Free CRM Software

What is CRM software?

Customer relationship management, or CRM, can be a powerful tool when it comes to marketing, but having all the bells and whistles often comes with a cost. If you know where to go, you can find a free CRM for small business owners that can give you what you need without confusion. When determining what should be in free CRM software, it’s important to think about how you will use it to enhance the productivity and processes of your business.

When dealing with customers, having an effective way to contact and nurture that relationship is key. CRM software helps increase customer communications and sales. You should be able to capture leads and track the entire customer journey using your CRM platform. Most CRM software options can also set appointments and send proposals, contracts, and invoices. While some people may think all these functions can be accomplished with a spreadsheet, a CRM offers far more capabilities than that.

91% of companies that employ 10 or more people use a CRM. That means there’s something to tracking your data. A CRM will automatically update your information whenever something occurs. You’ll be able to see hot and cold leads and understand where you need to put your focus.

Why is CRM software important?

Tracking your customers in one system that collects, organizes, and manages information to help you enhance the customer journey and experience makes a difference. CRM software helps improve communication and center the scalability of your business around the customer. Many companies aren’t ready for the scale—when things start moving, it’s easy for things to fall through the cracks. With a CRM, you won’t have that problem because everything is in one place, aligning all areas of the business.

Essentially, free CRM software helps the company understand, connect with, and grow its audience. In one survey, 47% of businesses claimed that CRMs significantly impacted customer satisfaction rates. And, as you probably already know, satisfied customers are great for business.

Here are a few more benefits that come with using free CRM software:

• All your internal business teams are aligned: Think marketing, sales, and service. They must all work together to create a comprehensive buyer’s journey. With CRM software, they all have one platform where they can cross-communicate with data, ideas, and information. This creates a seamless experience on the consumer side, which is crucial to brand loyalty.
• Automation: All the tasks that must occur to enhance the customer journey are in one place and can be seamlessly integrated and automated into the system. This includes automatic entry of certain data, emails, follow-up communication, workflows for the sales team, conversations going on with chatbots, nurturing campaigns, assignments to salespeople, and analytics.
• Streamlining data: All captured data can be streamlined to easily sync and share this information with the team. Any conversations or interactions with clients are immediately updated so anyone else working on that file will know exactly what’s going on. This keeps everyone on the same page and helps in avoiding overlap.
• Customization: Workflows can be customized based on how your business deals with customers. This helps with organizing based on different variables such as names, companies, quotes, follow-ups, deals, service tickets, and more. Dashboards can also be customized to report data and track analytics to provide necessary insights.
• Interactions: There are many ways salespeople interact with current and potential customers. Because the vehicles are different, users can keep track of them, solving the challenge of attempting to communicate with customers on platforms they don’t use. A CRM allows you to engage with customers where they are most comfortable, offering call tracking, email tracking, live chats, chatbot conversations, social media management, and integration with video.

What features do the best free CRMs have?

When evaluating the features of free CRM software, it’s important to consider your needs and how the features of a CRM can fit into your business model. Some of the main features of the best free CRM software systems include:

Easy to use

A CRM should be very flexible and easy to use. Ultimately, CRMs should be saving your company time, and an overcomplicated system can end up costing more than it's worth. Many CRMs also have visualization tools and customizable options that make using them even easier.

Analytics and insights

Customer insights and data help make better decisions based on real-time information. This also helps in creating messages that resonate with the audience. A CRM provides clear data that can show customer behaviors, usage, and segment them to create personalized campaigns.

Simple app integrations

Having the ability to seamlessly connect to other solutions that are already in use saves time and money. While a CRM does a lot of things, you may already be using accounting software or email marketing software that is efficient and effective. With the ability to connect those to a CRM platform, you have created a customized solution that is native to your internal operations. Thus, you should always make sure that the free CRM software you choose allows for app integrations that enable you to optimize your workflow.

Effective audience management tools

This feature helps streamline communication and manage the audience in multiple ways. These are essential to the marketing, sales, service, and customer support teams. The data analysis will provide insight into the target audience to personalize every touchpoint with your customers. This helps improve marketing campaigns, getting the right message in front of the right audience. You’ll be better suited for targeting specific groups, getting a better sense of their needs, finding new customers, and identifying preferences and trends.

The best free CRM software

Can you find a CRM for free? There are a few companies who understand the pain points of small businesses that want the advantages of having streamlined solutions but may not have this as a line item in their budget. Each one of these systems has a robust free CRM solution to help level the playing field:

Mailchimp

There are many benefits to using Mailchimp as a CRM. Small businesses who want the convenience and scalability of a CRM—but at the same time feel as if they won’t be able to afford it—can enjoy the free plan that provides access to CRM features. With Mailchimp’s free CRM software, you’ll be able to get a holistic view of your audience, connect your favorite tools, organize and segment your contacts, gain insights on how to communicate with your audience, and build a personalized experience for your customers.

The platform is simple and easy to use, creating a seamless experience for internal users to transition into a new platform. Users can input and organize information quickly, cutting down on time while creating new opportunities for engagement. You'll be able to better understand certain patterns within the data and organize what you know to create impactful marketing campaigns. It is very easy to stay connected with a mobile app that helps capitalize on opportunities anytime, anywhere.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a very robust system. Their free plan includes a reporting dashboard for metrics on activity and performance. CRM tools like contact website activity, contact management, deals, tasks, activities, companies, and their insights are also part of the package. There are also marketing tools like email marketing, forms, ad management, a shared inbox, list segmentation, and landing pages.

Companies with service teams can also benefit from their ticketing service tools like email scheduling and ticket closed reports. Integrate with Outlook, Gmail, Messenger, and the App Marketplace. There are sales documents, in-app calling with VoIP, email tools, community support, and HubSpot Academy.

Freshsales

The free plan on Freshsales includes tasks, appointments, notes, and CRM renaming capabilities. There is also contact and account management, contact lifecycle stages, and an activity timeline. Users can import, export, and migrate data, have deal management options, a built-in phone dialer with the ability to purchase local and toll-free numbers, and inbound caller ID.

Additional features include conversation threads and a chat widget, classic and smart website integration forms along with tracking, role-based access, and customer support 24/5 via email, chat, or phone. The free plan is also accessible on iOS and Android.

Zoho

The Zoho free CRM software platform offers views, tasks, events, advanced filters, logs, and notes. Lead, contact, account, and deal management with page customization and renaming options are also standard. Automation of workflow rules, standard reports, and marketing automation is part of the deal, along with 10 marketing email templates, email authentication, and opt-out.

Collaborators can use calendars, direct messaging, status updates, file attachments, and website visitor tracking. Web-to-lead and contact forms are included, along with access to their knowledge base, a community forum, and available email and phone support. Zoho is also available on iOS and Android.

Final notes

Having a CRM can be the one thing that helps your small business scale to greatness. Being able to streamline operations while integrating solutions that already work within your operations helps you operate at higher levels of productivity and efficiency.

Using free CRM software until you need to upgrade to a more comprehensive platform has benefits you can’t ignore. From gaining insight into your customers and their behaviors, to having your team use one platform to stay connected and engaged with each other, there’s no better solution than free CRM software. Integrating free CRM for small business operations into your business model could be one of the best solutions to bring everyone together on the same page.

Mailchimp’s all-in-one marketing platform not only gives you the benefits of a robust CRM platform, but so much more. From contact management to navigating on their mobile app, you’ll be able to market smarter without working harder. It’s time to organize what you know to turn audience insights into action. Try our CRM feature for your small business.