Best Small Business CRMs (2023)

Customer Relationship Management platforms, also known as CRMs, are the cornerstone for all business-to-customer interactions. Businesses of all sizes, from restaurants to e-commerce companies, can benefit greatly from using a well-designed CRM, even small or micro-businesses with just a few employees.

Nearly every business’s success hinges on the customer experience, how smoothly the sales process goes, and how readily a company is able to provide specific goods and services. CRMs are a necessary pipeline management tool to streamline processes to deliver goods and services.

Shopping around for a new CRM can be daunting. With hundreds of these platforms available, it is difficult for the average business owner to assess value, compare systems, and explore CRM features. Luckily, some of these platforms do have stand-out features. In this post, we’re not only going to review the top-rated CRM platforms, but we will also teach you how to evaluate CRMs to find the right fit for your business needs.

What is a CRM?

A CRM helps businesses manage and organize all data related to their customer base. The goal of these platforms is to help you keep track and analyze all of your customer data – this includes sales data, past customer conversations, quotes, and more. Many of these systems additionally include project management software that helps team members manage the customer journey from end to end.

CRM differs from marketing automation software platforms like Mailchimp in that it is primarily sales management-focused and not used to automate email marketing campaigns. Marketing automation software fulfills a different niche, helping businesses plagued by an insufficient number of customers, or an inability to deliver their content to potential customers, with lead generation and scoring. On the other hand, CRM systems help to optimize existing relationships between sales teams and customers.

What are the benefits of a CRM?

Implementing the right CRM system for your business into your company’s existing business model has many potential benefits. These help desk systems serve to provide companies with a bird’s eye view of how a business and its employees interact with their customer network. Let’s consider some of the more specific ways that a CRM system can benefit your business:

• Offers a “hands-on” approach to customer management
• You get instant access to customer information and sales metrics, as well as projects, tasks, and more
• Contact management: all customer data compile to create a customer profile detailing all communication history into a single page
• More effective notifications between salespeople and the customers
• Day-to-day business processes like sending emails can be automated, saving your business valuable time.
• Integration modules allow CRM systems to connect to third-party integrations and apps .
• Reporting tools give you an overview of all customer data instantly, allowing you to follow up with all the necessary info on-hand
• AI systems built into CRM platforms give sales forecasts and suggestions that make it easier to close sales.

CRM platforms for small businesses

SMBs (small to mid-sized businesses), regardless of the industry, can greatly benefit from integrating the right CRM solution. Businesses deal with people on a daily basis no matter how small or big. With a CRM you can leverage lead management tools so sales reps can nurture new and existing customers. All the data related to these clients can be organized into a larger database that provides quick and easy access to individual customer profiles with just the click of a button. SMBs can also gain insight from CRM reports to help identify any existing weak points in the sales pipeline. Having a function CRM helps businesses consistently learn from their mistakes and improve customer relations exponentially over time.

CRM platforms for super small businesses

A staggering 92% of all businesses in the U.S. constitute micro-businesses, which are defined as having five or fewer employees. These super small businesses can often overlook the importance of having a CRM platform. They might think they are too small to benefit from using one, but actually implementing a sales CRM is what they need to help them grow. There are many CRM platforms designed to accommodate super small businesses – some even come with a free plan, which is perfect for freelancers and the micro-business budget.

Best CRM platforms for developers

Developers often work as freelancers and can face juggling a significant number of customers throughout their careers. Sometimes a customer will use them for just one single project, while others become long-standing repeat customers that frequently return with more work. Having a CRM would help improve how developers deliver effective services to their customers, while also providing them with insight into customer behavioral patterns.

Developers should find a CRM system that collects all data related to a specific customer – this includes emails and phone calls, conversations through live chatbots, invoices, and estimates, as well as files and other important information. Additionally, they should use the CRM to track sales activities and time spent on each project to more effectively bid on projects in the future. With these tools at a developer’s disposal, they can always be up to speed on client needs, how a project is progressing, and find ways to improve their customer relations in the future.

Best low-cost and free CRM platforms

A lot of the CRM systems on the market at the moment cost hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of dollars. This can be unfortunate for a smaller business, a startup company that has just been founded, as well as for freelancers looking for a more cost-effective way to manage their customers, projects, and sales. While it may seem there are only bigger more expensive CRMs on the market, there are a few affordable smaller-scale options. Some platforms even come with free plans.

However, lower-end plans and the majority of free CRM platforms tend to exclude some of the crucial components. If you look hard enough, there are a couple of options that do come with all the necessary modules that a small business would need to manage their customers as they grow. With many CRMs, you can subscribe to a basic plan initially and then upgrade over time as you expand your clientele.

How to choose the best CRM platform

Look for a good CRM for your company? Thinking about getting a CRM platform set up for your business is one of the best steps you can take if you really want to take control of how you manage your customers.  But in order to do so, you need to ensure you choose the best CRM software for your purposes. There are a few factors that you can take into consideration when looking at the different CRM platforms available. Ask yourself these questions to help you properly evaluate and decide which option will best suit your business:

• Do I only need one or two user accounts, or something substantially more?
• How much can I afford to spend?
• What features are am I looking for specifically? Do I need a system that allows me to manage opportunities and deals?  Or do I need something more robust, that I can use to send estimates and invoices?
• Do I need integration with certain apps like Gmail? If so, what specific integrations am I looking for?
• Ease of use: Is there a steep learning curve to using the platform?

Apart from considering these factors, you should also know whether you want to opt for a cloud-based solution, or prefer to use a CRM that can be hosted on your company’s local server. Both of these options have pros and cons that need to be taken into consideration. Many businesses are moving towards the cloud as data then becomes available on multiple devices, even when employees are not at the office. Cloud-based solutions also eliminate the need for a local server.

Once you have answers to these questions, you can start comparing your needs with the features offered by the top CRM systems.

It is usually a good idea to first request a demo of a CRM platform before you commit to buying. Some of these platforms will also give you a chance to test the system with a trial offer – be sure to take full advantage. Sign up and test the CRM out – add your contacts, register a couple of employees, and work with the system for a couple of days. This is one of the best ways to find out if a specific CRM tool can offer you what your business needs.