Sales efficiency: the sales metric that pits your team’s gross revenue against its cost of operation.
It’s a gold standard for measuring how well a sales team, department, or process is performing. It’s a simple, straightforward benchmark that can tell you how well your sales efforts stack up with your goals and your competitors’ performance.
It might go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: you want your salespeople, teams, and processes to be as efficient as possible. That’s why you should constantly be exploring the strategies and technology that will put you in the best position to boost your revenue without incurring disproportionately high costs.
Efficiency doesn’t always come easy, but there are readily available resources that can certainly help your case — namely, all in one CRMs.
All in one CRMs — or Customer Relationship Management systems — integrate a variety of marketing, sales, and support resources into a company’s day-to-day operations.
As the name implies, all in one CRMs are a holistic solution to a company’s needs. They offer resources to help with processes like attracting prospects, qualifying leads, closing deals, and retaining and delighting customers.
For a sales team, they can provide a central location for storing prospect and customer contact information. They can also log info about current accounts, leads, and previous customer communication.
Many can also take some of the pressure off of sales reps by at least partially automating monotonous, time-consuming tasks like filling out forms and sending reports.
With all of those features and factors, all in one CRM have the potential to streamline a company’s sales lifecycle. They can save your team money, take some of the administrative weight off of your reps, and give you more time and flexibility to pursue leads.
In short, they make your sales teams, departments, and processes more efficient.
In this article, I’ll show you some of the best all in one CRMs available for sales teams and offer some guidance on whether they’re right for your business.
1. HubSpot
- Price: Free
HubSpot’s CRM has a suite of features that can cover almost any marketing, sales, or customer support needs. The HubSpot Sales Hub fits seamlessly into your sales team's operations by automating processes like coordinating sales workflows, personal outreach, and data entry.
The CRM also offers the resources to help you craft content offers, schedule email campaigns, set up a solid customer support infrastructure, and more.
HubSpot’s CRM is a good choice for businesses of any size, although small to midsize businesses tend to gravitate toward it the most. That’s not to say larger enterprises can’t still get a lot out of the platform. No matter the size of your organization, HubSpot’s CRM is a versatile choice that suits most business needs.
2. Nextiva CRM
Nextiva is a cloud-based CRM that consolidates all company communications into a single platform, allowing a company’s sales, marketing, and support teams to easily stay on the same page. The platform’s comprehensive experience scoring and AI tools give companies a holistic view of their customers and help develop seamless, satisfying customer experiences.
Nextiva’s biggest draw may be how well it handles multi-channel customer communication. If your business is looking for a CRM that can provide a solid communication infrastructure for sales and customer support reps, you should explore Nextiva as a potential option.
3. Capsule CRM
Capsule comes with a variety of customization options to help suit individual companies’ specific needs and challenges. These features include custom fields, tags, and branding options. One of Capsule’s biggest perks is its accessibility. It has a simple, straightforward interface and easily integrates with third-party applications, including G Suite and MailChimp.
Those factors — coupled with its competitive pricing — make Capsule a great choice for small to midsize businesses looking for an effective CRM without much hassle.
4. HatchBuck
HatchBuck’s CRM is a versatile solution that fits a wide variety of business needs. Its email marketing, marketing automation, and sales automation tools stand out both in the field of CRMs and as its strongest features.
Companies in almost any sector — from advertising to hospitality to real estate — can benefit from leveraging HatchBuck. Though the platform can suit organizations across a variety of industries, it's still tailored to small to midsize businesses.
5. Agile CRM
- Price: Free for up to 10 users
Agile CRM features a simple, streamlined drag and drop project management tool. Its interface makes managing tasks and passing information between your support, sales, and marketing departments straightforward and seamless. It also contains features like lead scoring and segmentation tools.
Agile generally suits small to midsize businesses better than larger enterprises, and its pricing structure reflects that. Its free plan is a great option for smaller businesses and startups that may lack the resources to pay for premium plans elsewhere.
6. Accelo
Accelo’s CRM features tools for lead scoring, drafting quotes and proposals, segmentation, and task management. It also has an impressive range of integrations with other leading platforms, including Salesforce, Jira, Quickbooks, and Hubspot.
Accelo focuses on the professional service sector. The platform is tailored for smaller businesses that employ professionals like architects, accountants, engineers, and designers. If your company fits that bill, it’s worth checking Accelo out.
7. GreenRope
GreenRope is a CRM that strives for simplicity. It’s designed to reconcile powerful software solutions with ease of use. The platform includes features like territory management, segmentation, lead scoring. It also has a straightforward interface that doesn’t require much setup or training
GreenRope has a wide variety of pricing plans to suit an equally wide variety of business sizes. The platform is slightly pricier than most, so it may not be best for very small business and startups. Still, any business that is looking for something simple but effective should consider giving GreenRope a shot.
8. WORK[etc]
WORK[etc] is a cloud-computing CRM that emphasizes collaboration. The platform consolidates virtually every aspect of a business’s operations and enables easy communication between different departments.
The CRM works for smaller businesses across virtually every industry — from digital advertising firms to real estate agencies. The pricing is a bit more expensive than similar CRMs, but it’s worth exploring for small companies looking to streamline all aspects of their businesses.
9. VTiger
VTiger is an affordable CRM with particularly strong sales and marketing automation tools for its relatively low price. The platform also offers solid project and inventory management infrastructure and boasts a total of over 300,000 customers worldwide
The platform has a robust suite of features across marketing, sales, and service. With plans starting as low as $30 per month for its all in one CRM, VTiger is a great option for small businesses running on a tight budget.
10. Keap
Keap provides the resources to help you organize information about leads, clients, business communication. Its email and daily work automation features take some of the burden out of the frustratingly monotonous side of your business.
Keap has an exceptional invoice and payment integrations allow you to accept credit cards, send invoices, and track outstanding payments. That’s where the platform really stands out. It’s an ideal CRM for small businesses that conduct online transactions on a consistent basis.
The term Customer Relationship Manager doesn’t really capture the full scope of what CRMs do. Sure, CRMs are designed, first and foremost, to help you better serve your customers, so “customer” being the operative word in the term makes sense.
But they could just as easily be called “MLEFEABOS” or “Make Life Easier for Employees and Business Owner Systems.” It’s a working title, but it gets the point across. A CRM makes your day-to-day smoother and less stressful while making your business operations more efficient. With so many options across so many price ranges, investing in a CRM is definitely worth exploring.
So go ahead. Get online and get yourself a MLEFEABOS (or CRM, if you're traditional) of your very own.
