For small and medium-sized businesses, finding the right customer management software – also known as CRM – can be an odyssey. If we exclude the most massive and expensive software, even relying on the choice of a free customer management program can be risky.

A customer management program is never free

But how come - one might object - just do an online search for the best CRMs to find dozens of free proposals!

However, you should not be fooled so easily. Often the customer management software sold as free is actually not, for three main reasons:

• Most CRMs that are advertised as “free” are actually one-month demos. After the trial period, you can choose whether to purchase the product on a subscription basis or switch to something else;
• Many offers of management programs for "free" customers are actually Freemium, that is, they offer a very limited range of functions. Only by subscribing to a subscription can you exploit the full firepower of these software;
• There are real free CRMs, with great performance and many different functions. However, learning how to use them is an investment of time, a real journey. If you do not want your investment to be lost, it is imperative to travel informed. 

In short, in a nutshell the risk is that of running into a "free fake"!

CRM: meaning

The acronym CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and refers to a customer management software. For e-commerce and corporate websites, it is an extremely important tool, because it allows you to manage customers in a more rational, rapid and efficient way.

These are complex software, which must guarantee excellent integration and speed. For this reason it is very difficult to find good and free ones at the same time (even if we managed to do it!).

What can we expect from a free customer management software? 

Let’s first answer some of the most common questions about the average features of a non-subscription customer management program. 

1 - Are there any completely free CRMs? 

Yes, they exist. No hidden costs and no nasty surprises.

2 - Is a free customer management program better than Excel? 

There are dozens of free CRMs (always) that offer very interesting and time-saving features. From sales tracking to customer management with chatbots, to advanced reporting and lead tracking on the site…

In short, the answer is yes: a software designed to save your time and optimize your time will always be more efficient, faster and oriented to the clarity of Excel.

Without taking anything away from our beloved spreadsheets, their function is not to make customer management software.

3 - What are the limitations of a free customer management software? 

The main limitation is the number of users.

As you might have guessed, software houses don't create customer management software for charity. Their payback occurs when your company reaches a number of customers that will prompt you to upgrade your free CRM.  

If you are looking for the perfect management system for your business, you might be interested in our article on best free management software.

How to choose a free CRM

1) Choose the features 

Surely you already have in mind what you need to streamline, smarten and integrate your business.

Try to make a list, and compare it with the most common CRM functions, namely:

• manage sales 
• Monitor Ticketing 
• create sales funnels 
• Take advantage of advanced reporting
• schedule appointments 
• have a live chat with customers 

In our top 3 that you find at the end of the article we have selected a CRM for each family of functions: therefore we have 3 champions respectively for marketing, sales and customer service. 

2) Integration with the resources you already have 

The second aspect to take into consideration when choosing your free customer management software is always integration: make sure you have the right collaboration software to allow CRM users to share their information. 

Does your chosen free customer management software only work on Outlook? Do their plugins integrate with your e-commerce? 

Evaluate all the integrations you will need to do, considering that the less time you spend synchronizing the tools, the better in terms of efficiency. 

3) Growth prospects 

As mentioned above, free customer management software is often designed for a small number of users, therefore for small businesses. Do you think your startup or small business will grow over time? 

Evaluate the free customer management program accordingly. 

In fact, while it only takes a few minutes to upgrade to the paid version of your customer management software, unfortunately migrating from one CRM to another can become a real thorn in your side. 

Then consider the first price range of the software you are choosing: if it is an investment you are willing to make, then even the free version of the CRM is convenient. 

Top 3 Free CRMs - Our Selection 

1) Hubspot – Free Customer Management Software for Marketing 

• Users: unlimited 
• Customers: 1 million. 

Contrary to everything we have said so far, here is the unbeatable offer from Hubspot, a free CRM with unlimited users, no hidden costs and with excellent basic functions, an absolute winner for marketing management.

Hubspot is a great resource if you want to have your email, forms, landing pages, ads, chat, Facebook Messenger all in one place, while also seeing which of these channels are working best. 

Last but not least, if your company decides to go with the paid version, you can subscribe for one user at a time. 

Functions

• Live chat, even with chatbots 

• advertising management 
• ticketing 
• contact management 
• highly detailed reports 
• different dashboards to better manage workflows
• monitoring of activity on the site 
• Email 
• task manager 
• calendar and appointment management 
• Voip calls available directly from the portal.

2) Agile CRM - the customer management program for Customer Service

• Users: 10
• Contacts: 1000

Are you satisfied with your marketing side of business and you only need to manage your customers? Agile is really agile, lean and full of essential functions for customer care.

The only flaw: the free version is limited to one campaign, but with 5 levels.

Functions 

• Helpdesk
• ticket
• ability to assign labels to each ticket and assign priorities 
• ability to route tickets to different teams 
• creation of pre-compiled answers, which the software automatically saves in case of customer FAQs in chat or via email.
• create an unlimited number of offers 
• mail management 
• email campaign 
• monitoring of activity on the site 
• Landing Page Creator 
• calendar and appointment management.

3) Really Simple Systems - Free Customer Management Software for Sales

• Users: 2
• Contacts: unlimited
• Company data: 100

The intuitiveness award goes to Really Simple Systems, which has an extremely intuitive interface. In fact, the name suggests it. 

It is the best free CRM on the market for sales management in startups or individual businesses (freelancers, consultants). 

Unfortunately, it does not have geolocation or email integration, but above all it does not allow you to set different permissions for access. 

Functions 

• Creating custom reports 
• Identifying leads and opportunities to manage 
• possibility to call customers on their cell phones directly from the CRM 
• tracking different metrics 
• pipeline management 
• sales funnel 
• Customer history 
• sales forecast and price lists 
• API access 
• integration with Google contacts and Outlook.

The best solution: the customized customer management program

A customer management software can be of excellent quality, but how much time and energy does it take to "bend" it to your needs? Sometimes, especially if you think your business will grow, it is worth investing a small amount.

Do you want some structured advice on your needs? Contact Pizero Design for a consultation, or for create your e-commerce or website according to the rules of the art!