CRM software products are designed for businesses of various sizes. Small business owners need to carefully select a CRM application that matches their needs and company size. This article helps them out by reviewing the main top features of five top CRM software for small businesses and the benefits they can accrue by using these applications.
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1. Communifire
Communifire streamlines communication and work processes, and integrates them in a social business platform to improve content management and collaboration in a small business. The application offers modules for spaces and groups, people and profiles, content and collaboration, and social and productivity.
Employees can use Communifire to create videos, wikis, articles, press releases, how-to’s, knowledge bases, and news items for both internal and external audiences. They can use the event manager feature to schedule webinars, meetings, and conferences. Other productivity and collaborative tools offered by Communifire include rating controls, tags and hashtags, best content, moderation, job board, and polls and surveys.
Benefits for Small Businesses
Small businesses can use Communifire’s social apps and tools to get instant notifications and dynamic activity streams. They can create interesting personal profiles of their employees that include their work, contact, and personal information. Small firms can bring their employees and teams together for closer collaboration by creating groups and spaces based project, interest, or topic.
Communifire SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction
Our B2B experts reviewed Communifire features, user experience, customer support and other key elements of the service. Final results as summarized by the SmartScore system gave Communifire a score of 6.7/10, while the results provided by the Customer Satisfaction Algorithm place the overall user satisfaction rating at 100%.
2. QCommission
QCommission calculates sales commission in a professional and accurate manner avoiding manual errors. Thus, the application helps to create trust between a small business and its sales team. QCommission motivates sales professionals to use CRM by linking their commission calculations with an integrated CRM tool like Microsoft Dynamics or Oracle Fusion.
QCommission offers a flexible calendar that schedules and processes commission calculations on a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis. The tool can handle all types of commissions, referrals, royalties, and bonus calculations. Its commission reports can be used across other business process solutions like accounting and sales lead generation.
Benefits for Small Businesses
As mentioned earlier, salespeople will be more eager to use CRM once they see the direct effect of their CRM efforts on their commissions. QCommission’s automated sales commission system lets users estimate incoming payments and accruals. This helps to avoid reconciliation problems and distrust among sales professionals.
Customers can integrate QCommission with Quickbooks to minimize errors between accounting and commission calculations. Small businesses can use the application to get a clear idea of which sales professionals are performing well and who are not.
QCommission SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction
Our B2B experts have prepared a review of QCommission analyzing its features, user experience, customer support and other key elements of the service. Final results as summarized by the SmartScore system gave QCommission a score of 8.5/10, while the results provided by the Customer Satisfaction Algorithm place the overall user satisfaction rating at 100%.
3. Method CRM
Method CRM is one of the best CRM applications for Quickbooks. It helps small businesses to nurture and convert leads by remaining organized and delivering what customers need. The vendor has made enterprise-level CRM available to small businesses by synchronizing Method CRM with Quickbooks accounting software to ensure users enter data only once.
Method CRM’s contact management function can be used to track customer communication. The product works well with popular applications such as Gmail, SmartVault, MailChimp, and Outlook. Users can also access the API to integrate their own systems or apps.
Benefits for Small Businesses
Small business owners can use Method CRM to track employee performance by monitoring customer conversations. They can become more organized by sharing calendars, and assigning follow-ups and next steps. Users can utilize Method CRM’s simple drag-and-drop tool to match their workflows without using coding.
Method CRM SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction
Our B2B experts created a review of Method CRM, with a detailed look at its features, user experience, customer support and other key elements of the service. Final results as summarized by the SmartScore system gave Method CRM a score of 6.9/10, while the results provided by the Customer Satisfaction Algorithm place the overall user satisfaction rating at 99%.
4. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is an ideal sales pipeline management application for small businesses. It organizes business leads and offers a clear overview of the sales pipeline, enabling users to focus on the deals they wish to prioritize. Pipedrive can be integrated with Google Contacts, Google Calendar, and other Google apps. It can be used on desktop as well as mobile devices.
Benefits for Small Businesses
Small business owners can benefit from the sales pipeline methodology built into Pipedrive. They can view the different sales stages, evaluate the progress of their sales team, and understand which deals need to be pushed. Pipedrive can be utilized to track the performance of sales team members.
Users can modify sales pipeline stages by adding customized fields. They can access the application’s mobile web version anywhere, anytime. The tool can also be used to take notes during a call or meeting. Finally, Pipedrive backs up all data in real time to a separate server.
Pipedrive SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction
Our B2B experts reviewed Pipedrive functionalities, user experience, customer support and other key elements of the service. Final results as summarized by the SmartScore system gave Pipedrive a score of 8.6/10, while the results provided by the Customer Satisfaction Algorithm place the overall user satisfaction rating at 100%.
5. Desk.com
Desk.com (formerly Assistly) helps small businesses deliver high quality customer service. The application collates customer conversations in a single channel where customer support executives can collaborate to manage responses efficiently using phone, chat, email, and social media.
A highlight of Desk.com is its integration with social media as the tool monitors customer experience on social networks and solves problems there. For example, users can offer social support through Facebook private messaging.
Benefits for Small Businesses
Users can monitor and reply to all customer queries in a single place. The Universal Inbox provides access to phone, chat, email, Facebook, Twitter, and discussion boards. This makes it easier to track status and priority cases.
Users can make use of 36 languages to respond to customers in their native language and impress them. They can assign languages to agents based on fluency. Desk.com can be accessed using Blackberry, iPad/iPhone, and Android devices.
Desk.com SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction
Our B2B experts reviewed Desk.com CRM software comparing its features, user experience, customer support and other key elements of the service. Final results as summarized by the SmartScore system gave Desk.com a score of 8.3/10, while the results provided by the Customer Satisfaction Algorithm place the overall user satisfaction rating at 98%.
Conclusion
We hope this article on the top CRM software for small businesses helps you select the most suitable application for your company. Check out the features of these and other CRM software products.
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If you have QuickBooks I recommend you get Method CRM. You can set it up at once. I remember my developer recommending a powerful software, but we have to adjust some of our business processes (that included migrating the entire QuickBooks records) to set up the app. I didn't go for it because, hey, the software should be empowering your workflows and not contradict them. So I looked around for an app that matches our processes and I ended up with Method. I don't say it will work for other companies, the point is, make sure the software is adapting to your situation, not the other way around. I know a handful of proj. mgrs who would change their project dynamics to match the software they bought. To me that's silly and counter intuitive. Just saying.
I'm a marketing manager and the best CRMs in my experience are those that streamline and tie up three main business units: sales (to get the leads and raw data), marketing (to interpret these data and conceptualize strategies), and accounting (to know the ROI of the CRM efforts). I can see that some of your examples have these three critical features, but the rest have half-baked solutions. If you're going for a CRM, go for a full blast to reap its full rewards.
Let me just add, QCommission is just part of a CRM pipeline, specifically, at the tail-end of it, that is, when sales reap their rewards. So if you're getting it as a CRM tool, keep in mind you'll still need a "frontend" CRM that lets you pick up customer signals, segregate customers and reach out to each of them with personalized messages or deals.
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