10 popular CRMs in Africa for small business

What is a CRM?

CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and is a tool that assists businesses or organizations of all sizes to track communications and better their relationships with their customers or leads.

A CRM connects all data from an organization's sales leads and customers in one place. This data may include client forms, documents, quotes, sale purchases, calls, emails, text messages, meetings, tasks and many more.

Businesses or organizations which use CRMs often report an increase in sales, improved customer relations, satisfaction and loyalty.

7 common features of a CRM

Working with a CRM has proved to increase sales productivity, forecasting and improved accessibility of client data and insights. This is because of the many common features that CRMs offer which include:

1. Database Management- CRMs record, manage and track client/leads or teams data.
2. Reports Management- CRMs provide a summary of various reports such as sales and marketing reports or team performance reports.
3. Automation management- CRMs have automation features such as SMS and email automations.
4. Integrations management- CRMs allow integrations with third party apps or tools such as Slack to increase productivity.
5. Workflow management- CRMs can allow team leads to assign tasks or follow ups to fellow team leaders.
6. Sales Forecasting- CRMs generate predictions on sales or revenue spending on data trends.
7. Customizations- CRMs allow users to create custom fields to insert different types of data.

What are the benefits of choosing a CRM over spreadsheets?

For the longest time, organizations have been storing their data on spreadsheets with multiple columns for each type of data. A spreadsheet would be ideal if the organization has maybe 50 or less client data to manage but with growth, it may become difficult, disorganized and less time conscious.

There are so many benefits of switching to using a CRM over spreadsheets. Some of them include:

1. CRMs show a chronological history of your communications with a client or a lead. CRMs have features where you can leave small notes on each interaction either calls, emails or meetings with clients for future reference.
2. CRMs have follow up or reminder functionality. Whether it's a meeting or task that is due or something that needs to be scheduled, CRMs support such features.
3. CRMs keep all information in one place for easy access. Unlike spreadsheets where one will have to switch from different sheets to gather info, CRMs hold data from multiple sheets or even apps like your calendar or emails in one place.
4. CRMs are more mobile friendly than spreadsheets. It is more easier to update a CRM than a spreadsheet using your mobile phone or tablet.
5. CRMs are more team work friendly than spreadsheets. When it comes to viewing updated data using a spreadsheet, one has to share the actual document whereas with a CRM, everything is saved onto the cloud which can be accessed by anyone in your team at different or same timings. This is also an efficient way to track team mates individual progress.

How do businesses choose which CRM to go with?

Choosing the right CRM is a crucial decision that should be based on the needs for a particular business or organization. As mentioned above, CRMs offer many solutions which can be categorized in 3 ways namely; operational, analytical and collaborative.

1. Operational CRMs - These CRMs lean more towards automating your business and sales processes to save time and effort with features such as marketing and sales automation tools.
2. Analytical CRMs - These CRMs focus more on gathering data and analyzing it to assist in delivering excellent service to your clients with features such as data analytics and processing tools.
3. Collaborative CRMs- These CRMs focus more on bringing together sales, marketing, or service teams to work together in understanding customer needs with features such as workflow management tools.

Most CRMs have all three categories but may lean more towards one.

10 CRM examples for your business or organization

To get you started, here are the 10 most popular CRMs in Africa for small businesses. They include:

1. Salesforce: This is a cloud-based CRM platform that offers a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including sales, marketing, and customer service.
2. HubSpot: A CRM and marketing platform that offers a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including lead generation, sales, and customer service.
3. Zoho:A cloud-based suite of CRM and business applications that help businesses automate and manage their operations, including customer relationship management, marketing, and finance.
4. Infusionsoft: Infusionsoft is a CRM and marketing automation platform that helps businesses automate and manage their sales, marketing, and customer service processes.
5. Freshsales: This is a CRM platform that offers a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including sales, marketing, and customer service.
6. Hello Duty: Our cloud-based CRM and business management platform offers a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including sales, marketing, and customer service.
7. Salesforce Essentials: Salesforce Essentials is a CRM platform designed specifically for small businesses, offering a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including sales, marketing, and customer service.
8. Pipedrive: This is a CRM platform that offers a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including sales, marketing, and customer service.
9. OnePageCRM: A cloud-based CRM platform that offers a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including sales, marketing, and customer service.
10. Insightly: Insightly is a CRM platform that offers a range of tools and features for managing customer relationships, including sales, marketing, and customer service.

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