A startup has to face many hurdles in the beginning due to bootstrapping, scalability and identifying market needs and fit for their product or service. Normally a startup has very little manpower in order to reduce their burnout rate (tracking the amount of monthly cash that a company spends before it starts generating its own income.) This means every member should don multiple hats and oversee multiple responsibilities. A good startup and its founders would make the wise decision to find processes which need automating and will make the shift so as to give them room to employ skills elsewhere. For example, if a startup relies on high volume sales from a regular customer, it makes sense to automate the process of invoicing and sales. Payroll and attendance can be linked and automated on a common dashboard. This is where customer relationship management (CRM) comes into the picture. To a layman, CRM is a tool or a strategy which helps businesses organise or strategically manage their customer data. Data was previously stored in databases on single computers but with the advent of the internet, digital marketing and cloud computing, accessing data has never been easier, thereby making life easier for startups.
A CRM platform or a tool in the current era is a software which connects different departments from front office to back office and organises notes/data, metrics, analytics into one smooth and cohesive ecosystem. Every user has direct access to real time client and internal data which lets startups add a personalized approach to clients. For example if a startup has recurring monthly salessale from an individual customer, the tool can generate an invoice monthly as well as allowing the freedom to include a gift on special occasions for recurring customers.
In this article we give a list of 8 best and free CRM solutions for startups looking to scale up.
1) Hubspot
Hubspot is a CRM tool which offers complete toolkits and integrations which lets startups increase leads, accelerate sales and streamline customer services. They have a CRM offering for sales, marketing, services and content management which lets startups choose what works best for them.
2) Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM tool lets startups customize their requirements to suit specific needs. The CRM is designed for individual functions like process management, sales automation, marketing automation, predictive sales and many more letting the startups choose the best tool for their organisation. The CRM tool can be used by startups from any kind of industry and is used by some of the world’s largest organisations like Amazon and Ola.
3) Insightly
Insightly prides itself on being the best CRM tool for startups which rely on G Suite and Microsoft Office 365. Insightly provides CRM software for businesses of all sizes across a range of industries such as manufacturing, consulting, professional services, media and advertising, non profit, technology and others.
4) Flowlu
Flowlu offers CRM solutions for businesses by providing essential tools for efficient business management from projects to sales and marketing. Instead of having a different program for lead generation, accounting, and human resources, Flowlu puts everything on the cloud.The CRM also offers tools for financial management.
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5) Freshworks
Freshworks or Freshsales as it iswas formerly known, is a CRM provider with powerful integrations. Startups would benefit from this CRM as they have a free offering and also by providing the option to upgrade the services. This option shows the kind of trust Freshworks has in its CRM platform.
6) Really Simple Systems
Really Simple Systems makes CRM software targeted at small businesses which follow a business to business (B2B) model. Their free offering is aimed at startups looking to manage and track their leads and customers. What is even better is this feature is free for startups forever.
7) Agile CRM
Agile’s free CRM is targeted at small and medium sized startups and is free for the first ten users. The CRM offers tools for increasing sales and for automating marketing.
8) Suite CRM
Suite CRM offers unlimited users in its free version for thirty days allowing startups to have ample time to think onabout the CRM tool. Following the thirty day free trial startups can make a purchase from three plans which will suit their business needs perfectly.
This concludes the list of free CRM tools which are currently the best available in the markets for startups. Let us know if you are already using any of these CRM tools or plan on using them in the future in the comments below.