CRMs come in all shapes and sizes. There are small, big, easy, and complicated ones. You can find CRMs for big companies, small companies, and specialized CRMs designed for specific industries.
What is a CRM?
What is a CRM? …you ask. Simply, a CRM software tool helps companies manage their client interactions. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. It is where you put all your contacts and all their information.
If you don’t have a CRM, your contact information is probably all over the place: In spreadsheets, paper notebooks, scattered business cards, post-it notes on your wall…well, you get the idea.
A CRM helps businesses get organized, get new customers, manage their current customers, and follow up with past customers.
What Kinds of CRMs are Available?
There are many ways you can categorize CRMs. One of the easiest ways is using Small, Medium, and Large scales. When we talk about small, medium, and large, we are not only talking about the company size they are designed for. We also talk about the size and complexity of CRM. That makes sense because a large corporation, like Amazon, will have different needs than a mom-and-pop shop or a solo real estate agent.
Large CRMs
CRMs falling in the Large Category would include SalesForce, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle CRM, Sugar CRM, and others. These CRMs are highly customizable and can do everything a large company needs, and more. The corporations with these CRMs have a team of technical experts and programmers on staff to keep the CRM running.
These experts will customize the CRM specifically for the needs of their company. So as an example, Amazon and Apple both use Salesforce as their CRM. However, the implementation of Salesforce for these two companies is completely different. Amazon and Apple have customized Salesforce so much that you would not even recognize the CRM if you saw it in action at these companies.
Medium CRMs
CRMs for medium-sized companies would include HubSpot, Pipedrive, Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, Insightly, and others. These CRMs would have all the power needed for a medium-sized business but without a lot of the complexity required by the big companies. You will still need technical help to set up, run and maintain these CRMs, but you will probably only need one or two technical experts for these CRMs.
Considering one of the CRMs listed above? We’ve written an in-depth report where we compare Insightly, Pipedrive, and AllClients to help you pick the best one for your needs!
Small CRMs
AllClients, Vendasta, Nimble, Thryv, and Less Annoying CRM are among the CRM class that would be best for small businesses. With these CRMs, you will not need a programmer on staff or any outside technical expertise to configure, use and maintain the CRM.
In the case of AllClients, we don’t even have a user manual as we feel if the CRM needs a manual, it is too complex. AllClients has an intuitive interface that allows a non-technical user to get in, do what they need to do, and get out. AllClients also has over 100 video tutorials that will teach you anything and everything in 3 minutes or less.
What is the Worst CRM?
Now let’s get to the heart of the matter: What is the worst CRM out there?
The worst CRM is the CRM that is used for the wrong type of company. For example, if you are a Real Estate agent (you are in the small column), and you use SalesForce (large) or you use HubSpot (medium) you will find those CRMs to be the absolute worst for you.
Without expensive technical support, setting up and maintaining these systems will be costly and ineffective. It won’t meet your specific small business needs.
If your company has 300 employees and you try to use Less Annoying CRM, you will find that to be the worst CRM for you. Less Annoying CRM will not give you the features and functions you need to run your medium-sized business, and you will constantly try to get more out of it than it is capable of.
Any CRM will be the worst when used by the wrong company profile. As you have heard, it is always best to “stay in your lane”! Big companies should choose Salesforce, medium companies should choose HubSpot, and small companies should choose AllClients.
If you are a small (or very small company) try AllClients for free, right now! Sign up for a free trial ➟ here.
