Best Apple CRM & Contact Management Software Solutions Daylite Highly Recommended Daylite is a Mac CRM & Project Management app for teams exclusively on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. We test and compare the best project management software for helping keep it all on track. If your teams juggle deadlines, resources, and deliverables, you need a dedicated project management tool.
Teams that have to handle multiple projects can't simply rely on human memory to keep them all organized. Furthermore, trying to keep everything together via email is a recipe for productivity disaster. To deliver projects on time and within budget, teams must write down information, plot deadlines, and share documents. Individual members need to be in constant communication with one another. When your team needs to get serious about managing projects, the solution is to use project management software.
Project management services are online systems for working and collaborating on projects. These real-time workspaces let team members and outside partners keep an eye on every detail that brings a project to fruition. They typically provide an overview of all the projects in the pipeline, as well as the nitty-gritty details about the daily work being done to move the projects forward. Some contain tools for managing resources as well, whether those resources are workers, materials, or money.
The very best project management apps help teams handle common problems, such as slipped deadlines, by automatically rescheduling tasks that are affected by them. They generate reports that give managers insight into which team members have too much—or too little—work on their plates. Many track time spent on projects and integrate with invoicing and billing systems.
The most important thing to know about project management apps, as opposed to other kinds of work-management apps, is that they are for projects. That might sound like a tautology, but it's important.
Projects are a specific type of work. Every project has a start date, end date, and deliverable. Building a house is a project. Launching a new website is a project. Maintaining a website, however, is ongoing work with no clear beginning or end date. Publishing a monthly magazine is a project that you complete once a month. Writing daily content for a blog is ongoing work. You could, theoretically, manage each blog post as its own project, but if the turnaround time is quick and only a few people are involved, using full-scale project management software is overkill.
How Project Management Apps Work
Many projects are managed by a dedicated project manager, and that's true even with software equivalent. While a project manager might still be the person overseeing the project and helping to redirect resources as needed, she or he is not the only person touching the project management app.
All kinds of people involved with the project use the app to update their progress on assigned tasks. They check into the project management app to, for example, see their designated tasks and to enter how much time they spent on an assignment. Employees, contractors, and sometimes even clients can use the project management app to share documents, sign off on plans, and so forth.
In a best-case scenario, every milestone, task, and subtask is assigned to a specific person and given a deadline. Typically, other team members can see who is responsible for what, whether that person is on track to complete it on time, and if there are any unanswered questions about the job. That level of insight is important because it alerts people who are further down the planned chain of events of possible delays before they occur.
Having visibility into every team member's task list is also useful for understanding whether people are falling behind because they're overworked. When you can see that a colleague has six task assignments all due within the next 48 hours, it's easy to spot the problem and redistribute the work before deadlines slip. By looking at a Gantt chart (a pretty common feature in project management apps), for example, a manager can see clearly who is doing what, and how various tasks are related, too. It helps everyone use available resources more effectively.
Projects also usually have assets, which range from a detailed description of the project and its parts to a visual mockup. People on the project team all need access to these assets, and the project management app becomes the central place where they live.
Many project management solutions include storage space so that your team can upload files right into the workspace, where everyone on the team can see and discuss them. It's also common for services to have an option to connect to third-party online storage services, such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive, so that team members can link or upload files to the project management system from the repositories they already use.
Free Project Management Tools
A few project management software systems have free versions, but they are generally quite limited. The primary limitation is the number of projects you can manage (think one or two), although sometimes a service might restrict the amount of storage space you get or prevent you from using certain features.
Almost all project management apps have, at a minimum, a two-week free trial. When a free trial has a time limit on it, we don't count it as having a free tier of service. To us, free means you get to use it forever with no charge, even if there are some tight restrictions.
While it's helpful to try out software for free while you decide whether to upgrade, most businesses, in the end, will need (or want) the features and space allotments that come with paid accounts. Still, it's often helpful to try a product for longer than a couple weeks before deciding whether it's right for you, your team, and the work you all do.
Which project management system has a free version? Teamwork Projects, Zoho Projects, TeamGantt, and ProofHub all do (although ProofHub's free account isn't advertised online and you have to contact the company to request it).
Free trials often come with other limitations, which we've listed in the Price section of the complete reviews; the reviews are linked in the table above and the in the short capsules below.
Collaboration Software
Although it may sound similar in concept, collaboration software is a little different from true project management software. While you do collaborate in a project management app, project management software is something much more specific.
Collaboration software comprises many different kinds of apps and services that handle everything from video conference calls to letting two people type on a document at the same time.
Modern project management services often include native communication and collaboration tools. They may also let you connect to the collaboration apps that your team already uses, such as Slack or Google Docs.
Whether you use the integrated communications tools or connect to an outside one, the idea is that your team can log into one workspace and have everything they need to get work done at hand, including a prioritized to-do list, all the necessary assets, notes from other colleagues, a calendar of deadlines and milestones, and a place to ask questions and find answers. Some project management apps even offer billing and expense tools, too.
Workflow Software
Earlier we mentioned that project management apps are designed for managing projects, but not other kinds of work. What kind of work isn't a project? Any kind of ongoing work fits the bill, such as fixing bugs as they get reported or answering support calls. Ongoing work often is marked by recurring tasks.
For ongoing work, people often talk about using workflow management tools rather than project management apps. Workflow management software and project management apps have considerable overlap in what they do from a theoretical standpoint. They both help groups of people write down what needs to be done and figure out when to do it. Project management apps, however, provide structure for ushering the work along its course, whereas workflow management apps are more flexible. With workflow management, you often have to decide how to use the tool. That's not usually the case with project management apps, which have a more prescribed use.
Workflow management is tricky to classify because sometimes it's handled as a standalone issue and sometimes it's rolled into other apps. Editors' Choice Asana, for example, handles workflow management pretty concretely, as do kanban board apps—more on these below. But all-in-one work hubs, such as Podio, can include workflow management tools if you add them to your account. They can also have full-scale project management applications inside them, too. But workflow management isn't necessarily the core of the service, and neither is project management. Those are just apps you can add to your account.
Kanban board apps are another kind of workflow management software. Kanban can be described as a style of working. It comes from Japan, and it was traditionally used in manufacturing for just-in-time delivery. These days, kanban apps are popular among software development teams. Kanban is typically a visually oriented system that is particularly good at controlling how much new work a team takes on before the current batch of work in progress is complete. The idea is to keep work flowing smoothly by not overloading workers with too many competing mandates. Some businesses do use kanban to manage projects, but kanban apps aren't really project management apps.
Task Management Software
Task management software is slightly different from project management software. Project management apps do include task management features in them, but you can get standalone task management apps if that's the only piece you really need.
One of the clearest examples of a task management app is Asana, which, confusingly, is also a very clear example of a workflow management app, as mentioned above—one with kanban functionality, to boot. With Asana, you can assign tasks to specific individuals, and add descriptions, deadlines, and attached documents to each one, but they aren't necessarily part of a larger project.
Task-management apps work pretty well for ongoing work. You can manage a project in Asana, but it takes a little more work on your part to do so. The best way to explain it is with an analogy.
Think of Asana (any kanban app) as a deck of cards. Now think of a project management app as a board game. Board games have with rules, and the game is usually the most fun when you play it as it was designed to be played. With a deck of cards, however, you can play a game someone else invented or you can make up your own game. Before you play cards, you have to make sure everyone at the table knows the rules and plays by the same rules, because they aren't written down on a handy sheet of paper for you all to follow.
The same thing happens when you start using a task management app. You have to spend a lot of time figuring out how you're going to use it. On the one hand, it's very flexible. On the other hand, it can take considerable trial and error to get it right.
That's not to imply that project management systems are inflexible. With a board game, you could certainly make up your own rules or create variations on the rules. But you buy a board game with an understanding that it works best when you use it for its intended purposes. You use a project management app with the understanding that you are going to manage projects by assigning tasks and deadlines, monitoring work, tracking billable hours, and so forth.
Project Management for Small Business
Many small businesses turn to project management software because they're overwhelmed by working in email. The right project management platform can help kill email, but know that it won't happen overnight. It takes time for employees to learn the software, and for your organization to figure out how best to use it for the projects you have.
Small business and enterprises have very different needs, however, and it's important to find the project management tool that best fits your business.
One tip-off as to whether a project management solution is better suited for small companies or large enterprises is how they charge. Project management platforms that can support enterprises typically have a per-user-per-month fee structure, while those that cater more to very small businesses often charge a flat monthly rate for a set number of licenses or for unlimited licenses. And it's not that a very small business can't or shouldn't use the same software that the big players use, but sometimes it's overkill, and who wants to get stuck paying for features they don't need?
Another differentiating factor is whether the project management platform has many permissions levels. For instance, these services can have different permissions levels for executives, portfolio managers, project managers, and team members. Having such hierarchical roles can ensure that each person in the organization has the right level of access. In a very small business, where each employee wears a lot of different hats, permission levels might not be as advantageous.
There are other differences, too, aspects you'll want to consider for your particular business, team structure, and style of working. The summaries below will guide you toward finding the right service for your organization. When you're ready to get the full story on a particular service, click through to read an in-depth review.
What's Not Here?
We review far more project management software than we can fit into a story like this. Plenty of well-known services, including the very popular Basecamp, Microsoft Project, and Workfront are not currently in our list. There's only room for the 10 best here, and those services (and others) simply don't make the cut. Rest assured, however, that we update this story frequently, and the rankings change as the services themselves do. If you're looking for service that's not in this story, please visit our project management product guide, which includes more services than can fit in this story.
Best Personal Accounting Software Mac
Best Project Management Software Featured in This Roundup:
Zoho Projects Review
MSRP: $25.00
Pros: Rich communication features. Generally easy to set up and use. Responsive. Great value. Deep configuration options. Time-management tools let you clock multiple tasks at once.
Cons: Resource data displayed in an unusual way. Not ideal for large teams.
Bottom Line: Zoho Projects has a low price, straightforward interface, and excellent array of features. It's a top choice for small businesses.
Cons: Expensive. Time-intensive to learn. Interface design could use a refresh. No invoicing or billing included.
Bottom Line: LiquidPlanner is an impressive online tool for managing projects, tasks, workers, and their time. Though expensive, it's one of the best project management apps on the market.
Read Review
Teamwork Projects Review
MSRP: $11.25
Pros: Simple and intuitive design. Optional kanban boards. Integrated calendar. Free account available. Great customization options.
Cons: No PDF or image markup tools. Gantt charts slightly cramped.
Bottom Line: With an extensive set of features and intuitive interface, Teamwork Projects is one of the best services for managing projects.
Read Review
Celoxis Review
MSRP: $25.00
Pros: Includes billable hours, income projection, and resource management tools. Ample reports. Useful task timer. Great value.
Cons: Cannot view or mark up attachments in app. No free version.
Bottom Line: For medium or large organizations, project management app Celoxis offers plenty of helpful tools for tracking projects, time spent on task, and financial resources.
Read Review
GanttPro Review
MSRP: $7.00
Pros: Well designed interface focused on Gantt charts. Custom fields for tasks. Kanban board view. Critical path feature and baselines. Saved history for undos. Permission levels.
Cons: No reporting tools, in-app timer, or customizable dashboards. Light on integrations.
Bottom Line: GanttPro is an excellent project management tool for small teams that just need the basics, such as Gantt charts. It lacks the reports, timers, customizable dashboards, and other tools found in more mature services, however.
Read Review
ProofHub Review
MSRP: $50.00
Pros: Clear interface. Quick and easy setup. Nice balance of features and simplicity. Competitively priced.
Cons: Lacks budgeting tools. No recurring option for tasks. Slow. Occasional interface annoyances.
Bottom Line: Project management app ProofHub aims for simplicity without skimping on major features. It's an excellent app with a competitive price for small businesses.
Read Review
Redmine Review
MSRP: $0.00
Pros: Free. Open source. Customizable. Includes time estimates, dependencies, Gantt charts, project wikis.
Cons: Requires self-installation and maintenance. Support limited to community docs.
Bottom Line: Redmine is a free open-source project management app focused on issue- and bug-tracking challenges. It's a great tool if you have someone on hand who can install and maintain it.
Read Review
TeamGantt Review
MSRP: $14.95
Pros: Intuitive, easy way to get into Gantt charts. Exceptional tutorial content. Reasonable price.
Cons: Doesn't update in real time. Lacks in-app notifications. Limited integration options for third-party tools.
Bottom Line: Highly intuitive for beginners, TeamGantt is an excellent project management app for small businesses. It could use improved communication tools, however.
Read Review
Wrike Review
MSRP: $24.80
Pros: Easy and quick setup. Intuitive to use. Tidy interface. Great feature set. Can be used to manage projects or ongoing work.
Cons: Most valuable features limited to Business-grade accounts. Timer difficult to find.
Bottom Line: When you need a project management and collaboration solution in a hurry, turn to Wrike. You can set it up quickly, and integrate it with many other apps and services.
Read Review
Mavenlink Review
MSRP: $39.00
Pros: Full-featured project management platform. Rich with features. Stable. Open API. Robust permissions levels. Excellent Smart Snips markup feature.
Cons: Can get expensive for small businesses. No mobile apps; mobile-optimized website only. No chat app or other bonus communication tools. Website could be easier to navigate.
Bottom Line: Online project management platform Mavenlink could be a good fit for midsize to large organizations, but it can get expensive for small businesses.
Read Review
What Is CRM Software?
A successful sales effort means maximizing every interaction with a customer, without the customer experiencing any additional burden. To do that, salespeople need to be armed with the very latest information you have about a lead. Not just who they are but what they have purchased, how they're using it, and how happy they are with the results. That's where customer relationship management (CRM) software shines.
Often, small to midsize businesses (SMBs) try to mirror CRM functionality with just a large and ever-growing spreadsheet. However, not only is CRM software easier to use than a spreadsheet, it's what you'd expect if your contact list decided to evolve a brain and take part in your sales conversations. It records your customers' contact information and remembers the details of your relationship and every interaction—whether by phone or email, and nowadays across other channels such as social media or even your customer helpdesk.
Mac turn on universal access. Nov 28, 2014 The latest Steam update, which drops support for OS X 10.5 among other things, introduced a bug that causes the program to ask for you to enable universal access for the in-game overlay even if it already was prior to the latest client release. Universal access mac keeps asking I got Steam for Mac on OSX 10.9.4, however, once I turned on Accessibility, Steam would keep asking me to enable it.
This information is a gold mine of opportunity, letting you identify prospects for up-sell or cross-sell, convert existing customers to new products or services, target new marketing, or even track invoices. The software is also a fail-safe, preventing sales people from chasing the same prospect. Choosing the right CRM software for your business can dramatically improve your team's collaboration and productivity, increase sales, and heighten customer satisfaction.
In its September 2018 report, 'CRM Software Market Research Report - Global Forecast to 2023,'Market research firm Market Research Future forecasts the CRM market to grow up to 35 billion by 2023. In addition, the CRM market's compound annual growth rate (CAGR) will be 6 percent between 2017 and 2023, according to the report. A key area for CRM growth in 2018 and 2019 will be the addition of artificial intelligence (AI) to leading CRM platforms. Manufacturers like Salesforce and Microsoft are either building their own AI engines to enhance their CRM capabilities or partnering with the likes of IBM's Watson and similiar players to integrate AI's benefits into their offerings. This will have significant impact in any CRM's ability to parse data and draw new insights from all kinds of customer interactions, and that has a direct impact on CRM revenue as market research firm, Statista, details below.
Badlion client 2.0 download for mac. The Revenue Impact of AI Adoption in CRM
Such a revenue impact is possible because AI-enhanced CRM is literally a quantum leap ahead of what many companies still call customer relationship management even today. Even now, employees might use a spreadsheet to simply pass on information about past sales via email threads. Or worse, such information is often left to casual word of mouth, which means it's often missing when needed or it's entirely forgotten. CRM software keeps this information in one place, efficiently organizes it, and makes it possible to take immediate action with it. Such actions can include sending a loyal customer a gift card on their birthday or offering an up-sell opportunity to a platform from which you know their business can benefit (based on previous conversations). It's also a great way to woo back inactive customers. The key is to select the software that's right for the way your team works. The last thing you want is to see employees fighting new software instead of interacting with the customer.
Insurance Client Management Software
CRM software isn't just about tracking and maintaining contact information. While most look to CRM software as primarily a sales tool, it's moved beyond that space. Marketing and customer service departments can dramatically improve their offerings and operations with CRM as well by using its data to more effectively segment demographics and record and reuse customer incident information. CRM software also helps coordinate interdepartmental actions. For example, the sales team can take advantage of something a customer service representative discovered in a separate transaction. Depending upon the software you choose, you can set and measure sales goals, deliver and track email marketing campaigns, or keep an eye on what people are saying on social media.
Pricing and Add-ons
Price can be a significant factor when evaluating CRM software, but that analysis should focus on more than just the upfront costs. Most of the CRM software we looked at offers per-user pricing but it's important to check what's included in that price and which features you actually need.
Training can eat up a chunk of the budget as can upgrades and ongoing support. Consider how much it would cost to integrate the software with existing systems and whether or not you would need additional equipment. That mobile implementation looks slick on the vendor's website, but will it still look that slick once you've designed the customized CRM forms your business will use every day? Does it mean the sales or customer service teams need new smartphones or maybe even tablets? These costs can quickly add up.
Taking the time investment into consideration is why trying out more than one program is key. This way, you can choose the software that will be most efficient for your company. If you have the resources to train and onboard staff and customize the software yourself, then eventually it will start to work for you. But smaller teams can't afford to invest in software that asks a lot up front; you need something that will be up and running in a day in most cases. Read the support documentation and you'll get an idea of setup complexity and any issues you might bump into with the software you already have. Use the free evaluation period to try out important features: import data, add information manually, connect accounts, and assign tasks to other users. Take note of how helpful the software is and whether or not it creates more work. Keep track of how often you have to consult the help system to complete a basic task.
As CRM software has grown more sophisticated, it has branched out into many different directions. There are plenty of options for implementing your CRM in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model or for deploying it on-premises by using your own server. Cloud-based CRM is rapidly growing in popularity because it means you can quickly get up to speed and don't have to worry about managing software on your own servers, which adds complexity and cost. You can look for the software that has deep hooks into social media management and analytics platforms so you can record customer interactions on Facebook or Twitter. Plus, you should definitely consider CRM software that integrates with your business phone system so you can capture call and conversation information. Look closely at your business processes, discuss with employees what they need and want, and contrast that with your bottom line. By doing so, you'll quickly have an accurate picture of the right CRM software for you.
It's tempting to forgo this homework and simply pay for one of the big, all-inclusive CRM software packages just to have access to every feature you might need now or in the future. But that approach will almost certainly wind up costing you more in both time and money, while probably delivering less flexibility than you'd expect. That's because these large CRM software packages are often platforms rather than tools. This means that those myriad features they advertise are really the product of integrating with a host of third-party solution providers, not options you can simply turn on. Third-party integration means not only added licensing dollars but also new integration costs.
A better approach is to understand how your employees have to use the software as well as how they want to use it. Think about what tools your team is currently using and what processes they follow. Figure out how those tasks map to the CRM software you're evaluating. Consider what some of the most common tasks are. For example, if the users have to dig through menus and submenus every single time they want to log a call or email, then the tool will actually complicate their jobs instead of simplify them. Form a small group of users who understand these day-to-day issues to help you in your evaluation; frontline salespeople and managers as well as IT managers are a good start. You don't want to impose a tool that actually makes key tasks more difficult or complex just so you can pay a premium for features those same employees may never touch. More and more CRM tools are also combining the email and sales experience into a single smart inbox or centralized dashboard view to manage all or most daily communications and tasks, without leaving the CRM tool.
As with any piece of software, it's essential to take advantage of free trials when available. No matter how many reviews you read or demos you watch, you can't get a real sense of how the CRM software works until you use it yourself. Be sure to have colleagues from different departments try out the software, too, so you can understand how successful it is in different situations and business processes. This way, you can eliminate programs with too many or too few features as well as understand how much training will be necessary.
Most of these companies offer at least a 14-day trial (and we consider that fairly short as 30 days is better) and some, including Apptivo CRM, Insightly CRM, and Zoho CRM offer free plans, albeit with limited features or users. These can either serve as a full-time solution for small companies or as a long-term trial for larger companies. Apptivo CRM, Insightly CRM, and Zoho CRM also offer free trials as do Base CRM, PipeDrive CRM, and Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional.
Ease of Use and Support
CRM software must be intuitive or you'll never want to use it. Make a note of how many clicks it takes to conduct a basic task and how easy or difficult it is to find the features you need. Beyond being easy to use, CRM software should be able to manage user error. For example, if you try to conduct a task on the wrong screen or input the wrong data, then the best software will identify your error and suggest the right way to do it. On the other hand, poorly designed software will either let you make the error unchecked or will throw up an unhelpful error message.
One way to figure out if CRM software is really easy to use is by training others on how to use it. If you get stuck while training someone else, then that's worth noting. Think about the time it will take to get your team up to speed and whether or not it's worth that investment.
Finally, when you run into problems, whether it's a software bug or a problem using a feature, you'll need a responsive support team. Verify what type of support is included with your subscription and the hours of availability. If available, read through the support documentation, FAQs, and other self-service help (options include blog entries, public knowledge bases, and even online training videos). If there aren't any self-service options, then consider that you'll have to contact support whenever you get stuck. That said, you should contact support while you're trying out software and make a note of the response time. Ask a lot of questions; this will also help you familiarize yourself with the product. CRM software is complicated, but support shouldn't be.
And watch out for gaps in the support plan. Many of these solutions, especially the SaaS entries, have tiered, subscription-based pricing. That often means different levels of support depending on the subscription you choose. If your business process requires access to the CRM on weekends, for example, then make sure you've got access to support during those hours.
Email, Mobile, and Social Features
Don't get distracted by CRM capabilities you won't use. Make sure the software you ultimately select captures the information that's essential for your business, allows effective follow-up, and is easy enough to use that your team will work with it, not around it.
Best Personal Finance Software Mac
Remember that new technologies, while slick, aren't automatically pervasive. For example, social media is a game-changing technology for interacting with customers. But as much as social and collaboration applications such as Slack are catching on, that doesn't mean email is dead. Most customers still expect to interact with you via email, and an email can still capture much more data than a Facebook post or a tweet can. Understand how your company interacts with customers over email and make sure your CRM software acts as a complement to that relationship, not as a hindrance. CRM software should automatically capture data from email interactions, not force your employees to manually enter email data. Similarly, integrating your CRM software into your email platform means that entering the customer's name or ID in one platform automatically brings up data from the other.
Apr 30, 2013 No OS X client from InMethod and no plans announced to release one. Someone else knows possible alternatives better than I do. On my local network I can mount a remote volume and use QuickTime Player, MPlayerX, or some other client to watch videos.
Take the time to also properly evaluate the mobile app; this should be considered a separate app, not just as a mobile 'capability,' and you also shouldn't be asked to pay anything extra for it. Mobile devices are an entirely different breed from desktops or notebooks. Employees use them differently and software renders them differently, which means that business processes that involve them will behave differently. Make sure your CRM software of choice can support the mobile device platform your team uses and carefully evaluate what the app can do. Some apps offer a read-only view of your sales pipeline or contacts so that you can look up the relevant information while out and about. Those apps won't let you make updates until you get back to a computer. Others offer a seamless and responsive experience, letting you do everything you would do on a mobile device that you would on a computer (but usually presenting tools and features differently, which can be difficult for some users to get used to). Don't commit to CRM software until you've actually used the mobile app in a way you and your team would on a day-to-day basis.
Companies, including Sugar CRM and Zoho, cater to the mobile workforce, with full-featured, responsive apps, and mobile layouts. If you have a field sales team that leaves their laptops behind and instead works on their tablets and smartphones, then you need to give them the tools they need.
Marketing Automation
The ability to act as a lynchpin for a well-planned marketing automation strategy is one of the most valuable aspect of CRM software, and it's a shame that not all software packages offer it—though most are beginning to get there. Marketing automation is a popular term these days and it refers to the software's ability to remind sales and marketing representatives to follow up with customers at the right time. Automation reminds you—or, in some cases, actually handles the task for you—of needed activities such as following up 30 days after a sales purchase with a coupon or calling the sales prospect 14 days after the individual signed up for a trial of the software. It can also extend to other software, such as kicking off an email marketing promotion based on criteria that are reached during a phone call with the customer, even if that call was initiated with the CRM system.
This also extends to lead management, which is a core capability of all CRM platforms. Lead management tracks and manages prospective customers (often called leads or 'opportunities') across lead generation and acquisition and throughout the sales pipeline. Lead management can be executed in more of a hands-on manner through tracking progression in a sales pipeline dashboard or reports. Some CRM software providers use a greater degree of marketing automation to trigger actions and sales stages based on lead progression. Lead management is a part of all CRM platforms but how the provider handles it can make a big difference.
Some CRM platforms have email marketing built in while others can connect with a third-party service, such as Campaigner or MailChimp. Automation can also play a part in email marketing, where an action by a prospect, lead, or customer, triggers an email or email campaign. For example, if a user signs up for a webinar on your website, then that can trigger a series of emails about what to do next. Likewise, if a user cancels their account, then that action can trigger an off-boarding campaign that prompts them to save their data or it can trigger an incentive campaign offering discounts or other perks if they decide not to cancel after all. Automation can also mean changing the status of a customer or prospect based on an action on their part.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are also starting to show up in CRM software. Bpm'online uses automation and predictive technology to remind users to complete tasks and guide them what to do next. Salesforce launched its Einstein AI-based business intelligence (BI) platform, which can also provide automation across email management, lead and opportunity scoring, and forecasting. These technologies have a huge potential to save time and to help sales teams perform even better.
Third-Party Integrations
It's important, as we've noted, to determine which features are included with your subscription and which require a third-party add-on. However, it's also worth looking at the software you already use to see if it's compatible with the CRM software you're considering. Maybe you already have email marketing software that you love or you want to connect your cloud storage service, lead management tool, or customer service management platform. As we've mentioned, you'll definitely want to be able to connect your email account and perhaps your calendar, too.
Best Free Client Management Software For Mac
Another excellent example of a value-add integration with CRM would be your product support or helpdesk platform. Next to your sales staff, your product support professionals probably have the most direct contact with your customers and the information they gather in the course of even a short conversation can be gold to a salesperson. Problems with one product line can mean upsell opportunities to another. Reconfiguration requests can indicate new business needs that can also generate upsell. Integration requests can let sales staff know with whom they're competing for key business processes. There's more but you get the idea. Establishing a two-way data exchange between the helpdesk and CRM systems can populate both platforms with valuable data.
Integration today takes two basic forms. The easiest is if the CRM system or the system to which you're trying to connect supports the other as a 'native' integration. That simply means that the company in question has a prebuilt integration module you can simply select, download, and implement as needed. You'll have the best luck with big-name targets here as many companies pre-build integrations for companies such as NetSuite or Salesforce, for example.
The other method is that, if both system support an open application programming interface (API), usually one based on Representational State Transfer (REST). With an API, you can have your in-house IT staff (provided they can do some coding) or an out-of-house contract programmer build a custom integration for you. That option certainly provides the most flexibility and customization but it can also add significant cost depending on the level of your coding talent.
Reporting and Analytics
Once you've been using CRM software to manage your leads and deals, you can see how successful you've been and where you're falling short. Look for CRM software with reporting features that can be customized so that you can see how employees are performing and which types of customers are responding. Look for a tool that lets you export reports if you need to present high-level data to company stakeholders.
Next, take that API or native integration and plug it into whatever business intelligence (BI) tool your organization likes best. That's because BI can turn that humdrum CSV or PDF file reporting data into live data visualizations and dashboards. These can keep you, your sales team, and anyone else with access to the CRM data completely current on sales statistics, demographic information, product popularity, and any number of other metrics. Additionally, only today's BI tools let you combine data from multiple sources—such as your CRM database on one side of the business and your warehouse and supply chain on the other—and ask complex queries that take multiple data sources into account to provide new insights that any one data source simply couldn't.
Don't Forget About Security
Invest in security. There's no simple way to put it. When you're working with the sales pipeline and customer data, make sure security is top of mind—especially if you're using a SaaS-deployed CRM solution (which means not only the app but likely also a big chunk, if not all, of your customer data resides in the cloud). You should feel comfortable with the company's security requirements. It is a warning sign if your CRM software lets you select a password but doesn't generate an audit trail whenever someone makes a change, or if it doesn't let you define the access controls for each user. Customer data is an extremely valuable commodity especially now that customers are more reluctant to part with it. Securing it isn't just about maintaining privacy; it's about protecting profitable relationships that directly impact your bottom line.
Integration plays a role here but it's mostly about research. From an integration standpoint, you can make sure your chosen CRM software can integrate with as much of your current IT security software as possible, such as your identity management system, for example, so your employees can take advantage of single sign-on authentication. But even more important than that is doing your homework. That means digging deep into the vendor's service level agreement (SLA) and ascertaining exactly where your data resides, who is responsible for its safety, and what happens if there's a problem. Doing some Google surfing to see whether this vendor has been breached in the past and what their response was is another good indicator of just what you're getting your data into.
Putting Top CRMs to the Test
In this roundup, we tested some of the most popular CRM software packages on the market today. The packages include Apptivo CRM, Base CRM, Bpm'online CRM, Freshsales CRM, HubSpot CRM, Insightly CRM, Less Annoying CRM, Pipedrive CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM. We've worked hard to evaluate this CRM software with the aforementioned criteria in mind, so check out each of the reviews below to figure out which package is right for you. All have their strengths and weaknesses—some are geared more toward small to midsize businesses (SMBs) while others have broader email marketing capabilities. Some CRM systems are easier to use out of the box, with simple navigations and standard workflows, while others offer deeper and more complicated degrees of customization. Some are dirt cheap while others can be quite expensive when you start moving up tiers, scaling up your sales workforce, or adding premium functionality.
Free Case Management Software
Our three favorites are Apptivo CRM, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM, each of which earns an Editors' Choice designation. However, depending on your business needs, the size and scope of your sales team, and the means by which your organization aims to engage and grow its lead and customer base, any one of these CRM platforms might have the right combination of price and features to work for you. It all depends on your business needs, the size, and scope of your sales team, and how your organization aims to engage and grow its lead and customer base.
Best CRM Software Featured in This Roundup:
HubSpot CRM Review
MSRP: $0.00
Pros: Free version available. Very intuitive interface. Excellent email integration.
Cons: Gets costly when you start to add premium functionality. Relatively new, so some minor feature oversights, such as only allowing a single email address per contact record.
Bottom Line: HubSpot CRM is an excellent choice for smaller companies looking to get into CRM for the first time, especially since it's free. But while it's an easy step to take at first, be aware that it can get pricey if you flesh out its features as your organization grows.
Read Review
Zoho CRM Review
MSRP: $12.00
Pros: Free for up to 10 users. Stellar feature set. Gamification modules. Google integrations. Valuable reports. Powerful email marketing tools.
Cons: Workflow automation limited to Professional edition.
Bottom Line: An early player in the CRM space, Zoho CRM offers plenty of power, a decently intuitive interface, and a vast collection of advanced features and third-party integrations. All in all, an easy pick for Editors' Choice.
Read Review
Freshsales CRM Review
MSRP: $12.00
Pros: Offers a variety of native and third-party integrations. Great customization capabilities. Intuitive interface. Free version available.
Cons: Fewer third-party integrations than the competition. Reports not available in the free plan.
Bottom Line: Freshsales CRM is an easy-to-use customer relationship management platform aimed at small to medium-sized businesses. A friendly price and a good feature set make this app well worth considering.
Read Review
Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional Review
MSRP: $75.00
Pros: Smooth workflow processes. Tons of advanced features. Highly customizable. Social collaboration. Robust third-party app marketplace. Free 30-day trial.
Cons: Steep learning curve. Expensive, especially when accessing more advanced lead generation and managerial features.
Bottom Line: Salesforce combines a formidable feature set with a matching learning curve, but the platform offers everything you could want as far as CRM capabilities for organizations of any size.
Read Review
Bpm'online CRM Review
MSRP: $25.00
Pros: Task automation. Personalized tools for event planning, ad campaigns. Predictive unified business process. Feature hiding capabilities. Automatic triggers for marketing campaigns, like programming emails.
Cons: Relatively short trial period. Initial experience can be daunting. Forms require some coding skills. Doesn't work directly with social networks as Zoho CRM does.
Bottom Line: Bpm'online CRM has long been focused on larger businesses and enterprises, but it works fairly well for midsized companies, too. This popularity is based on the product's evolution, which now includes excellent analytics and reporting as well as marketing automation features.
Read Review
Less Annoying CRM Review
MSRP: $10.00
Pros: Simple, uncluttered user interface. Low monthly price. Multiple active pipelines for each lead. Straightforward lead management tools.
Cons: Basic reporting. No notifications of lead handoffs within the application.
Bottom Line: Less Annoying CRM might be the simplest of the simple CRMs we reviewed for small businesses. While you'll need to be careful that this entry-level solution still gives you the features you need, it's an excellent package for beginners at a reasonable price.
Read Review
Insightly CRM Review
MSRP: $29.00
Pros: Email tracking and templates. Granular sharing settings. Power BI integration greatly improves reporting capabilities. Expanded workflow management features in mobile apps. Creates web forms to harvest leads.
Cons: Lead assignment rules only available in Professional and Enterprise plans. No automatic email forwarding. Lead and contact info split into separate tabs. Pipelines not available for leads.
Bottom Line: Insightly CRM ticks all the boxes that most small businesses want when it comes to customer relationship and lead management. However, this platform adds some tools you don't see under a CRM hood every day, including data gathering and project management features.
Read Review
Pipedrive CRM Review
MSRP: $10.00
Pros: Simple, intuitive interface. Helpful guidance. Easy setup. Solid mobile apps. Customized web forms for collecting leads. Can create more than one pipeline.
Cons: Limited functionality for the price. No separation between lists of new leads and contacts.
Bottom Line: Pipedrive CRM is a solution that drops feature depth in favor of ease of use to attract small businesses. If you're satisfied with basic functionality and you want to implement CRM quickly, then this package might be for you.
Read Review
Apptivo CRM Review
MSRP: $10.00
Pros: Do-it-all, customizable solution. Affordable. 24-hour support. Great mobile apps. Granular security controls. Workflow and campaign management tools.
Cons: Integrations still custom rather than based on standard APIs.
Bottom Line: Apptivo does a great job of checking all your CRM boxes. A fair price, a friendly interface, and lots of customizable capability makes it an easy Editors' Choice pick, especially for smaller businesses looking to get into CRM quickly.
Read Review
Base CRM Review
MSRP: $45.00
Pros: Simple interface. Free 14-day trial. Free training webinars. Full-featured mobile apps. Innovative predictive analytics reporting.
Cons: Customization ability is limited. Deeper automation, reporting, intelligent analytics, and permissions only available at higher tiers. Significant price increase.
Bottom Line: Base CRM does a solid job of delivering a simple to use CRM aimed at small business customers. It even manages to set itself apart through some advanced analytic capabilities and reporting.