27 Best Salesforce Alternatives for Efficient CRM Management

Nov 15, 2024

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27 Best Salesforce Alternatives for Efficient CRM Management

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Managing customer relationships can be a complex business, especially when dealing with the high volume of help desk tickets that come with providing quality customer service. In situations like these, customer relationship management (CRM) software can help you organize and provide 24/7 Customer Support support that satisfies your customers. Salesforce is one of the most popular options on the market. Its complexity and price can make it a poor fit for many businesses. That's why it's worth exploring alternatives to Salesforce. This article will help you find an affordable, user-friendly CRM solution to help you manage customer relationships more efficiently without the headaches of Salesforce.

One tool that can help you achieve your goals is ChatBee's AI customer support solution. It can help you get organized and manage customer relationships more efficiently so you can provide better support and reduce the high volume of help desk tickets.

What is Salesforce, and Why Consider Alternatives?

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform for businesses to help connect their sales teams with:

Customers

Leads

Prospects

With Salesforce, the platform operates as a single source of truth that enables organizations to keep track of customer interactions and sales data all in one place.

Streamline Your Workflow with Automations and Customization

There are also several features to make tasks more manageable with automations and personalized workflows. The platform can be customized to your team's unique needs with personalized dashboards and plenty of integrations to continue using your existing work tools.

Salesforce includes several products, but the Salesforce Customer 360 is a CRM and platform for all your teams to connect. Some standout features include:

Einstein AI built into the CRM helps generate content, optimize performance, create customizable experiences, build workflows, and more.

Unite your data in one location so all team members can view customer interactions.

8,700+ partner apps, services, and integrations to allow teams to use critical technology seamlessly with the CRM.

Pricing

Salesforce Sales Cloud offers five pricing plans, each with increasing features and customizations:

Starter Plan: $25/user/month

Professional Plan: $75/user/month

Enterprise Plan: $150/user/month

Unlimited Plan: $300/user/month

Unlimited+ Plan: $500/user/month

These plans cater to various needs, from small teams to multinational corporations, with scalable growth options.

Why Consider a Salesforce Alternative?

Salesforce is a well-known software as a service (SaaS) tool offering applications for:

Sales

Customer service

Marketing and e-commerce

Its Sales Cloud is a popular CRM solution with enterprise customers. However, its complexity can make for a steep learning curve.

Some companies have the time to learn the tool with change management specialists or Salesforce consultants, but others prefer a solution they can use quickly. Salesforce also has a higher price tag than most other sales CRMs.

Pricing

Professional Plan: $80/user/month

Enterprise Plan: $165/user/month

Two higher-tier plans, Unlimited and Unlimited+, are more expensive.

Adding more services typically increases the cost per user. For example, Salesforce CPQ (a price quote tool) starts at an additional $75 per user per month.

Types of Salesforce Alternatives

Two types of Salesforce alternatives are more sales-focused:

Traditional CRM tools

Pipeline management tools

Traditional CRM Tools

CRM stands for customer relationship management, which aims to manage a company's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. CRM aims to improve business relationships and enable growth.

Traditional CRM tools are often used by multiple departments, such as marketing, sales, and RevOps, in defined channels and can usually be transactional. The first four solutions on this list are more traditional CRM tools.

Sales Automation Tools

Sales automation tools often have some of the capabilities of a CRM but focus more on automating elements of the sales journey. As the name suggests, these tools are designed for (and often by) sales teams. Sales automation tools can also include Customer Relationship Management (CRM), email marketing, and lead generation software.

Each tool can add value differently, so looking for features that suit your business needs is best.

AI Customer Experience

Omni Channel Customer Support

Help Desk Ticket Workflow

How to Scale Customer Support

What is a Support Ticket

What is a Help Desk

Help Desk Software Requirements

Helpdesk Best Practices

27 Best Salesforce Alternatives for Efficient, Scalable Support

1. ChatBees: Level Up Customer Support with AI Optimization

ChatBees optimizes RAG for internal operations like:

Customer support

Employee support

Our AI customer support software provides:

Highly accurate responses

Easy integration into workflows with low-code or no-code setup

ChatBees' agentic framework automatically chooses the best strategies to improve response quality for these use cases, enhancing:

Predictability and accuracy

Query handling capacity for operations teams

No DevOps is required to deploy or maintain the service.

Try our AI customer support software today to 10x your customer support operations. Get started for free, with no credit card required. Sign in with Google and start your journey with us today!

2. HubSpot: An All-Inclusive Platform for Growing Companies

Price: Free, $45/ mo (Starter), $450/ mo (Professional), $1,200/ mo (Enterprise)

HubSpot is a CRM platform that helps you align your internal teams, extract meaningful insights, and report on growth opportunities. It combines Marketing, Sales, Service, and Content Hub with hundreds of available integrations to facilitate marketing, sales, and service processes.

It’s ideal for all scaling businesses (SMB and enterprise alike) and any team, including:

Marketing

Sales

Customer service

Operations

C-suite

The CRM is straightforward to use, automates manual tasks (data entry, data sync, and data updates), and centers everything you do around your customers so you can create remarkable customer experiences and improve the buyer’s journey. HubSpot syncs all interactions between you and any contact to that specific contact’s timeline. This creates a single source of truth for every team member, from sales to marketing to service to ops.

3. ActiveCampaign: Automate Customer and Sales Interactions

Price: $9/ mo (Lite), $49/ mo (Plus), $129/ mo (Professional), $229/ mo (Enterprise)

ActiveCampaign is a sales CRM ideal for businesses looking to automate time-consuming tasks such as:

Lead prioritization

Email marketing

Contact management

Contact data will be automatically updated, and you can view your entire interaction and conversation history with any of your contacts in the CRM's records.

Efficient Lead Management and Integrations

The CRM also helps you determine which leads to focus most on with automated lead scoring. It uses win probability and segmentation to more easily identify those leads for you. There are also over 350 tools you can integrate to seamlessly combine your current sales tools and data with your ActiveCampaign CRM.

4. Zoho: A Customizable, Affordable CRM Solution

Price: Free, $12/ mo (Standard), $20/ mo (Professional). $35/ mo (Enterprise), $45/ mo (Ultimate)

Zoho CRM has an AI-powered assistant, lead management tools, and reporting dashboards that provide insight into the sales metrics you care most about via desktop or mobile app. If your team conducts online sales meetings, Zoho has a feature that allows you to video conference and conduct webinars and other virtual meetings and conversations directly from the CRM.

Enhanced Collaboration and Real-Time Notifications

The CRM's Common Feeds feature makes collaborating with your team within the software easy. Ask and answer questions, share reports and dashboards, and send deal-related updates so everyone stays in the loop. You can also select to receive notifications whenever your target audience members interact with your business so you can reach out when leads are already engaged.

5. Freshworks: A Simple Yet Effective CRM Solution

Price: $15/ mo (Growth), $69/ mo (Pro), $125/ mo (Enterprise)

Freshworks CRM helps manage pipelines, tasks, and quotes. It has contract management tools and collaboration features that simplify:

Teamwork

Marketing and sales alignment

Internal communication

Streamline and automate tasks with the CRM's AI-powered features, including:

Activity capture

Lead scoring

Efficient Communication and Lead Insights

Built-in phone and email allow you to conduct conversations with leads without ever having to leave the CRM. There are also lead insights that help you determine the engagement level of specific contacts and get context about their interest so you can more effectively tailor your sales pitches and conversations to their needs.

6. Pipedrive: Visualize and Manage Your Sales Pipeline

Price: $12.50/ mo (Essential), $24.90/ mo (Advanced), $49.90/ mo (Professional), $99/ mo (Enterprise)

Pipedrive's CRM makes it easy to visualize and manage your sales pipeline. Organize your deals in pipelines and then customize those pipelines so they're tailored to your unique sales cycle. There are also deal pipeline collaboration features such as:

Easy-to-make

Shareable pipeline goals and reports

Seamless Email Integration and Extensive Integrations

Sync your email (Gmail, Outlook, etc.) with Pipedrive to handle email communication and keep records of those conversations in a single location with all your other contact data. You can also pair your CRM with over 200 integrations to improve its functionality.

7. Zendesk Sell: A CRM to Align Sales and Support

Price: $19/ mo (Sell Team), $49/mo (Sell Professional), $99/ mo (Sell Enterprise)

While Zendesk is known for its customer support software, it also offers a sales-focused CRM meant to:

Enhance productivity

Automate day-to-day sales tasks

Tailored Pipelines and Seamless Team Collaboration

Gain visibility into your sales process by creating pipelines tailored to your business. Zendesk Sell is also an ideal software for companies aligning sales and customer service teams. For example, if a service rep is speaking with a customer who has an issue, and that conversation turns into more questions about a new product you sell, that rep can hand the conversation off to a sales rep from within Zendesk. This makes collaboration easy for your team but also offers a seamless experience for your customers.

8. Leadsquard CRM: Optimize Your Sales and Marketing Processes

Price: $25/ user/mo (Lite), $50/ user/mo (Pro), $100/ user/mo (Super)

LeadSquared CRM is a sales execution and marketing automation platform that helps you and your teams track, monitor, and optimize your business and customer operations. The platform is entirely no-code workflow automation with out-of-the-box integrations that can help simplify your lead management.

Automated lead capture, distribution, and tracking ensure that all activities and interactions are updated in real time, decreasing response time and boosting sales productivity. The marketing suite offers plenty of tools to design and schedule personalized campaigns at scale.

Data-Driven Insights and Seamless Integration

LeadSquared provides in-depth reports and analytics to give a complete view of forecasts, your targets, and the progress that you’ve made. LeadSquared is a customizable platform that is easy to use and implement. It is an excellent option for businesses that aim to align their sales and marketing efforts on a single platform.

9. Less Annoying CRM: A Straightforward Contact Management Tool

Price: $15/ user/ mo

It could be intuited from the name, but Less Annoying CRM's goal is to provide an easy-to-use CRM for small businesses to manage contacts and track leads. All your contact information is kept on a single dashboard where you can add:

Notes

Files

Events

Tasks

And more

Efficient Task Management and Prioritized Leads

The CRM includes a calendar that integrates with Google Calendar. It has tasks that you can set to stay organized and keep track of your conversations and follow-ups with leads. To ensure you stay on top of your conversations and interactions with leads, the CRM's pipeline will provide the priority of each lead, their contact details, and any information from previous interactions you had with that lead.

10. Thryv: A CRM Built for Small Business Success

Thryv is a CRM that's ideal for small businesses. It combines sales automation, marketing automation, and reputation management. All your contacts are centrally located with:

Easy-to-use filtering

Tagging

Searching

Tracking features to help you manage those contacts

Multi-Channel Engagement and Centralized Customer Portal

The CRM shows you which channels leads came to you from so you can engage them wherever they are. There's also a dedicated customer portal through which your clients can complete payments, send your team messages, and share files. Your team can then respond through the portal to streamline all interactions and use one tool rather than multiple.

11. Salesflare: A Simple CRM for B2B Businesses

Price: $29/ mo (Growth), $49/ mo (Pro), $99/ mo 99

Salesflare is an easy-to-use CRM for small businesses selling B2B products and services. With a visual pipeline feature, it reminds sales reps about upcoming tasks, so prospects stay caught up. The CRM:

Pulls all contact information it can:

Email signatures
Social media profiles
Emails
Past conversations

It automatically adds it to your records, so you have all of the details about each of your contacts at your fingertips.

It also connects with your calendar and mobile phone to help you manage and log your meetings and calls with leads and customers.

12. NetHunt CRM: A Gmail Integrated CRM

Price: $30/ mo (Professional), $34/ mo (Professional Plus), $60/ mo (Enterprise)

NetHunt CRM is unique because it completely integrates with your Gmail account. This means that all of your CRM data and functionality is paired with your Google email account, so you can view and manage:

Customer information

Deal opportunities

Email tracking

Email campaigns all from your CRM

The CRM also easily integrates with your other Google Workspace apps. Additionally, NetHunt comes with various common CRM functionality, such as:

Task and follow-up automation

Reporting and analytics

Forecasting

13. Microsoft Dynamics: An ERP and CRM Hybrid

Price: $65/ user/ mo (Sales Professional), $95/ user/ mo (Sales Enterprise), $135/ user/ mo (Sales Premium), $162/ user/ mo (Microsoft Relationship Sales)

Microsoft Dynamics is a CRM and ERP software with:

Social insights

Cloud-based campaign management

Business intelligence (BI)

Flexible Deployment and AI-Powered Insights

CRM can be delivered by cloud, hosted, or on-premises. Microsoft Dynamics has a variety of apps that you can integrate to help you manage relationships with customers via a mobile device and sync data from social media and other business tools with your CRM. Real-time, AI-powered insights help you acquire qualified leads and understand your audience deeply.

Dynamics bases these insights on behavioral, demographic, transactional, feedback, and engagement data to ensure they're accurate and actionable.

14. Keap: A Powerful CRM for Small Business Growth

Price: $79/ mo (Lite), $149/ mo (Pro), $140/ mo (Max)

Keap is a CRM with several sales and marketing tools to help you:

Personalize all interactions

Make appointments

Track lead and contact data

Manage quotes

Personalize your outreach and customize and automate follow-up reminders and communication to ensure you reach out (via email, phone, or SMS) when needed. The CRM's Activity Stream is automatically updated whenever you interact with a contact, so all interactions are:

Up-to-date

Accurate

Centrally located

15. Bitrix24 CRM: A Free CRM with Robust Functionality

Price: Free, $19/ mo (Start +), $55/ mo (CRM+), $55/ mo (Project+), $79/ mo (Standard), $159/ mo (Professional)

Bitrix24 CRM tracks all of your interactions with:

Leads

Contacts

Customers

Partners

And more

All of this data is updated and kept in the tool's contact database. Create and share reports and contacts, and easily segment your target audience. Choose to spread out all incoming contacts among your sales reps so there's a steady workflow. Use the Activity Stream feature to take notes, send emails, place phone calls, create tasks, make meetings, and more, all without ever leaving the CRM. Choose whether to host your CRM on your server or by cloud.

16. Monday sales CRM: A Flexible and Visual CRM

Monday sales CRM is a visual customer relationship management tool that’s designed to be highly flexible. Users can build their automations to streamline sales and track all pipeline stages. Its customizable workflows make collaboration simple and its user-friendly interface simplify onboarding to the platform.

Key Features

Sync and track every email from Gmail and Outlook to keep communication in one place

Track team performance and sales in a dashboard and generate reports.

Capture new leads, import existing ones, and organize them in a board to visualize their status in the pipeline at a glance.

Sales forecasting reports to measure probability against actual sales

Mobile app for sales reps to log calls, access contacts, and track activity on the go

Pricing options monday Sales CRM offers a free 14-day trial.

Pricing

There are four paid plans available:

Basic Plan: $12/seat/month

Standard Plan: $17/seat/month

Pro Plan: $28/seat/month

Enterprise Plan: Custom pricing based on requirements

Higher-tiered plans offer additional features and capabilities, like:

More custom CRM automations and integrations

Email tools

Lead scoring

Security features

And more

17. Nutshell: A Simple CRM for B2B Teams

Nutshell offers a CRM that’s simple and easy to use and helps B2B teams close more deals. With Nutshell, you can streamline sales and marketing in a platform that isn’t too complex, making it an approachable platform for small teams looking for an easy solution. Nutshell also makes quality customer support available to all users, regardless of your chosen plan.

Key Features

Flexibly manage your pipeline, track sales, and prioritize leads

Marketing and email automations help you better connect with leads and customers

Lead attribution tools to see where your leads come from.

Pricing

Nutshell offers a free trial followed by four paid plans:

Foundation: $16/user/month

Pro: $42/user/month

Power AI: $52/user/month

Enterprise: $67/user/month

Higher-tier plans provide additional benefits, including advanced AI features, enhanced reporting tools, API support, and greater customization options.

18. SalesLoft: A Revenue Workflow Platform

Salesloft is an AI-powered revenue workflow platform that aims to help sellers and sales teams create more profit. The platform brands itself as a complete service platform for sales teams to execute all of their digital selling tasks, build rapport with buyers and data led insights set to win deals. For a sales focussed platform, it covers a lot of ground.

Salesloft specialises in:

Sales forecasting

Lead management

Sales acceleration

Sales tracking

Sales automation

Call recording

Cold emailing

Sales training call tracking

And more

Pricing

Salesloft does not display its pricing on its website or G2. Users seem to state in reviews that it’s on the pricier side of sales automation software.

Integrations

Salesloft offers over 100 integrations, including all the usual suspects. Nevertheless, some are only available through a third party, such as Zapier.

19. Creatio: No-Code CRM with AI Capabilities

Creatio provides a no-code CRM, marketing, and customer service application platform. Businesses can use automated workflows to take over repetitive tasks and manage customer interactions.

Creatio offers dashboards that users can alter to track KPIs most relevant to their roles. Another feature of Creatio is its out-of-the-box integrations, which connect with various third-party applications to fill performance gaps. The Creatio Copilot, an AI-powered assistant, helps users by:

Providing intelligent insights

Automating routine tasks

Offering recommendations

Pricing

Plans start at $25 per user/month, with a 14-day free trial is available to get started

20. Vtiger CRM: Affordable and Easy to Use

Vtiger is a great alternative to Salesforce for small businesses seeking an affordable and easy-to-use platform. It caters to both B2B and B2C markets, and various industries, including:

Construction

Financial services

Insurance

Pharmaceuticals

Real estate

Vtiger offers several powerful features such as:

Configure

Price

Quote (CPQ)

Opportunity revenue schedules

Sales learning management system

Insights Designer and Process Designer enable customizable automation. It integrates GenAI technology with its own Calculus AI add-on, enabling functions like:

Email subject generation

Email drafting

Querying

Vtiger offers helpful features for the SMB segment, such as activity and opportunity management, making it a great choice for businesses looking for a powerful and affordable solution.

Pricing

Vtiger offers three pricing plans:

Growth: $15/user/month

Professional: $42/user/month

Enterprise: $58/user/month

21. Oracle CX Cloud: A Feature-Rich CRM Solution

Oracle CX offers a compelling substitute to Salesforce CRM, establishing itself as an industry titan with impressive product maturity. Oracle CX, part of Oracle's extensive cloud product range, provides a complete suite of customer experience solutions to improve multi-touchpoint engagements. Its strengths lie in the depth of its:

Products

Robust analytics capabilities

Enterprise-level scalability (although some users find it heavy on customization)

While it is more expensive than some competitors, Oracle CX is a feature-rich CRM solution suitable for businesses of all sizes. It is an excellent choice for midmarket to enterprise customers seeking to boost their multichannel sales and marketing efforts or service workflows.

Pricing

Oracle CX Cloud offers four different plans:

Professional: $65/user/month

Standard: $100/user/month

Enterprise: $200/user/month

Premium: $300/user/month

22. SAP: Enterprise-Grade CRM Software

SAP CRM's extensive range of reliable, enterprise-grade apps makes it a strong competitor to Salesforce CRM. Its built-in integration with SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is a notable feature, facilitating a comprehensive, centralized customer and financial data perspective.

Comprehensive Solution for Enterprise-Level Sales

With robust sales operations functions encompassing sales pipeline management, forecasting, quoting, and order capture, it caters to large and mid-sized enterprises. Despite its potential shortcomings in modern channel support and AI capabilities, SAP CRM can be appealing for businesses looking for integrated and scalable CRM software.

Pricing

The pricing starts at $58 and is calculated based on the number of users and your chosen solutions. You’ll have to contact SAP’s sales representative to get the exact price.

23. Pegasystems: Process-Centric CRM for Complex Needs

Pegasystems CRM is a robust substitute for Salesforce CRM, especially for large enterprises managing high-complexity processes. Pegasystems' strength lies in its real-time decisioning engine, powering a suite of process-centric applications spanning marketing, sales, and customer service tools.

While acknowledged for configurability and robust process automation capabilities, the learning curve may be steep. Nevertheless, it is a worthy investment for companies requiring a sophisticated, adaptable CRM tool tailored to dynamic industries like healthcare, insurance, and financial services. Pega CRM has four pricing editions, ranging from $97 to $260.

24. Insightly: Cost-Effective CRM for Small Businesses

Insightly CRM is an attractive alternative to Salesforce CRM, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises seeking a cost-effective and robust sales CRM. Insightly's cloud-based platform combines contact and lead management, project management, and comprehensive features to automate repetitive tasks in one user-friendly offering.

It elevates sales and marketing initiatives, consolidates customer data, and streamlines work management, making it an ideal choice for organizations seeking to enhance operational efficiency. Notable strengths include its ease of use, reporting and analytics capabilities, and integration features.

With its affordable pricing plans, Insightly CRM is a cost-effective option for businesses seeking to optimize their CRM processes without breaking the bank.

Pricing

It offers three plans:

Plus: $29/user/month

Professional: $49/user/month

Enterprise: $99/user/month

A free trial is also available to get started.

25. Copper: A CRM Built for Google Workspace Users

Copper is a cloud-based CRM software designed to integrate with Google Workspace. Copper lets users manage customer relationships without toggling between multiple platforms by embedding directly into applications like Gmail and Google Calendar.

Streamlined Access and Automated Data Capture

Users can view contact details, update CRM records, and add new leads directly from their email interface. The global activity feed informs different teams of what other branches or departments are up to. Teams can also use the software to automate data entry by capturing interactions and populating the CRM with relevant information.

The Copper visual sales pipeline allows sales teams to manage leads and track deal progress while identifying potential bottlenecks. Pricing: Plans start at $9 per seat/month, billed annually. A 14-day free trial is available.

26. Sage CRM: Customer-Centric CRM

Sage CRM provides various CRM solutions to aid businesses:

Customer service

Sales

Marketing endeavors

The software's native integration with other Sage products, such as Sage accounting and ERP solutions, provides a unified ecosystem where businesses can manage their operations. Its automation tools enable sales teams to manage:

Leads

Quotes

Orders

The platform provides a visual sales pipeline, allowing users to track deals at various stages and prioritize efforts accordingly. For marketing, Sage CRM offers campaign management tools, enabling businesses to:

Plan

Execute

Measure the success of their marketing initiatives

The platform's customer service module helps support teams manage customer inquiries and track and resolve issues. Pricing: Contact Sage for pricing.

27. SugarCRM: Versatile CRM for Small Businesses and Enterprises

SugarCRM is a versatile CRM software that delivers marketing and customer service tools. Its sales automation tools assist sales teams in managing:

Leads

Opportunities

Accounts

This ensures that potential deals are nurtured and tracked through the sales pipeline. The platform also offers analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling businesses to derive insights from their data and make informed decisions.

SugarCRM offers a case management system for customer support, assisting agents with:

Tracking customer inquiries

Resolving customer inquiries

The platform's marketing automation features include campaign management and email marketing, allowing businesses to target their audience and measure their marketing efforts' return on investment (ROI).

Pricing

Plans start at $19 per user/month, billed annually. A free trial is unavailable.

Help Desk Benefits

Customer Experience Automation

SaaS Help Desk

Ticket Escalation

Self Service Customer Support

Service Desk Automation Ideas

Help Desk Benefits

Common Help Desk Problems and Solutions

Best Help Desk Software for Small Business

Generative Ai for Customer Support

Best Incident Management Software

Best Open Source Ticketing System

8 Tips for Selecting the Right Salesforce Alternative for Your Small Business

1. Choosing the Right Functional Scope for Your New CRM

When selecting a high-quality alternative to Salesforce, examining the functional scope of potential solutions is vital. Start by creating a list of the features your business needs to operate efficiently. Prioritize CRM capabilities that will enhance your existing workflows and promote productivity.

For example, if your marketing team needs help generating sales-qualified leads, look for a platform with robust marketing automation capabilities. This can help your sales team close deals faster and improve overall performance.

Prioritize Integrated CRM Solutions

While assessing functional scope, avoid platforms that offer unbundled CRM capabilities, as they can lead to overpaying for unused or unfamiliar functionality. Instead, look for a solution with all the necessary tools to support your business and optimize operations immediately.

2. Customization Capabilities: Finding a CRM That Fits Your Business

Every business is unique, and your CRM should be able to adapt to your company’s:

Specific processes

Terminology

Structure

While some customization is standard across all CRM platforms, you want to find a flexible and user-friendly solution. This will enable non-technical users to make necessary adjustments without extensive IT involvement.

For instance, if you want to personalize your CRM dashboard to suit your sales team’s operations better, you’ll want to ensure that someone on your team can do this quickly without calling IT for help.

Future-Proof Your CRM with Customization

Prioritizing customization capabilities will help your team get the most out of your new CRM and avoid disruptive transitions to new software as your business grows and changes.

3. Don’t Overlook the Importance of Ease of Use

A powerful CRM with advanced features is useless if your team struggles to navigate the platform. When searching for a Salesforce alternative, prioritize ease of use. Choose a CRM with an intuitive, modern interface that facilitates user adoption.

A clean design fosters productivity and encourages employees to leverage the CRM system to its fullest potential. Look for customer reviews that mention the platform’s ease of use and explore online demos to gauge the solution’s interface before making any commitments.

4. Integration Capabilities: Get a CRM That Fits Your Tech Ecosystem

A CRM system is just one part of your IT ecosystem. The chosen solution should seamlessly exchange data with other systems, such as:

Marketing automation tools

Accounting software

Seamless Integration with Business Tools

Integration should be straightforward, without significant development costs. If your business operates several software applications, look for a Salesforce alternative that offers built-in connectors to these programs. For example, HubSpot CRM has over 1,000 integration options, allowing you to connect various business tools to your CRM. You can even integrate the system with custom applications to ensure all your business data is connected.

5. Review Deployment Options That Fit Your Business Needs

While many CRM solutions are cloud-based, some organizations prioritize on-premises deployment due to data security concerns. Choose a CRM that aligns with your specific deployment requirements.

Choosing the Right Deployment Model

For instance, if your business operates in a regulated industry, you may prefer an on-premises CRM solution so you can control your data security protocols. On the other hand, if you want the flexibility of accessing your business data remotely, a cloud-based CRM may be the best option for your organization.

6. Scalability: Avoid Disruptive Transitions to New Software

As your business grows, your customer management needs will likely change. Consider a CRM system that can scale with your business, preventing the need for disruptive transitions to new CRM software as your organization expands.

Look for Salesforce alternatives that offer different tiers or packages that you can upgrade to as your business grows. Before making the transition, it’s also essential to review the scope of features in each package to ensure they will meet your business needs.

7. Post-Sales Services: Prioritize Training and Support

Once you’ve selected a Salesforce alternative, you want your team to be able to use the software effectively as soon as possible. Adequate training resources are essential to ensure this, while responsive customer support is crucial for troubleshooting issues and continuously optimizing the CRM’s functionality.

Look for platforms that offer:

Extensive documentation

How-to videos

Walkthroughs to help your team get acclimated to their new software.

You should also explore the vendor’s support options, including live chat, phone support, and email support, to ensure you can reach someone quickly if you encounter any issues.

8. Pricing: Look for a Solution Within Your Budget

Evaluating the total cost of ownership is critical when selecting a Salesforce alternative. Start by considering the initial license costs, ongoing expenses, and hidden charges. Ensure the pricing structure aligns with your budget. For instance, some platforms charge extra for advanced features or integrations. Look for these details in the vendor’s documentation before making any commitments.

Email Ticketing System

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Use ChatBees’ AI Customer Support Software to 10x Customer Support Operations

ChatBees optimizes RAG for internal operations like customer support, employee support, etc. with our AI customer support software, with the most accurate response and easily integrating into their workflows in a low-code, no-code manner.

ChatBees' agentic framework automatically chooses the best strategy to improve the quality of responses for these use cases. This improves predictability and accuracy, enabling these operations teams to handle more queries. No DevOps is required to deploy and maintain the service.