As a small business owner, the last thing you need is to spend time searching through spreadsheets to find detailed information about a customer and where they are in your sales process. 

Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens in many small businesses. 

Qualified leads can get lost. 

Prospective customers who reach out for information may get a response, but then there is no follow up from the business to see if the prospect has more questions, or to ask for the order. 

Even when a business follows up to see if they can convert this lead to a sale, keeping track of every meaningful conversation is hard.

This is where CRM tools can be helpful. Customer relationship management (CRM) tools help small businesses manage customer information, and track leads and interactions effectively with existing and potential customers – all in a central place. 

There are lots of CRM tools out there, but the problem small businesses face is choosing the ideal one that best fits their needs. In this guide, I share 5 CRM tools small businesses could use to grow their customer base. (I am not an affiliate or partner of any of these platforms.)

1. SendPulse 

Unlike most tools in this list, SendPulse’s CRM unifies contacts, deals, and conversations from multiple channels. 

With this tool you have email, SMS, live chat, and chatbots across WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger incorporated into a single pipeline view. Leads generated by a campaign land straight in a sales manager’s queue instead of getting lost between separate tools. 

As a result, the ecommerce-oriented CRM shares data with SendPulse’s marketing automation; it’s built less around passive record-keeping and more around actively attracting leads and converting them into customers.

2. Pipedrive

For small businesses that want to know exactly where each prospect sits in the sales journey, Pipedrive might be the CRM tool you need. It visualizes the entire sales funnel and pipeline to support leads captured converting to sales. 

For small businesses with no dedicated sales team, Pipedrive fills this gap by ensuring that you don’t lose track of prospects who have already shown interest in purchasing your products or services.

3. GetResponse

GetResponse is designed to help small businesses automate communication throughout the customer journey. It eliminates the need for businesses to manually send emails or follow-ups to get a lead to take a desired action. 

I like the conversion funnel builder that allows you to build a sales funnel from scratch, and the segmentation feature that allows you to send personalized campaigns to a target list. 

4. HubSpot CRM

With HubSpot, you bring customer information, deals, sales activity, and lead management together in one system. This saves businesses the stress of managing customer information with spreadsheets, separate inboxes, or disconnected tools. 

The lead management and tracking features are advanced. You can monitor interactions, use lead-scoring tools to prioritize leads, and segment contacts based on factors such as email engagement and website activity.

5. ActiveCampaign

For small businesses that are keen on identifying promising leads and nurturing them towards sales, ActiveCampaign might be your go-to CRM tool. It has features that allow you to organize customer contacts, track customer interactions, and monitor where prospects are in the sales journey. 

For businesses that don’t want to waste time on low-quality leads, you can use the lead score feature to pick high-quality leads based on their engagement so your sales team can focus on converting them to sales. 

In conclusion, growing your customer base as a small business has been made easier, thanks to CRM tools. You no longer have to collect customer information manually or rely on spreadsheets. Each of the CRM tools mentioned above has everything you need to grow your customer base. Compare their features to your needs and pick one that will work best to grow your business. 

Photo by Zulfugar Karimov on Unsplash