If you are in the market for a good CRM, you’ve probably considered SugarCRM. While this is a good tool, it does lack in certain departments, meaning it’s not for everyone. If you are one of those people, make sure to keep reading as we are going to give you a quick overview of a few great alternatives of Sugar CRM.
But first, in order to establish a baseline to compare our other programs, let’s look at what SugarCRM has to offer. Offering a pretty straightforward user interface without too many additional features, SugarCRM lets you easily manage your accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities. All of these offer additional information, allowing you to filter and sort through your searches.
In combination with this, SugarCRM provides you with a few other housekeeping tools like a calendar, note pad, and tasks. All of these features get the job done but lack additional functionality. All in all, a solid tool that contains everything one needs to get started, with a price point of around £180 depending on the number of users. But, if you’re looking for something other than SugarCRM allow us to introduce you to some of its best alternatives.
1. Salesforce
Being one of the first CRM tools that made a name for its self, we have Salesforce. Its main selling points are the program’s reputation and the plethora of additional tools that can be added to Salesforce. Another benefit of Salesforce is the fact that it is cloud-based, which can be a hit or miss, depending on your preference. Since we are talking about using it purely as a CRM, we will be interested in the Sales Cloud product.
Equipped with features that allow you to manage your contacts, opportunities, and sales, it has all of the basic tools checked. In addition to that, the Sales Cloud has a few process automation features that allow you to automate mundane tasks like email alerts, activity tracking, and workflows. All of this can be accessed via your computer or dedicated mobile app.
But like we already mentioned, the biggest upside of this tool is the fact that Salesforce offers additional tools that can be easily integrated into the Salesforce platform. Marketing, commerce, analytics, and many other tools are available at your fingertips. The pricing will vary heavily depending on the selection of tools that you pick out, so we suggest heading over to their site and checking it out for yourself.
2. Zoho Office Suite
Or simply Zoho, for short, is another cloud-based CRM. Like Salesforce and SugarCRM, it too provides all of the necessary features that will allow you to keep track of your leads, deals, and contacts. In addition to that, it has a few extra features that make it stand out, like a chatbot, an AI assistant, and workflow automation. Even though Zoho has a modern layout, it doesn’t sacrifice the robustness that a tool like SugarCRM has.
Having said that, let’s focus on the features that make Zoho interesting. Many companies can benefit from a chatbot, but it can be a hard sell for some people, as creating one can be a difficult task. With Zoho’s SalesIQ, you can quickly and easily create a chatbot that is perfect for your needs; plus, if you ever get stuck, you can always ask Zia for help. Zia is the previously mentioned AI, its main purpose being to help you use Zoho to its full potential. You can think of her like Clippy, but only actually useful.
Another selling point of Zoho is its pricing. Being the cheapest tool out of all the previously mentioned ones. With an average price of €40 a month, Zoho is perfect for small to medium-sized businesses. But it doesn’t end there, as Zoho also has a free version with nearly all features and can be used by three people.
3. Monday
When it comes to robustness, Monday really takes the cake. Not only is it free, but it also has a beautiful interface that even complete newbies can wrap their heads around. This tool can be fitted for any industry and can be used for keeping track of many tasks other than contacts, leads, and customers. This is achieved by using templates that can be downloaded or created from scratch. This is a double-edged sword, as it does offer immense amounts of customizability, but you will either have to put in the hours to make it yourself, or you will have to spend time searching for just the right template.
While Monday is free in theory, most of its features are locked behind a paywall. You will have to spend some money if you want additional features like integration with other tools, automation, guest access, and calendar view. Thankfully the barrier for entry isn’t high, as the base plan costs 30$ for three users.
4. Mailchimp
While this did start out as a tool that lets you automate your e-mail sending process, Mailchimp has evolved into a great CRM that rivals the big boys. What makes Mailchimp really stand out is the aforementioned marketing features. So if you need a CRM but are also looking for a marketing solution, Mailchimp will be perfect for you. Mailchimp has all of the basic features like customer, lead and contact management tools, as well as offering tools like campaign segmentation and demographic targeting. By using Mailchimp, you will really get to know your audience, making it that much easier to cater to their needs.
5. Nimble
If you are using Office 365 and or Google Workspace, you will want to consider Nimble. By letting you import data from multiple sources and by offering integration with many tools, Nimble comes closest to creating an all-in-one solution for your workplace. After importing all of your information, you can easily create contact profiles and organize them into segments, making them easy to use with additional features like pipeline management and automation.
Another great feature of Nimble is the fact that it can be accessed while browsing via a sidebar, making it easy to gather contact information from websites like Twitter or LinkedIn. With a plethora of additional features that would take too much to cover, Nimble is a great solution for your CRM needs.
6. Creatio
Creatio unified low-code platform for sales, marketing and service. Creatio allows you to automate and accelerate the business processes of large companies from various industries. For medium and big business 24 ready-made industry solutions are offered (banks, oil and gas, logistics, pharmaceuticals, business support centers, etc.). Low-code tools allow you to customize the system as much as possible without involving developers.
Creatio also has tools for effective marketing and service – planning events, all kinds of mailings, processing service requests and requests. Built-in case management technologies, based on the world’s best sales practices, provide interaction tactics and regulate each stage of the transaction. This opportunity is especially relevant in the B2B segment.
In Conclusion
The whole CRM space is pretty overcrowded. Making it hard to weed out the good from the bad. Having said that, we hope that this article has helped you in making an informed decision when picking out a CRM for your company.
