Frequently asked questions about comparing CRMs

Check out some of the most common questions about comparing CRMs below. For a step-by-step guide to comparing your CRM options, download our CRM comparison spreadsheet.

What is CRM software?

CRM software is a platform that helps businesses manage contacts, leads, and customers, centralizing contact data, communication history, and sales pipeline activity in one place. Sales, marketing, and customer support teams all use CRM to stay organized and work from the same information.

Learn more: What does a CRM actually do? →

Why do you need a CRM?

Businesses of all sizes need a CRM to track and manage their contacts, interactions, and pipelines. Having a CRM becomes even more essential as a business grows. A CRM helps you keep up with communications and potential deals, personalize your messaging, provide improved customer service, save time through automation, and much more.

Why is choosing the right CRM important?

The right CRM saves your team time, enhances organization, and improves productivity. It also supports your business as you grow. Choosing a CRM that’s easy to use and includes the features you need ensures you get the most return on your investment and prevents you from wasting time, effort, and resources on a solution that doesn’t fit your team’s needs.

Which factors should you consider when choosing a CRM?

Although you should always personalize your search to any unique needs your business has, the most essential factors to consider when selecting a CRM are:

• • Features: Consider your goals for using your CRM and look for options that have the features you need to achieve them.

• • Ease of use: User-friendliness is an important consideration as it will impact adoption rate, setup time, efficiency and productivity for your team.

• • Integrations: Integrating your CRM with other tools your business uses streamlines your processes even further. Look for CRMs that can integrate with your other software whether through native, third-party, or customer integrations.

• • Support: Fast, friendly, helpful customer support is crucial for getting the most out of your CRM, even if it’s user-friendly. Evaluate the support options each CRM offers and what other customers say about support quality.

• • Pricing: Determine your budget before you begin your search and evaluate the pricing options for each CRM you’re considering.

• • Scalability and customization: It’s important to choose a CRM that you can customize as needed and that can scale with you as your business grows.