Which Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool should you use for your business?

warui kiondo
Runnovate Virtual Assistants
7 min readMay 12, 2021

As a business owner, the number of activities required to handle clients can be overbearing at times. From sales figures and projections, invoicing, scheduling, customer communication, and marketing just to name a few. These tasks can take up all your time and leave you very frustrated.

It even becomes worse if you decide to handle each of these activities individually at a time.

This is why it makes sense to use customer relations management tools, commonly known as CRM tools. They are designed to enable you to handle all the tasks related to managing customers easily. Not only will they get things done efficiently, but CRM tools will also predict risks and improve overall efficiency. What’s even better is that most of them can be customized to meet the specific needs of your business.

The top tools for customer management.

There are so many tools out there that pride themselves on being the best. However, we have highlighted the tools that you can use with a lot of ease and that are guaranteed to deliver.

  1. Dubsado.

This is an all-in-one business and client management tool that can help you move from being overwhelmed to thriving. It will help you automate most of your processes.

It allows you to: send contracts and invoices, manage projects, create questionnaires and other forms, manage bookkeeping, track your time, send and receive emails and so much more.

Some features of Dubsado.

  • Lead capture forms
  • Workflows
  • Email integration
  • To-do lists
  • Contracts
  • Questionnaires
  • Invoicing
  • Calendar sync
  • Payment schedules
  • Email templates
  • Bookkeeping

Benefits of Dubsado

  • Ability to automate your workflow.
  • Easy for lead capture.
  • Ability to customize everything to match your brand.
  • All your business processes in one platform.
  • Client portals allow your clients to access documents and see the progress of their projects.

Pricing.

There is a free plan which does not have a time limit. On this free plan, you will be able to add up to three clients but once you surpass the three clients you will need to subscribe to a premium plan. A monthly premium plan costs $35 per month, and a yearly premium plan costs $350 per year. By choosing the yearly plan you will have saved up to 15% of what it would have cost you to use the monthly plan. With the premium plans you get to enjoy unlimited access to our entire suite of management tools and features, unlimited clients and projects, custom branding across emails, contracts, client portals, and more, and hands-on support, education, and assistance 7 days a week.

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is an easy-to-use customer relation management system. Its selling point is that it integrates your sales and marketing activities. It is tailored to support extensive customer support, and it also tracks all communications with your clients.

The only downside of Pipedrive is that it offers no way to separate new leads from the rest of your contacts. It also does not allow integration directly with most social media platforms, you will have to use third-party applications like Zapier to do this.

Some features of Pipedrive.

  • You can easily track the sales process on the sales dashboard.
  • Pipedrive offers a wide array of automation features, including chatbots as well as schedulers, to help capture leads from your website.
  • A sales forecasting feature to help you maximize your sales pipeline.

Pricing

The essential plan is $12.50 per month per user per month, billed annually. There is an advanced package that goes for $ 24.90 per user per month, billed annually. There is a professional package that goes for $ 49.90 per user per month, billed annually. While the enterprise level is $99 per month.

3. HubSpot

Hubspot is one of the most popular customer relations tools available. It has very robust features and its integration of marketing and sales features is out of this world. Additionally, it has top-tier automation features that will help you and your team free up a lot of time.

Some features of HubSpot.

  • It has online features that come with a universal inbox that allows the first team member online to respond to messages and inquiries.
  • You can also create email templates that can be used for tracking emails to see how they perform. You will get an email notification once an email is opened, and also when attachments are downloaded.
  • You can also make calls and update activity logs from the dashboard of HubSpot.

Pricing

They have categorized the pricing into two major categories. The marketing category and the sales category. Under the marketing category, there is a free plan, a starter package for $45 per month, a professional package at $800 per month, and an enterprise package at $3200 per month. The sales category also has the free plan, a starter package at $45 per month, a professional package at $450 per month, and an enterprise package at $ 1,200 per month.

4. Redtail CRM

Redtail CRM is one of the easiest tools to use. It is tailored for finance industry professionals and is suitable for small sales operations that include both consumer and business-to-business (B2B) sales.

Some features of Redtail CRM.

  • It has robust contact cards that enable seamless handling of leads
  • It tracks and archives client emails

Pricing

While there is a free 30-day trial period, the baseline cost after that is $99/month per 15 users. After that, it’s another $99/month to add 15 more users at a time. With this premium package, you get to enjoy unlimited leads, contacts, reminders, and tasks, complimentary database conversions, broadcast emails, free Mobile app, custom exporting, access anywhere, anytime, backup and disaster recovery, document management, workflow processes, categorize and tag client records, detailed reports, seminar management, and free support.

5. Capsule CRM

Great for small businesses or even sole proprietorships. It offers powerful functionality. Capsule CRM’s strength (its simplicity) is ultimately its weakness as reporting features and integrations, as well as customer support, are limited.

Some features of Capsule CRM.

  • It allows you to save a lot of time while prospecting leads.
  • You can also make calls from within the interface and add notes with sales tips and other information.

Pricing.

There is a free option that allows for two users, 250 contacts, and 10 megabytes of storage. The enterprise package costs $ 54 per user per month. The team package costs $ 36 per user per month and the professional package costs $ 18 per user per month.

6.Timely.

Knowing how your business spends time is elementary, whether you bill for it or not. Timely streamlines the whole time tracking process by recording everything your team works on automatically. It dramatically reduces time management overhead, while improving reporting and invoicing accuracy.

Some features of Timely:

  • Automatic time tracking
  • Real-time project dashboards
  • Sophisticated, client-friendly reporting
  • Hourly rates, capacity, and overtime

Pricing

Timely offers a free trial but it does not have a free version. There is a starter package that costs $ 8 per user per month billed annually. It supports 50 projects and 3 teams. The premium version costs $ 14 per user per month. The last option costs $ 20 per user per month.

7. StudioCloud.

StudioCloud has made a name for itself as a reliable business management platform and company management system in much less time. It is a one-stop solution for your business needs that contains all the features you need to manage your business anytime, anywhere. Go check this business tool to organize and simplify your life.

Some features of StudioCloud:

  • Manage clients, partners, and vendors at one place
  • Create and send professional invoices
  • Send automated, personalized, text and email reminders
  • Have clients review and sign contracts online
  • Easily customize the look and feel of your software

Pricing.

There is a version that costs $10 per month with the option of one add-on. The pricing starts at a flat rate of $35.00 per month. The next available option that is called partner boost costs $35.00 if it is paid monthly with an option of $ 30.00 per month if you decide to pay annually. The last option costs $ 65.00 per month and if you decide to pay it annually, it will cost you $ 60.00 per month. There is also a free started version that offers 1 user login, desktop only, Mac or Windows compatible, a limit of 300 clients, a limit of 300 sessions, a limit of 300 invoices, and unlimited bookkeeping.

8. Trello

Trello is a web-based project management application that is designed to fit every unique need and work style. From sales and marketing to HR and software development, Trello helps teams to customize its functionality to meet their specific project management needs. And with more than 100+ integrations (including tools like Google Drive, Slack, and more), Trello makes it easier for teams to get their ideas to action in seconds.

Some features of Trello

  • Easy organization with tags, labels, and categories
  • Drag and drop functionality
  • Mobile functionality to access boards on the go
  • Quick overview on front and back of cards
  • Texts and visuals fit any screen size

Pricing.

Trello has a free version. Free users can add one Power-Up per board and up to 10 team boards. Trello also has a business plan for $10 per user per month, billed annually or $12.50 billed monthly. One can also choose the Trello Enterprise plan that needs you to contact the sales team to learn about the charges.

Get a virtual assistant to set up and maintain your CRM

The quality of your customer account management is a key driver in determining how successful your business will be.

To generate the best results over the course of the customer life cycle and journey map, everything from customer acquisition to invoicing repeat sales, it’s never too early to begin using client management tools like the ones detailed above. Runnovate virtual assistants are well trained on how to effectively use these tools. Get one today by clicking on this link.

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