexible, and delivers consistent performance and security
Oracle Cloud CX is built on a cloud platform that incorporates best practices and new application technologies, providing tools that are easy enough for business users to manage, yet powerful enough for developers to use. are providers.
Oracle Cloud CX uses an insight-driven approach to user behavior, transactions, and demographics from marketing, sales, service, and internal applications. Based on this data, personalized services and interactions with each customer are built.
Oracle Content Management gathers all content and assets of companies in one place: invoices, marketing materials, company files, images, and videos. Built-in recommendations, collaboration tools, and workflows drive new content as needed.
Oracle’s Customer Intelligence Platform for Customer Engagement enables companies to add value and succeed in the experience economy by leveraging data processing resources connected to their business. With connected data, analytics help you deliver real-time personalization across all customer journeys.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- This network is configured with a full package of connected data.
- The linked content is completely safe.
- Engage the modern user experience.
- Benefits of customer intelligence.
- Price may be an obstacle for some startups
4-Streak CRM for Gmail-Streak is especially useful for sales, recruitment, support, and other areas
It’s a service that turns a regular Gmail inbox into a customer relationship management (CRM) system. But so far only with the help of extensions for Google Chrome and Safari browsers.
It simplifies email transactions, user support, delayed emails, and email open tracking.
Features of the line:
- Manage clients directly in Gmail.
- Grouping messages from customers or transactions.
- Track the status, notes, and details of each customer.
- Share information with the team.
- Every message between the client and the team goes directly to the mail.
- Speed up email sending with repeating patterns.
- Stickers to create letters.
- Possibility of delay in sending.
- Read notifications for sent emails.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Built directly into Gmail, where you probably do most of your work, Streak connects the desktop and mobile apps with all G Suite integrations, so you can always access your work inbox and other tools. Find (just download the Google Chrome extension and/or mobile app and everything will work).
- Email integration automatically collects data from your contacts and emails and lets you know which leads are moving at each stage of your pipeline.
- Keep notes in the app, keep records centralized, use data tracking in your contact emails and see if customers opened your emails.
- Streak works as a Chrome extension, so if you change devices, you’ll need to download and install it again.
- Paid versions are at the level of more complete CRMs, which can be an obstacle for some startups.
5- Salesflare is a lightweight CRM system for small and medium businesses
With sales, marketing and sales teams can avoid the cluttered interface of most CRM systems and spend more time on their work. CRM is more suitable for companies that work in the B2B field.
In sales, deals and leads are filled automatically. They are downloaded from social networks, company databases, phone contacts, e-mail,and calendars. The data is displayed as textual data and in the form of graphs with the intervals of time when contact with the customer was made. Salesflare automatically reminds customers about deals, helps them stay on top of them, and get information about them.
Managers and employees with access can assign tasks to colleagues to accompany customers or search for new leadership. In Salesflare, you can also view a real-time dashboard with static data and company budget information.
Sales features
- Automatic completion of transaction data.
- Visualize the sales funnel.
- Analysis and reports.
- Email, link, and website tracking.
- Cooperation
- Integrate with popular services using Zapier.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Fully intelligent CRM CRM designed for B2B startups.
- Based on e-mail, the program simplifies sales management and the creation of repeatable sales chains.
- Connect with customers without having to manually update your information – Address Book and Real-Time Synchronization allow you to automatically update records of each interaction with a contact.
- It’s easy to install and run, but there are a lot of features that take time to learn.
6. Zoho CRM is a system for organizing CRM for small businesses
Zoho CRM includes lead management tools for sales tracking.
With real-time tracking, your entire sales team is on track. It has a simple and intuitive user interface, good customer support, and a wide range of features. The downside is that it’s not as popular as some of the other CRMs on this list, so it may take a lot of people to help you learn how to use it.
Zoho is not hosted on Swiss servers and cannot be set up well enough for a complex sales cycle. Lead generation is collected and you can easily create a simple sales funnel. Salesforce’s competitors can do a better job with Zoho. The free version is limited to three users. It is a versatile tool with simple selling tools.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Using a simple user interface designed for startups and small businesses, Zoho CRM includes customizable modules, automation, and social media features.
- It allows you to define workflows and simplify daily tasks as well as manage leads.
- Data migration features allow you to quickly migrate data from spreadsheet and contact management software to the Zoho platform, making it easy to set up the platform.
- Integrates with Twitter and Facebook for quick and efficient engagement with potential customers at the right time.
- There’s a free CRM for three users – great news for ultra-lean startups, although (as you might expect) it has a somewhat limited feature set, with less customization and no bulk email functionality.
- Zoho lacks individual email tracking and individual lead notifications, which can be limiting if you rely on one-to-one engagement.
- Add-ons are installed on top of the existing CRM product you purchase, so when you want to expand your use of the operating system, it can be extended.
7. Freshworks CRM is a great CRM for small businesses
Freshworks offers a 21-day free trial so you can see if it’s right for you. In this solution, you will find a great sales analytics dashboard. The solution is also easy to use on a mobile device. Free support is appreciated. LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be connected to CRM. It’s a serious competitor to Salesforce, built entirely to work with sales pipelines and contract management.
Freshales is a good CRM for sales teams that want to focus on closing activities. The solution is easy to use and has a simple user interface. It also offers a range of integrations including Google Apps, Zapier, and more.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Getting started is easy – all the important startup features like lead management, email and pipelines are included.
- Lead capture allows you to automatically capture via email, you can also create your lead scoring criteria to see who is most likely to convert (this can also be configured).
- There’s a free forever plan for startups limited to 10 users and 10,000 entries (that’s leads, contacts, accounts, and deals), but it’s not easy to find (you have to sign up for a 21-day free trial, which gives you the full version of the software) – at the end of the course you will be asked if you want to choose one of the four paid plans or continue with the free one).
- Once you start expanding your use of Freshales and accessing more advanced features, you’ll need a lot of learning.
- Sorting and filtering tasks are less intuitive than they might be.
8. SugarCRM is a cloud-based platform that offers everything from sales and automation features to account and customer relationship management.
Email marketing is well-crafted and easily connected to the sales pipeline. Sales reps love the campaign creation wizard.
Sales representatives can edit their contracts based on customer data. Contact management is visually pleasing and business management is simple and visual thanks to the beautiful dashboard.
The CRM platform is simple and integrations with MailChimp, Zendesk, Zapier, and more help with workflow.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Provides an end-to-end CRM solution that includes marketing, sales, and customer service, with a focus on sharing relevant and actionable information across teams.
- It allows you to map the customer journey to send the right messages at the right time and automate complex business processes with draggable blocks.
- The support team is attentive, which is a big plus for startups that need a quick response and short turnaround time to resolve issues.
- In addition, SugarCRM has a large user community, so you can connect with other startups.
- You need to have at least 10 people on your team to use SugarCRM, so it may not be suitable for small startups.
- SugarCRM comes from open source solutions, so the learning curve is moderate, which means you need to take time to learn the platform.
9. Hubspot CRM is a good solution for small businesses that want to keep track of all their activities in one place
HubSpot CRM offers a completely free plan, but there are good features in the paid plans as well. Sales productivity increases with this CRM. It has a simple and intuitive user interface, good customer support, and a wide range of features. This solution is also useful for pipeline management as it has built-in predictive tools. The downside is that it can be expensive for large companies. The solution, like Salesforce, is based in the United States.
They are known for their email marketing and free version. Spot CRM integrates with several other HubSpot products, including HubSpot Marketing, HubSpot Sales, and HubSpot Services.
The free app offers unmatched value. You can store up to 1 million contacts and enjoy unlimited users and storage. You can also save on training because the platform is user-friendly and easy for your employees, which makes your business run faster. Key Features: Very easy to use, but flexibility is less important than other CRMs.
Advantages and disadvantages:
- Manages workflow and improves project management – you will be able to effectively follow up and work with potential customers, follow the sales process and record customer interaction across all channels.
- The HubSpot Startup Program offers discounts of up to 90% to qualified startups, with personal training and onboarding.
- It works with G Suite and Microsoft Office, so whichever platform you prefer, the CRM will work seamlessly.
- Zapier integration lets you share information across apps (Google Sheets, Slack, Facebook Lead Ads, etc.) to expand features and help grow your business.
- HubSpot CRM is free, so you can get started without spending a fortune, while paid add-on packages for HubSpot include features like reporting, artificial intelligence, and advanced automation.
- Customization options are limited, which can be a problem for niche startups.
- The core features of CRM are many, but they are basic, and eventually, you may need to purchase a Sales Pole or one of HubSpot’s add-on packages to expand your CRM experience.
Choose the right CRM software
CRM helps organize your business, simplifies daily operations, and makes remote and distributed work as efficient as possible. After all, CRM helps you grow.
Whatever your startup does, there’s sure to be a CRM that helps improve day-to-day operations with features like contact management, lead management, sales funnel tracking, and marketing automation.
Finding the right CRM for your startup will take some comparing, but the above list will give you a foundation and allow you to start your research.
These CRM tools are great options, each offering slightly different features and benefits.
When choosing the best CRM for your business, it’s important to consider your specific needs and what you want from the system. If you are looking for a comprehensive all-in-one CRM solution, SalesForce is a good option. It offers a wide range of features and integrations.
In 2022, automating the sales process will be the key to your success.
Sales process automation is a hot topic in the CRM world, and for good reason. This will help you close more deals faster. And as technology advances, it becomes easier and easier to do so. *Salesforce* offers an amazing all-in-one solution.
This article presents many ideal SalesForce options with pre-designed benefits. Read carefully and choose the best for your business!
