10 Best CRM Software in 2023

In today's fast-paced business world, customer relationship management (CRM) has become an essential tool for companies to manage their interactions with clients and customers. With the abundance of CRM software providers available, it can be overwhelming for a business to choose the right one for their needs.

It's important to know what to look for, as subjective sources on the internet can provide false information, and it's difficult to know who to trust. Moreover, the reason for searching for CRM software might vary — be it the need for improved customer experience, better collaboration, or even to replace an existing, outdated system. That’s why we’ve developed a comprehensive and objective research evaluation process to accurately evaluate CRM software based on a series of categories. To help you make an informed decision, let's take a closer look.

What is CRM Software?

Businesses use CRM software as a tool to manage customer interactions and data over the course of the customer lifecycle. It assists in tracking interactions, analyzing customer behavior, and enhancing client connections. Businesses can efficiently manage their sales, marketing, and customer care activities when they have a CRM system in place.

CRM software enables organizations to personalize their interactions and provide better service by centralizing customer data and giving each customer a detailed persona that is all managed in one place.

CRM software is versatile and can help you streamline internal procedures, boost productivity, and make better sales & marketing decisions.

What Makes the Best CRM Software

Finding the key features that offer the user the most value is essential for choosing the best CRM software. We have narrowed down the following criteria as being the most crucial for determining the best CRM software after doing in-depth research, evaluating user data, and interviewing industry experts:

Features

A software’s features have a direct impact on a company's capacity to handle customer interactions and data, making them one of the biggest factors in picking the best CRM software. For organizations trying to track and follow up with potential consumers, lead management is crucial. Businesses can ensure they never miss an opportunity to convert a lead into a client by having a central location to keep lead data.

When evaluating the features, we focused on the number of leads a tool allows, workflow, and communication features.

Gain more insight into the criteria we used to evaluate CRM features by checking out our page on CRM software with the best features.

Pricing

Pricing plays a significant role in evaluating CRM software because it affects the overall cost of operations for a team and business. The number of users included, the admission price per month, and the cost per extra user are all important considerations. These elements affect the price of the software over time, particularly when considering how well it grows with your company. Making a purchasing decision requires selecting CRM software with a pricing structure that suits your budget and offers adequate value for money.

Visit our page on CRM software with the best pricing to learn more about the standards we used to evaluate based on cost.

Reporting

Reporting is an essential factor to think about because it offers insightful information about how a business is performing. Email tracking, sales insights, A/B testing, custom reports, lead scoring, sales forecasting, and predictive forecasting are all provided by CRM software's reporting tools and are vital for making data-driven decisions.

Email monitoring gives companies insight into the performance of their email marketing initiatives by providing data on open rates, click rates, and response times. Sales insights provide a thorough picture of both team and individual sales performance. Businesses can also test many iterations of campaigns, emails, or website pages using A/B testing to boost performance across these areas.

See how we measured and evaluated the reporting aspects of CRM software by visiting our dedicated page highlighting programs with the best reporting.

Team Management

A CRM software's capacity to manage teams is essential since it enables teams to collaborate more successfully. To promote team success, team leaders need to be able to manage and coordinate team tasks as well as review the team's performance.

The ability to assign tasks and track progress, monitor team member performance, and manage workloads and schedules are a few of the key features of team management in CRM software. With the use of team management, group leaders can easily pinpoint areas in need of improvement and offer the assistance required to cultivate success.

For more detail on how team management is assessed in our research, head to our best team management page for CRM software.

Integrations

In order for organizations to use their CRM software with other existing tools and apps they use, integrations should be a factor in selecting one. With proper integrations, organizations can streamline processes, automate everyday tasks, and provide users with a more seamless experience as a result.

Some of the important integrations to look for include those with marketing automation tools, customer support platforms, and payment systems. By integrating these technologies, businesses may boost productivity, enhance data accuracy, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Explore the full range of factors we took into account by looking at our best integrations page for CRM software.

Security

When selecting CRM software, security is an important consideration because it can help safeguard private corporate data and preserve sensitive customer data.

Companies should pick a CRM system with strong security measures to guard against data breaches and unauthorized access.

Encryption of data in transit and at rest, access control, authentication, and safe data backups are some of the significant security features to pay attention to when assessing CRM software.

A lot of research went into ranking the security features of CRM software, which we dive into in full detail on our page for security.

Ease of Use

The ease of use of CRM software is important since it can help to ensure that employees can use it effectively and efficiently. An intuitive CRM software helps speed up business operations, boost output, and reduce the time spent on tasks.

Organizations should take into account the user interface, the simplicity of navigation, and the availability of training and support services when evaluating how user-friendly CRM software is. It’s also good to be aware of the CRM software's level of flexibility and personalization, as this can add the comfort of knowing that the program can be adapted to satisfy different needs.

To find out more about what makes software easier to use than others, explore the research behind our rankings in this category here.

Customer Support

The level of customer assistance offered should be considered when deciding on CRM software. Especially during the onboarding process, customer support can be crucial to ensuring that businesses can make the most of the platform and address any issues that may arise.

You should take into account variables including the accessibility of support resources, response times, and the level of expertise offered by support teams when evaluating the quality of customer assistance. In order to be sure that employees are capable of operating the system successfully and efficiently, also take into account the availability of training and support tools, such as online forums and tutorials.

Learn the full details of our customer support criteria and research for CRM software by visiting its dedicated page here.

The 10 Best CRM Software

How to Choose the Best CRM Software for Your Needs

It can be difficult to choose the best CRM software for your needs, but it is necessary to have the correct tool to support business growth. Determine your unique demands and priorities first in order to make the best decision. Take into account the size of your company, the kinds of interactions you have with your clients, and the features you need and want to use. This can include features like basic lead management, email monitoring, customized reports, and more.

It's good business to consider your budget and find a pricing structure that will work best for you in the long run. To make sure you're adopting the right software for you and your team, be sure to evaluate each software provider's simplicity of use and degree of customer assistance if a large team has to work with it.

We hope our Best Picks have been useful for you in finding the best CRM Software for your business needs. If you’re still exploring your options, be sure to check out our CRM software Comparison Tool and Finder Tool to boost your chances of finding your perfect match.