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How to Choose the Best CRM Software for Your Business

Chelsea Verstegen
June 30, 2022
How to choose the best CRM platform for your business. A Customer Relationship Management platform, or a CRM, is a place where you manage customer relationships
Image from nextecgroup.com


What does CRM software allow a company to do?

Customer Relationship Management software, or a CRM, is a place where you can manage your business relationships with customers and prospects. Often sold as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model, many CRMs don’t require you to purchase expensive equipment or house on-premise machines. Additionally, an effective CRM can be an all-in-one management tool that transforms the way you service and speak to your customers, and can help you cut down on operating costs as well as hours and hours of wasted time.

While CRM software solutions are essential for business growth and managing business processes as well as customer relationships, not all CRM softwares are alike. Some CRMs offer great added features such as third-party integrations like Google Drive and Microsoft Office, lead management that makes follow up a breeze, the ability to easily run email campaigns and simplify the email marketing process, sales forecasting, and workflow automation. Whether you’re running a startup or an enterprise business, there’s a CRM tool that can help you organize your customer information, streamline data entry, and be much more than just a sales CRM. 

What to look for in a CRM Solution

The key factors that most companies use to decide which CRM is the best fit for their business needs are:

  1. Price
  2. Complexity / ease of use
  3. Channels e.g. email, phone, chat, etc
  4. Workflows and use cases e.g. self help, automation, e-commerce integration, etc

Here’s a breakdown of how to choose the best CRM software for your business. While many of these platforms offer free plans, we’ve included the lowest comparable pricing for you to review below each recommendation, but if you’d like a side-by-side comparison, you can download our comprehensive CRM system breakdown here. And if you’re looking for a phone system to compliment your CRM platform, check out our article that identifies the best phone systems for your business.

And if you’re interested in learning how Chatdesk integrates with these and other CRM platforms, you can learn more here

Best CRM for Ecommerce 

Who we like: Gorgias

Gorgias logo

Gorgias was created specifically as an ecommerce app that allows companies to centralize and automate their support to help customers faster. They’ve got an out of the box integration with Shopify and Magento that won’t cost you any extra budget or development lift, and gives you the ability to easily manage your sales funnel. You can create a seamless connection between your support tickets and your orders so you can have your customer data all in one place and make project management simple. These integrations also make it easy to personalize and automate your communication to scale, saving you time while providing a great customer experience. 

Price: $50 monthly for 350 tickets

Best Low-Cost CRMs for Small Businesses

Who we like: Front 

Front app logo

Front organizes your inbox, apps, and data so you can respond to your customers promptly. With price packages ranging from enterprise companies to individuals, you’ll be able to find a solution that fits your team and your budget.

Price: $49 monthly per agent


Who we like: Freshdesk

Freshdesk logo

Freshdesk offers an omnichannel, inexpensive CRM option for hosting your various support channels. Included in Freshdesk’s offerings are user-friendly inbuilt reports to track your team performance, customer satisfaction, and identify areas for improvement in your company’s support framework. They even have a free version for getting started that offers unlimited agents.

Price: $49 monthly per agent (billed annually), or $69 monthly per agent (billed monthly)

Best CRM for Startups

Who we like: Intercom 

Intercom logo

Intercom offers an early stage program, marketed specifically at startups. With messaging for sales reps, support agents, and marketing teams, their platform was built for companies looking to scale their business. Where Intercom really shines is their website real-time chat tool, which is great for lead generation and driving the sales cycle. They also have marketing automation capabilities that allow you to automate your customer discovery.

Price: $99 monthly per agent


Who we like: Zendesk 

Zendesk logo

Zendesk offers startups six months credit for free, meaning you can redeem up to six months of up to 100 agents for any combination of Zendesk Support, Talk, Chat, Guide, and Explore products, free of charge. Their omnichannel support solution can help your SMB give your customers the best support experience possible.

Price: $89 monthly per agent

Best Email CRM

Who we like: Front 

Front app logo

While Front does much more than manage your inbox, that’s a glowing feature of the software. Monitoring across shared and individual inboxes, Front ensures that you won’t send multiple replies to customers, gives you the ability to assign owners to handle messages, and report on email activity and response time. Front works best for teams that have many email inboxes like support@company.com, press@company.com, careers@company.com, etc. that are shared across multiple people in your company. If you’re looking for something to replace Gmail or G Suite, Front is your best bet. 

Price: $39 monthly per agent

Who we like: Zendesk 

Zendesk logo

Zendesk excels by allowing you to track and manage incoming support tickets from multiple channels with one inbox. Zendesk also converts support emails to tickets, and streamlines your support workflow with automatic assignments. It integrates with Google Calendar, MailChimp, Hubspot, Zapier, and Slack to serve your customers as seamlessly as possible. 

Price: $89 monthly per agent

Best Omnichannel CRM (Email, Chat, Phone Calls, Text, Social)

Who we like: Zendesk 

Zendesk logo

Zendesk is trusted by big brands like Slack, Venmo, and Uber to provide an omnichannel CRM. They offer email, chat, phone calls, text, social — including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn — all in one tool. They also have solutions for support and sales teams to manage customer experience and the sales process, and can be customized to meet the needs of your business.

Price: $89 monthly per agent

Who we like: Freshdesk

Freshdesk logo

Business owners love Freshdesk because it has an out-of-the-box omnichannel solution that makes customer management simple. They offer email, chat, phone, and social all in one tool. Agents can see contact information as well as the customer journey across all channels, including your website, email, phone, chat, and social media. This helps to effortlessly track where your prospects are in the sales pipeline as well.

Price: $79 monthly per agent (billed annually), or $99 monthly per agent (billed monthly)

Best Overall CRMs

Who we like: Kustomer 

Kustomer logo

If you’re looking for a change from Zendesk, Kustomer is a newer option that gives your customers the freedom to communicate with you at any time on any channel. Kustomer is competitive in price and has AI options, email integration, and enhancement add-ons that can make your customer service even more streamlined.

Price: $99 monthly per agent

Who we like: Gladly 

Gladly logo

Gladly puts the customer first with personalized customer service on all channels, including phones. Gladly boasts an “any channel” approach that meets your customers’ where they are, without requiring plug-ins or add-ons. 

Price: $150 monthly per user

Best Enterprise CRM Software

Who we like: Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce service cloud

Salesforce is ideal for enterprise companies, and provides online customer service on any device, intuitive lead scoring, and easily integrates customer interactions with client records. With the mobile app, your team members will be able to keep track of customer issues and resolutions as well as task management. Salesforce is also equipped with contact management, opportunity management, and marketing campaign features, and may require a steep learning curve, but it will get the job done. 

Price: $75 monthly per agent 

Who we like: Oracle Service Cloud

Oracle Service Cloud (formerly RightNow)

Oracle is a cloud-based platform accessible through Microsoft Outlook, iOS, and Android that currently supports over 2 billion global transactions a day. They’ve got personalized customer engagement, simplified automatic processing, and AI ad-ons for marketing and sales automation that will help your business thrive.

Price: Not provided by vendor

Who we like: NICE InContact

NICE InContact

NICE InContact is intent on breaking down silos across your service centers. It’s at the cutting edge of CRM software, has options for phone systems, and offers pre-built integrations that includes voice and intelligent routing. 

Price:$169 monthly per agent, $2,500 setup fee

Upgrade Your Customer Support CRM with Chatdesk

While all of these CRM solutions can serve your business differently, Chatdesk integrates with every single one of them, making your customer service all the more powerful. If you’re interested in seeing how Chatdesk can help solve support ticket backlog, reduce call volume, and improve your customer service across all channels, you can schedule a demo here

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