Top 10 Best CRM Apps for 2024 and Why Your Small Business Needs One

What is a CRM App?

CRM (customer relationship management) apps help your company access and organize customer data. However, CRM apps nowadays aren’t just glorified notebooks and Rolodexes. These databases can do much more than simply store customer data.

Modern CRM apps let different departments collaborate by pooling together their notes and metrics into one system. What this means is that, for instance, your sales team can pull data on what the marketing team did to get a customer to call your business, so they can continue the customer journey seamlessly. This way, the customer experience doesn’t feel disjointed and instead feels like one seamless throughline.

Why CRM Apps Matter For Your Small Business

CRM isn’t just good for large businesses. CRM can also help your small business by allowing you to:

• Store Customer Data Intelligently: Customer data storage isn’t just about saving phone numbers and addresses. Good CRM systems also store client interactions with your businesses, product preferences, and other data you can use to personalize service. This way, your sales and marketing approach can be customized to fit the target and not feel generic.
• Improve Information Transparency: Coordinating between different departments is tough as you may need to send back and forth messages to ensure everyone is on the same page. However, having a CRM database that all relevant personnel can access saves your business a lot of time and reduces miscommunication.
• Get Better Insights: The best CRM app doesn’t just help you store data, either. Most offer analytics tools so you can dig deeper into the data and get insights, such as which customer approaches work or which demographics respond the best to a certain campaign. This way, you can analyze which of your strategies work as well as improve less-effective marketing efforts.

What Are the Key Features of a CRM System

CRM apps offer numerous features to improve your lead management and marketing performance. Here are some of the most prominent features you get from the best CRM app.

• Lead Management: Many CRM apps help you identify marketing leads as well as what actions they’ve taken along the sales cycle. Your CRM app can rate your leads by their likelihood to make a purchase and pass them over to a different team member if needed. You can also re-engage inactive leads to nudge them back into the sales cycle. 
• Real-Time Data Updates: A CRM system’s ability to pull real-time data is one of its greatest assets. On-demand data gives you a quick peek into marketing demand and which products are the most popular, which in turn helps you make on-the-fly marketing plan adjustments.
• Data Analytics:  You don’t have to pull insights from the data yourself. The best CRM app offers data analytics features that let you determine ROI, check your customer segmentation, and examine customer behavior within a few clicks. Some even offer actionable insights and recommendations.
• Sales Forecasting: CRM apps also predict future sales based on your current sales data. This helps you adjust and refocus your marketing plans as well as anticipate upcoming changes in the market.

How Can a CRM System Help Your Small Business

If you’re still on the fence about purchasing a CRM app, here are five things that CRM allows your business to do.

• Know Your Customers: Knowing your customers means more than just storing their names and addresses. CRM apps let you record a customer’s favorite products, preferences, and other important information that can be pulled up at a moment’s notice. 
• Centralize Your Information: Implementing CRM systems means merging your sales and marketing data with other departments, such as accounts, inventory, and delivery. This means no more back-and-forth messages between departments. You just need to check the data to see a package’s delivery status or check where a customer is along the sales journey.
• Refine Your Marketing Approach: Analytics features offered by your CRM app allow you to examine marketing results quickly. By examining what works and what doesn’t, you can refine your marketing approach and business plan on the fly. 
• Boost Your Sales: Knowing your customers means you can create tailor-made marketing efforts to win over certain demographics. This improved precision means you’ll get more customers and boost sales.
• Improve Customer Retention: The more personalized approach provided by CRM systems also makes it easier to improve customer satisfaction and retention. More customers sticking around means they’re more likely to buy more of your products or services.

What Makes a Great CRM Platform

Now that you’ve learned what CRM can do for your business, it’s time to learn what makes “the best” CRM app. Here are four key factors that you need to find in a CRM platform.

• Easy To Integrate: If you’ve been a business owner for a while, you may already have a platform to store customer data and other important information. A good CRM platform should be able to integrate with your existing platforms without forcing you to transfer data manually or start over from scratch.
  Quick CRM integration is not only seamless and painless, but it also takes much less time to implement, minimizing your project costs. 

• Adaptability: Different businesses have different needs, which means a good CRM needs to be adaptable. The best CRM app should have strong change management features so it can accommodate the ever-shifting marketing landscape. 
• Grows With Your Business: Your small business may not be small forever. If you’re looking to expand in the future, you should find a CRM that can handle an increasing volume of customer inquiries and orders so it can still support you as your business grows. 
• Out-Of-The-Box Functionality: While adaptability is important, good CRM apps need to have robust default features. If its basic features are strong enough already, you may not need to customize the CRM app as much to fit your business needs.

Finding the Right CRM App for Your Business

Finding the right CRM app isn’t easy, especially with all the options on offer. Consider these factors when you’re hunting for the best CRM app for your company.

• Identify your goals: The first thing you need to consider is what you want to gain with this new CRM. Pick what matters the most to you – lead tracking, for instance – and choose a CRM app that specializes in that.
• Think about future plans: Consider where you see your company in the next few years. If you plan on getting bigger, pick a CRM that can grow alongside your company.
• Understand how to implement it: All new software requires time to implement and get used to. Think about how a new CRM system will affect your workflows and how long it’ll take for your team to adjust to it.
• Prepare your team: There’s bound to be resistance whenever implementing a new system. Reassure your sales staff that this system is there to help them, not replace them. While data is shared among everyone by implementing CRM, your team still owns their personal relationships with clients.
• Consider your team’s mobility: With the ubiquity of remote working today, you may need a CRM that supports both mobile and laptop clients. If you have a highly-mobile sales team, consider a CRM app that still performs great while on the go.
• Review software compatibility: Prevent costly and time-consuming mistakes when integrating your CRM by seeing how they work alongside your existing software.
• Try a product demo: Nothing beats a hands-on experience. Many companies offer a 2-week trial of their product before you buy – use this time to put the software through its paces. Spend time trying to “break” this demo and simulate the busiest days of your business to see how the app takes the extra pressure.

How We Evaluated the Best CRM Apps

There are many things to consider when choosing the best CRM app for your business. However, we’ve narrowed it down to five main criteria – you can also use these to do the legwork yourself.

• Pricing: The price of CRM systems isn’t just about how much the subscription is worth since some systems require an extra cost to implement.
• Features: A feature-rich CRM app naturally does a lot of things. If you need a CRM system with plenty of tools, you need to pay extra attention to this category.
• Mobility: Since sales teams tend to be highly mobile, you may need a CRM that can be taken anywhere. CRM systems that offer desktop and mobile apps usually score highly in this category.
• Integration: Great CRM apps need to seamlessly integrate with existing business processes and apps. This lets you use the CRM sooner since it can fit in easily with all the systems you’ve put in place.
• Customer service: Things may go wrong sometimes, which is why good customer support is essential. Many CRM app providers offer dedicated support hotlines to take your questions and complaints.