In a letter he wrote to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy in 1789, Benjamin Franklin famously wrote, “On this world, nothing could be stated to make sure, besides dying and taxes… and a shared repository for buyer contact info being useful for gross sales groups of all sizes, industries, and buildings.”
Alright, I admit I might need taken some artistic liberty with the final a part of that quote — however it does not make it any much less true.
Having the ability to readily entry and analyze buyer and prospect knowledge could make your gross sales efforts significantly simpler and simpler. That is why contact administration software program is all the time a selection to contemplate.
Hold studying to be taught extra, or bounce forward to the part you’re on the lookout for:
What’s contact administration?
Contact administration is the method of amassing, storing, organizing, and managing contact knowledge. This knowledge comes from prospects, leads, and different enterprise connections.
Environment friendly contact administration helps companies successfully use their contacts. It allows personalised communication, higher customer support, and improved gross sales alternatives.
What’s contact administration software program?
Contact administration software program is a device that provides companies a central house to arrange buyer info.
“Contact administration software program” is a catch-all time period for knowledge administration software program.
This software program enables you to monitor prospect, buyer, and vendor contact info. This could embody knowledge like:
- Addresses
- Particular person staff
- Related firms
- Open quotes
- Orders
- Gross sales historical past
It is a useful resource that may enhance your gross sales efforts by simplifying communication and making a single supply of fact. Contact administration software program may assist streamline processes like outreach and lead qualification.
Contact Administration Software program vs. Buyer Relationship Administration System
Contact administration software program and buyer relationship administration (CRM) programs each deal with knowledge administration and communication. However CRMs may assist companies handle gross sales, advertising, and customer support. A CRM may give a enterprise a transparent overview of the client expertise for superior evaluation, forecasting, reporting, and outreach.
Briefly, contact administration software program manages particular person contact knowledge, whereas a CRM system manages the complete buyer journey to drive enterprise development.
Attempt HubSpot CRM without spending a dime.
Advantages of Contact Administration Software program
Helps your online business do extra with much less.
Some companies use spreadsheets to arrange contact knowledge or let staff have their very own system for retaining contacts. In addition to creating chaos and bottlenecks, this method silos info. A central house for contact administration can:
- Save your staff’ time
- Improve productiveness
- Give your group a extra streamlined workflow
It additionally allows you to add automation and different time-savers to your contact processes.
Improves buyer relationships.
Each dialog with each buyer issues. A central supply of buyer knowledge could make distinctive particulars obtainable to the group members that want them. This helps your online business meet expectations, nurture buyer relationships, and personalize communication.
So, contact administration software program can enhance the client expertise for better satisfaction and loyalty.
Betters gross sales efficiency.
Contact administration software program usually contains instruments to:
- Handle gross sales leads
- Hold monitor of gross sales actions
- Analyze gross sales efficiency
These instruments can assist your group discover one of the best alternatives and use knowledge to enhance the gross sales course of. These enhancements can result in greater win charges, shorter gross sales cycles, and higher gross sales efficiency.
Allows group collaboration.
A central platform for contact particulars retains prospects from getting handed from division to division after they have an issue to unravel. It makes it simpler for groups to share the work it takes to maintain your prospects glad.
Improved collaboration means higher outcomes on your prospects and your online business. Take a look at this information for extra recommendations on how one can benefit from your contact administration software program.
Greatest Contact Administration Software program
Listed here are among the prime contact administration software program for small companies. Then, we’ll go over one of the best free and paid choices obtainable for any enterprise.
Greatest Contact Administration Software program for Small Enterprise
- HubSpot
- BIGContacts
- ActiveCampaign
- Freshworks
- Moosend
- Keap
1. HubSpot
Value: Free ceaselessly.
Get HubSpot’s Utterly Free CRM
HubSpot’s free CRM is a contact administration device plus a lot extra. You may by no means must manually add or replace contact information — HubSpot will care for that for you after each interplay you’ve gotten with a contact. Plus, contact information are enriched mechanically with knowledge from over 20 million companies.
The CRM and phone administration system is straightforward to get began with, use, and navigate.
Along with contact administration, different notable options embody:
- Pipeline administration
- Reporting dashboards
- Firm insights
- Deal monitoring
- E mail monitoring and notifications
- Prospect monitoring
- Assembly scheduling
- Stay chat
The CRM is fully free ceaselessly however you may improve at any time to a paid plan for extra options as your online business scales.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “We use HubSpot to handle new incoming leads, make revenue projections, and handle ongoing contacts. Managing lots of and hundreds of contacts is subsequent to inconceivable and not using a CRM and HubSpot makes the job very simple with all of the automation and reporting obtainable. It is good for organizing and transmitting all gross sales supplies and transaction paperwork as nicely.”
Professional Tip: Get HubSpot’s free-forever CRM platform that is simple to begin, will scale with your online business, and can help you develop higher.
2. BIGContacts
Value: Plans beginning at $5 per consumer/mo.
BIGContacts CRM simplifies contact administration to assist small companies construct buyer relationships. The device gives an in depth view of contact information together with their cellphone numbers, location, emails, earlier touches, transaction historical past, notes, and upcoming interactions. You possibly can retailer additional info beneath customized fields as nicely. Then, use these complete contact information to personalize varied outreach communications and campaigns.
BIGContacts means that you can seize knowledge from net types mechanically, eliminating guide effort and potential errors. The platform brings contacts and duties to 1 place, making it simple to remain up to date with upcoming actions.
The contact administration CRM gives the performance to tag and kind contacts via static and dynamic contact lists to enhance segmentation. The device integrates with a number of enterprise purposes comparable to accounting, analytics, and advertising software program. This makes it simpler to handle the whole lot associated to your contacts from a single platform. BIGContacts additionally gives distant entry, permitting you to maintain tabs in your contacts from wherever.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “Adjusting to working with the software program may be very simple, customers can share info and look at one another’s actions associated to sure job duties. Updating contacts when their info modifications could be difficult since you should add one other contact after which it could actually grow to be complicated when making an attempt to determine which one is right.”
3. ActiveCampaign
Value: Plans beginning at $49 per mo.
ActiveCampaign is a buyer expertise automation platform with a variety of contact administration options and capabilities.
ActiveCampaign pairs its contact administration capabilities along with your buyer lifecycle. The method begins with reaching and interesting your viewers, then nurturing and educating them, adopted by changing and shutting them, and lastly, supporting their development. To start the method of contact administration, the device can have you create a contact listing.
From there, merely add present e-mail contacts after which arrange your contacts by listing, tag, or customized discipline. ActiveCampaign will immediate you to construct segments on your prospects to can help you goal and personalize content material for them. This contact administration answer will assist you phase based mostly on communications like emails and types, too. Then, it will determine and pull out behavioral actions that may educate you extra about prospects in these segments.
ActiveCampaign additionally gives case research. This can assist you be taught in regards to the ways in which different firms like yours are utilizing the software program’s contact administration instruments and the way they phase their prospects.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “With ActiveCampaign you may automate gives, listing administration, and phone administration. You possibly can schedule appointments, add notes to contacts, and ship them direct messages. To enhance the general consumer expertise, you may ship personalised messages to your web site customers. To transform extra guests, you may construct a form of gross sales funnel.”
4. Freshworks
Value: CRM plans beginning at $15 per consumer/ mo.
Freshworks is a CRM and phone administration system that helps you handle and nurture your contacts to create sturdy and lasting relationships with them. It automates contact knowledge entry for you and gives 360-degree views of particular person prospects.
Freshworks tracks gross sales actions, manages gross sales duties and appointments, and means that you can place calls or ship emails with out having to go away the device. You possibly can combine with Google Workspace to entry Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, and extra all from Freshworks.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “Customers can effectively handle their contacts, monitor interactions, and keep a complete view of buyer particulars, comparable to e-mail conversations, cellphone calls, and social media interactions.”
5. Moosend
Value: Plans beginning at $9 per mo.
Moosend is an e-mail advertising automation platform with superior viewers administration options to maintain your contacts organized. Moosend’s CRM capabilities will allow you to simply handle your contacts via the contacts dashboard, monitoring who’s energetic and who bounced to optimize your technique.
The platform’s superior segmentation capabilities assist you gather in-depth buyer knowledge. And you may simply tag your subscribers based mostly on totally different standards and knowledge to create tailor-made content material. For instance, Moosend’s customized fields personalize your topic strains and content material based mostly in your prospects’ names, birthdays, areas, and extra.
Moosend’s lead era instruments may even assist you increase your mailing lists by changing publication sign-up types and touchdown pages. You possibly can automate your contact administration via advertising automation by creating particular automated workflows that may hold your listing clear and engaged based mostly on consumer actions.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “Customers can create contact lists quickly and simply. This platform targets the required viewers itself. This platform permits customers to schedule totally different campaigns. It’s fairly a helpful characteristic as a result of the consumer doesn’t have to recollect the time and date for beginning them.”
6. Keap
Value: Plans beginning at $159 per mo.
Keap is a CRM and gross sales and advertising platform with a shopper administration answer for small companies. The platform gives a central location for shopper exercise and communications and the device automates follow-ups, contact report creation. and phone report updates for you. You may also rapidly personalize communications with contacts (comparable to types, emails, and gross sales follow-ups) utilizing the contact knowledge that is saved in Keap.
Combine Keap with Gmail or Outlook so all of your e-mail interactions are mechanically up to date within the related contact’s report. There are additionally all kinds of different enterprise instruments and software program you may combine with Keap so all of your knowledge is up-to-date and accessible from a single location.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “Keap is a beast in itself wherein you are able to do issues successfully supplied that you simply use it successfully, and know your method round it. We used Keap for managing our Contacts, sending promotional emails, advertising automation, and e-comm. Keap grew to become a lot simpler to make use of as we bought to know the suitable methods of doing issues ranging from tag naming conventions, proper methods of utilizing Targets, Marketing campaign hyperlinks, and so on.”
Subsequent, let’s dive into one of the best free and paid contact administration software program for all companies — from small to midsize to enterprise.
Greatest Free and Paid Contact Administration Software program
- HubSpot CRM Platform
- Bigin
- Bitrix24
- Streak
- Pipedrive
- Nimble
- Nextiva Buyer Relationship Suite
- Nutshell
1. HubSpot CRM Platform
Value: Free and paid plans beginning at $45 per mo.
The HubSpot CRM platform’s contact administration instruments are designed to take away friction out of your gross sales processes, streamlining your gross sales efforts and giving your reps extra time and adaptability to shut offers.
Just like the free model of the CRM, the platform mechanically enriches your contact information with knowledge from over 20 million companies. It additionally notifies you when prospects open your gross sales emails or go to your web site.
HubSpot contains different contact administration staples like prospect monitoring instruments, assembly scheduling, and dwell chat (which each your gross sales and repair groups can profit from).
We chatted above in regards to the free-forever model of HubSpot — when you’re a startup or small enterprise, you could begin with that model of the software program after which scale right into a paid model of the gross sales CRM. This permits for seamless development along with your contact administration system as your online business scales (together with a bunch of different options and instruments that are perfect for your gross sales, advertising, and repair groups).
Helpful buyer suggestions: “Gross sales Hub seamlessly integrates with HubSpot CRM, which serves as a single supply of fact for all buyer and prospect info. This integration ensures that our gross sales groups have an entire view of our contacts, communication historical past, offers, and interactions. It allows me as gross sales rep to supply a personalised expertise to prospects and prospects, enhancing the standard of our interactions.”
2. Bigin
Value: Free and paid plans beginning at $7 per consumer/ mo.
The worth of Bigin is in its simplicity — it is simple to function with out sacrificing energy or performance. It means that you can handle your contacts with a complete view of any communication you’ve gotten with these individuals.
Emails, duties, and notes particular to your particular person contacts are all accounted for and straightforward to entry. It additionally options instruments that assist you apply the knowledge gathered throughout these communications to your gross sales efforts.
Essentially the most fundamental model of the platform is free to make use of and may accommodate 500 contacts for a person consumer. That plan is good for small companies, startups, and freelancers. In the meantime, Bigin’s paid subscriptions provide extra flexibility and options.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “We use Bigin to fully handle the contacts of purchasers, which makes it efficient after we wish to make some communications with them. Moreover, Bigin makes workflow administration simpler, after figuring out the enterprise alternatives for development.”
3. Bitrix24
Value: Free and paid plans beginning at $49 per mo.
Bitrix24’s contact administration software program’s suite of options gives normal contact administration sources, together with a centralized database for amassing and monitoring prospect and buyer contact info.
The device additionally mechanically logs and information all cellphone calls reps place or obtain. The identical goes for e-mail communications — when you sync your e-mail handle with the platform, your whole historical past of e-mail exchanges shall be saved in your Bitrix24 contact supervisor.
In the event you’re inquisitive about a free answer with performance that usually is not obtainable with normal contact administration software program, Bitrix24 could also be price contemplating. As your online business grows and also you need extra out of your contact supervisor, Bitrix24’s paid plans can accommodate your wants at affordable value factors.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “We wanted a system that allowed for unified communication, contact monitoring, doc administration, and workplace setup. Bitrix24 allowed as much as stand up and working rapidly.”
4. Streak
Value: Free and paid plans beginning at $15 per consumer/ mo.
Streak’s contact administration instruments could be built-in into your Gmail inbox, working alongside all different Google Workspace purposes. The software program additionally means that you can each keep and share a timeline of buyer contacts and communications. This could embody knowledge about e-mail information, name logs, recordsdata, notes, and duties.
Streak gives customized views of your gross sales pipeline. You possibly can search, filter, group, and kind your contact knowledge in any configuration in addition to save these leads to customized views and share that knowledge along with your group.
Streak is an accessible software program, designed to simply combine along with your Google purposes. It is free for private use however there are additionally paid skilled and enterprise-level plans.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “It should can help you create a pipeline of the doable prospects and allow you to observe up via the mails you might be sharing and receiving with them. Some extra options price point out is which you can monitor the openings of the emails shared, associations of particular contacts with particular offers, and better of all, organising the pipeline as you want.”
5. Pipedrive
Value: Plans ranging from $14.90 per consumer/ mo.
Pipedrive CRM is decidedly sales-oriented, and its contact administration sources replicate that. The contact administration options are supposed to allow laborious gross sales with knowledge and automation. They add a brand new diploma of perception and intelligence to an organization’s gross sales efforts by gathering sensible contact knowledge and mechanically pre-qualifying leads.
The platform contains instruments that may retrieve net knowledge about your contacts from on-line sources like LinkedIn. Utilizing this info, the platform may give you perception into the viability of pursuing the leads you collect.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “The UX/UI is easy. I repeat, it’s easy and ideal for gross sales guys. The deal view and the contact/firm views are simply easy and straightforward to work with. Anybody can simply customise or add new fields if required.”
6. Nimble
Value: Plans beginning at $24.90 per consumer/ mo.
Nimble CRM’s contact administration options can help you entry all of your contacts — throughout any cell, cloud-based, or desktop information — in a single relationship supervisor.
Nimble’s prospecting device mechanically shows all contact info and firm particulars for prospects and prospects, together with all emails, social interactions, messages, notes, and calendar occasions you’ll have exchanged with them.
The platform works seamlessly with Google Workspace and Office365 and options over 100 app integrations. It’s a robust, versatile device for retaining tabs in your contacts, the way you attain them, and the way they may match into your total gross sales efforts.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “The system is organized and you do not are likely to get misplaced within the small particulars with contacts. The convenience of use and the potential of linking multiple firm to 1 individual is a good benefit. It’s versatile and straightforward to configure.”
7. Nextiva Buyer Relationship Suite
Value: Plans ranging from $24.95 per consumer/ mo.
The Nextiva gross sales CRM’s sturdy suite of options contains contact administration sources which might be obtainable throughout all of their plans. Even their most simple subscription contains instruments for sustaining e-mail historical past, notes, and name logs.
Collectively, these sources can assist you monitor your prospects’ contact info and communication historical past whereas taking the stress out of processes like follow-up and outreach. With Nextiva, you may have entry to a big selection of options together with follow-up automation, surveys, dwell chat, and analytics.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “The convenience of use on the desktop permits me to be extra productive. I like that pulling up contacts, calling, texting, and seeing who is asking is as simple as engaged on my newest venture.”
“I’ve had a number of points with creating contacts and all communications not being labeled instantly, however usually a refresh solves this downside.”
8. Nutshell
Value: Plans beginning at $16 per consumer/ mo.
Nutshell acts as a central repository for all of your firm’s buyer information and knowledge. It is a single location for you and your group to retailer and reference contact particulars, name notes, and e-mail conversations with prospects. The device’s contact administration infrastructure — paired with its highly effective gross sales automation instruments — can assist you streamline your gross sales course of and simply qualify leads.
Nutshell additionally integrates seamlessly with purposes like Slack and Google Workspace and is designed to go well with the wants of companies of each measurement.
Helpful buyer suggestions: “Nutshell’s performance, help, and price made it a straightforward and sensible selection. Reminders for follow-up are nicely designed and could be set in accordance with your cadence, making it simple to maintain monitor of your contacts.”
Select Your Contact Administration System
Regardless of how large your online business is, what you promote, or the way you construction your gross sales group, you are sure to have contacts you might want to monitor and handle. If you have not already invested involved administration software program for your online business, it is best to strongly think about among the selections listed above.
And bear in mind, nothing in life could be stated to make sure, apart from dying, taxes, and high-quality contact administration software program making life simpler for salespeople.
Editor’s observe: This put up was initially printed in February 2020 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, however our group makes use of AI in our editorial course of. Take a look at our full disclosure to be taught extra about how we use AI.