5 Best Customizable CRM for Small Business

Are you a startup founder wanting to replace your existing CRM? Or are you looking for a customizable CRM that is the right fit for your small business?

In any case, you want a CRM that:

• Will adapt to your specific requirements and streamline your sales process efficiently

• Is Cost-effective to ensure your money doesn’t go down the drain

• Is Simple and Easy to Use and actually improves the performance of your sales team

The probability of getting a CRM that is 100% fit for your business is low because every business has unique needs.

But if you don’t choose a CRM carefully, you will end up wasting time and resources and still get a CRM that doesn’t have the features and integrations you need.

In this article, we’ll help you find a Customizable CRM that BEST complements YOUR small business, so if you’re happy with the CRM you’re currently using; you should probably NOT read this article. 　

Why choose a Customisable CRM?

No two businesses are the same; they could be working in the same industry, selling the same products, and yet their requirements and operational activities could be wildly different.
Now building a unique CRM for every business from scratch is not feasible, especially for a small business or a startup, given the limited resources.

What’s the solution, then?

A Customizable CRM!

With a customizable CRM, you can optimize the system to align with the specific needs of your sales team, rather than forcing your sales team to adapt to a CRM with rigid pre-loaded features. For instance, let’s consider a company with a 5-step lead qualification process: Interested, Cold, Hot, Closed, and Lost.
While a normal CRM will give a few fixed lead status options, a customizable CRM allows you to add any number of lead status options depending on your industry and requirements.

This level of customization ensures that your small business doesn’t have to compromise with its sales management process, allowing them to work more efficiently and ultimately convert more deals.

Essential Customizations that a Customizable CRM for Small Business should have

Lead Fields Customization:

If you run an insurance company, you would want to know how many of your leads are married, are smokers, have diseases that your insurance company covers, sort your leads on the basis of the policies they are interested in, and so on and so forth.

This data will:

• Help you in identifying the most popular policies so you can plan your marketing strategies.
• Help you in identifying flaws in your sales process and the scope for improvement.
• Help you in understanding your customers so you can tend to their needs.

All this is possible through custom lead fields. It is the most customization that a Customizable CRM for small business should have. You can capture any and every information relevant to your sales process, and eliminate the need for storing and displaying it in messy Excel sheets or PPTs.

Workflow Automation:

Workflows in a customizable CRM automate repetitive tasks and reduce manual effort so you can focus on other more important aspects of your business like improving your sales numbers, overlooking your operations, handling your finances, etc.

Automated workflows enforce consistency so that even if your team forgets to do those tasks on time, you won’t have to worry. 

For example, you can set up automated reminders for sales to follow up with leads at specific intervals after initial contact.

Now think of this from the perspective of your leads, they will receive timely calls and messages from your sales representatives, all their queries get answered, and as a result, they feel valued and satisfied.

Hence, they now will be more likely to purchase your product or service.

And boom!

You’ve ensured tasks are done on time, gotten a happy customer, and boosted your sales.

Another example is, when you generate leads, you can set an automation to automatically distribute these leads to your sales reps without you having to assign them manually.

Again, it helps you focus on more important tasks and the scope for manual entry is completely eliminated.

Templates:

To keep in touch with your leads, you have to send 10s and 1000s of emails or messages every day, and most of these interactions are repetitive. Typing personalized messages every single time for the same purpose is not feasible, and that’s where custom templates come into play.

You can create standardized templates for various purposes so that you don’t have to worry about manually writing the same repetitive messages to interact with your lead. Saving you time, effort, and frustration.

For example, when your lead has a specific question about a feature of your product, you write and send them a personalized message on WhatsApp answering their queries. If you get the same question from another lead, you go through the same process again.

You’ll have to type the same message over and over again. But if you make a template for this, you will only have to write the message once. You can make various templates for different purposes, and when it’s time to send, you can just select the template based on the situation and send it over without any hassle.

Lead Filters:

The creation of lead filters in a CRM is a powerful tool for lead management. It allows you to segment and target specific leads based on ANY imaginable criteria.

You can check sales numbers, assess the quality of leads, identify the stage of a particular lead in the sales process, evaluate the performance of your sales team, and a lot more!

For example, you can set up filters to identify which of your products is the most popular in the market right now. This information will allow you to:

• Evaluate the performance of your sales team, particularly the salespersons of the product which is underperforming- why is it underperforming and what you can do to change that.

• Understand why a certain product has more or lesser sales than the previous month-

• Is it the product? The market? A competitor? It helps you identify where you’re lagging and how you can tackle that problem.

• Understand if your marketing strategies are working, and change them if required.

These are just some of the uses of one of the filters. With a customizable CRM, you can create and add as many combinations of filters as you want. You can even save these filters so you won’t have to apply them again and again. It helps you

Picking the Right Customizable CRM for small business: What you need to know.

Before buying a CRM under the influence of a YouTube video or a blog (You can trust ours :), you should research them yourself based on the following parameters:

1. Setup Duration & Customizability:

You should ask yourself 3 questions when looking for a customizable CRM;

I) How much time does it take to set up?

Setup duration depends on the size of a business. Generally speaking, for small business or a startup, it should take about 1-3 days to setup.

If a CRM takes 5 days just to set up, it would mean that it is complex and would take even longer for your sales team to adapt.

Even when a CRM is simple, adapting to a new software takes time, considering not all people in a sales team are tech-savvy.

II) Does it have the customizations I want?

You operate a small business or a startup, you don’t need 200 automated workflow options, 300 custom lead fields, and 400 custom templates. You’re good to go as long as you get the customizations you need, otherwise, you’ll just be spending more money for customizations you don’t even require.

III) How easily can I customize this CRM to suit my needs?

A complex customizable CRM is a bad CRM. For example, you want to create automation (to automatically send a message to sales reps when new leads are added to the system), but applying that automation is extremely hard. You and your sales team require separate training sessions to just understand how it works.
Moving forward, your sales team will probably not use it, at least not effectively.

Pro-tip: To figure out the answer to these questions, it’s advisable that you use a CRM’s free trial version.

So for small business, you need to find a CRM that can be setup quickly, has the customizations you need, and is easy to customize.

2. Price:

Don’t think that a pricey CRM means it is a good option for you. Sure, price does matter, but what matters more is how suitable a CRM is for your business. If a CRM is cheap and aligns well with your sales process as well as caters to all your needs, you should buy it.

Similarly, if a CRM is costly but aligns with your needs, you should buy it.

Basically, price should be the least of your concerns when choosing a customizable CRM for small business.

3. Features:

Don’t fall into the trap of, ‘This CRM has a lot of features and that is why I’m going to buy it.’ Instead, figure out what your problems are, see if the CRM has the features that solve the problems relevant to your sales process, and then make a decision.

Go for a CRM that actually solves your problems rather than going after a fancy feature CRM.

4. Ease of Use & Mobile Access:

Business nowadays happens on phones. Having a Mobile CRM basically allows you to perform all CRM functions while enjoying a vacation in Goa, sitting in your pajamas. It allows you to manage leads, check sales numbers, and track the performance of your sales team from anywhere.

In fact, with a good mobile Customer Relationship Management tool, you don’t even need a full-time sales team working from an office, you can setup a completely remote sales team for your small business or a startup.

5. Customer Support:

Bad Customer Support = Bad CRM.

No matter how good a CRM is, if the customer support doesn’t reply to your calls for help, doesn’t train you on how to use the software, and doesn’t debug in case of any issue. They don’t even have the answers to any relevant questions that you may have on their website.
Will that CRM be of any use to you? Absolutely not! So make sure to choose a CRM with good customer support.

But how do you figure that out?

1. Firstly, you can continue reading this article where I have mentioned some of the best customizable CRMs and their support systems.
2. Check customer testimonials and reviews on Google, Playstore, and software listing websites like Capterra, Techjockey, etc.
3. Talk to existing customers, they’ll give you a holistic view.
4. Pilot with a small team (2-3 users), experience the support system, and onboard the entire team once satisfied.

5 best Customizable CRM for small business

TeleCRM:

TeleCRM is India’s best Telecalling CRM with amazing sales automation features such as auto-dialer, smart follow-ups, call recording, and seamless integration with WhatsApp and other tools.

It’s a user-friendly CRM with mobile access designed for, but not limited to, small and medium businesses, providing lead management features and a comprehensive list of customizations.

1. Setup duration and Customizability:

With TeleCRM, you can get your system up and running within a day. Apart from the comprehensive list of customizations TeleCRM has, it is the most easily customizable CRM in the market. TeleCRM is designed in a manner that even if your sales team has absolutely ZERO experience in using a CRM, they will adapt to it immediately. It is an amazing tool for pipeline management.

Here’s a list of customizations that TeleCRM offers:

• Custom Lead fields: To capture ANY information relevant to your sales process by customizing lead fields.

• Custom Lead Status: Connect with leads based on where they are in the sales process by creating custom lead statuses (Hot, Cold, Closed, etc) relevant to how YOU classify leads in your business.

• Workflows Automation: Unlimited workflows to automate all your repetitive tasks so you can focus on other more important aspects of your business.

• Custom Templates: To send WhatsApp, SMS, and Email messages to prospects without any hassle and frustration.

• Creating filters and labels: To segment leads based on any imaginable parameter.

• Team Configuration: To change the roles and responsibilities of your sales team from the application itself. For example, you can:
  a) Change the role of a salesperson (caller) to that of a manager or admin or vice versa.
  b) Decide who can view and make edits to a workflow.
  c) Re-assign the most important leads to your most trusted caller/s.Change the ratio of lead distribution among your team members.

• Custom KPIs: To measure the growth of your business the way you want to by creating custom performance indicators via filters. For example, Suppose you run a real estate agency and want to know how many calls were made to leads interested in buying a 2bhk flat in a particular area within a price range of Rs. 25 to 30 lakh. With Custom KPI, you can pinpoint exactly what you are looking for.

• Custom API Integration: To get the data you want in your CRM from any third-party platform. As a business owner, you use different tools for storing and managing your data. With Custom API, you can get access to all that data in the same place in your CRM.

2. Pricing Plans:

Most CRMs offer hierarchical plans, meaning the more you spend, the more features and customizations you get. TeleCRM has a single plan where all the features and customizations are provided at an affordable cost.

• Quarterly:Rs.849 or $29 Per User Per Month

• Annually: Rs.599 or $19 Per User Per Month

• Custom Plan: For 50+ team members

3. Features:

TeleCRM has all the features your small business would need from the point a lead enters into a CRM system to the point where the lead gets converted/closed. They are specifically meant for a sales team to streamline their lead management process.

Some prominent features of TeleCRM are:

• WhatsApp CRM: TeleCRM has made WhatsApp a weapon for you to manage your leads. With WhatsApp CRM you can:a)  Automatically capture WhatsApp chats to centralize all chat history with leads in CRM.
  b) Send personalized WhatsApp to every lead with just one click without even saving their number in your phone book.
  c) Run WhatsApp automation and chatbot so that you can connect with leads even when your team is sleeping.
  d) Grab leads from WhatsApp Chats automatically so that you never lose a lead while interacting with them on WhatsApp.
  e) Send bulk messages using WhatsApp API to multiple leads at the same time to scale your connectivity.

• Autodialer: So that your team can make more calls faster and close more deals without having to manually type and dial numbers every time.
• Follow-up reminders: So your team never misses any important follow-up calls. You can set a reminder and forget, the app will remind you or your sales team when it’s time to call.
• Click-to-call from Web: Your team can directly call from the web application with one click and the call gets dialed in your phone automatically. Now you don’t have to shift to your mobile app to make calls, and as a result, you can make more calls and close more deals in a smaller period.
• Leaderboard: TeleCRM acts as a complete sales team tracking app for Startup. You can see how much sales your team is making, how many calls and messages they have made during the day and month, how they are approaching leads, how many deals they have lost, etc. This helps you in identifying where you’re making mistakes and what should be done to correct them.
• Automatic Lead Distribution: Eliminate the need for manual distribution every time a new lead is added to the system by distributing new leads automatically to your sales team in the pre-defined ratio.
• Automatic Call Recording: Automatically record all the calls made by your sales team so that you can:

  a) Use those calls as training material for sales representatives.
  b) Resolve any issue with leads or sales as you have recorded proof of what happened.
  c) Track how your sales team are performing.

• Excel upload: You can import your data as it is into TeleCRM without hampering your working methods so you won’t have to start over again and can start doing your job immediately.
• Integrations: So that you don’t have to worry about managing data in multiple platforms, but instead, you get access to all your data in one place by integrating with 25+ applications like WooCommerce, JustDial, IndiaMart, WhatsApp Cloud Api, Caller Desk, etc.

4. Ease of use and Mobile access:

TeleCRM is a dynamic calling and Whatsapp-based Mobile CRM.

It is extremely simple and easy to use and has all the core features and capabilities mentioned above, in a mobile app.

The main function of the app is to make it easy for you to connect with your leads- you can call, email, send SMS, and WhatsApp your leads. You can also record calls, schedule follow-ups, check status, add call notes, get sales reports, track the performance of your sales team, and much more!

Essentially, with TeleCRM’s mobile CRM, you have your workstation in your pocket!

Relatively speaking, TeleCRM is a highly customizable mobile CRM where you can edit lead filters, lead fields, lead statuses, and create custom templates for WhatsApp, Email, and SMS.

Overall, it is one of the most feature-rich mobile CRM  available in the market.

5. Customer Support:

A dedicated WhatsApp group is created during setup to answer your or your sales team’s queries. The benefits of having a WhatsApp group as a support system are:

• Your sales team will have forever access to the chat history so anytime a sales rep has the same doubt again, he/she can just scroll up and see the previous chats.

• You don’t need to get involved in everything, your team members can ask and get resolutions themselves.

• And being in that group you know what problems your sales team is facing and you can also check if the Support team is doing a good job or not.

Other than that, you can call the support team as well, you’ll also have access to separate video tutorials for your managers and callers, blog content, Zoom meetings for onboarding and training, and a live chat option on TeleCRM’s website.

Pros:

• Simplest CRM: TeleCRM is designed in a manner that even non-tech-savvy salesmen will find extremely easy to use and customize.

• Focus on Sales: Exclusively meant for you to focus on increasing your sales numbers with features like auto-dialer, scheduling, bulk WhatsApp messaging, and dynamic lead filters.

• Value for Money: TeleCRM is an all-in-one customizable CRM for small business. You won’t have to purchase other tools to complement TeleCRM, and as a result, you will get everything you want in one place at a fraction of the price you would have otherwise spent on buying other tools. Take a look at the following picture to get a better understanding.

Cons:

• No inventory management: TeleCRM system does not offer inventory management services. You can create separate workspaces for every product but there is no dedicated feature for product management.

• No forever free plan: Even though there is no free plan available, you can opt for a 5-day free trial plan which gives you access to all the premium features.

Final Verdict:

TeleCRM is the best Telecalling CRM in the market with relevant customizations and easy to understand user interface. So if you are looking for an affordable sales-centric customer relationship management tool, TeleCRM is the best customizable CRM for small business.

Bigin:

Bigin is a cloud-based CRM built by Zoho for small and medium businesses as a lead management tool with dynamic pipelines for sales, customer support, refund processing, and much more.

1.Setup and Customizations:

Bigin offers a quick and straightforward setup process, allowing users to get started within as little as 30 minutes.

It’s easy to adapt, with a lot of pipeline-centric customizations like data fields, workflow automation, and lead filters.

Some customizations that stand out are:

• Custom Pipelines: You can create custom pipelines not just for sales, but for any of your other processes- Marketing campaign pipeline, Recruitment pipeline, etc.

• Custom KPIs: Every CRM has team tracking features, but with Bigin, you can create key performance indicators to monitor your team in the way you want to.

• Multi-currency: You can create deals in international currency on the basis of the location of your leads.

• Custom Forms: You can create custom forms to capture and store lead data directly into the CRM.

2. Pricing:

Bigin is cheaper than all the big names in the market. They offer 3 plans:

i) Free forever software:

• What you get: Single Pipeline, 500 Records, Instant Workflows (3), Telephony, Zapier, Zoho Desk, Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Forms Integration, Apps for iOS and Android, Developer APIs, Standard Dashboard.

ii) Express:

• Annual: Rs. 400 Per User Per Month

• Monthly: Rs.550 Per User Per Month

• What you get: Everything in the free version+ Team Pipelines (3), 50,000 Records, Instant Workflows (10), Email Integration, Mass emails with email insights, 10 custom fields/modules, Customizable dashboards with charts and KPIs

iii) Premier:

• Annual: Rs. 720 Per User Per Month
• Monthly: Rs. 900 Per User Per Month
• What you get: Everything in the express version + Team Pipelines (5), 100,000 Records, Advanced workflows (30), Additional field type: Lookup, user fields, 25 custom fields per module.

3. Features:

Some of Bigin’s key features are:

• Bigin add-on for Gmail: You can automatically capture contacts from your Gmail inbox.
• Inventory management: You can manage all your products and services by creating a ‘Product’ in Bigin.
• Toppings: You can even add additional features by either buying a topping (feature or integration) from the Bigin marketplace, or if you’re a developer, you can even create one and list them for sale on the same marketplace.
• Calling: You can make and receive calls via built-in ‘telephony’ in Bigin

4. Ease of Use and Mobile Access:

Bigin’s mobile application has a user-friendly interface, making it easy to adapt for small business. But it is not as amazing as the web application.

Some customizations are difficult to apply and some can’t even be applied. You can only apply one filter at a time in the mobile app, you’ll also not be able to sync phone contacts so you’ll have to manually enter the details for every contact.

On the positive side, you can call and track your leads and deals, and manage and create your pipelines. All-in-all it provides a good user experience but has some scope for improvement.

5. Customer Support:

Bigin offers customer support through various channels, including email, phone, and chat support. You can rely on the Zoho support team for prompt assistance and guidance. Additionally, Bigin provides extensive documentation, webinars, and resources, they also provide a 30-day dedicated onboarding service.

Pros:

• Simple and Attractive UI
• Custom Integrations: You can buy, create and sell integrations in the Bigin marketplace
• You can make calls even with the free edition

Cons:

• No separate page for leads and contacts which makes it difficult to differentiate between a lead and a contact.
• Limited customizability options even in paid plans
• No customer support in the free plan

Final Verdict:

If you want to get a CRM that has all the basic customizations needed for a sales team and is specifically designed to streamline lead management, this should be the go-to for small business. It is one of the best small business CRM available in the market.

Monday Sales CRM

Monday is a team collaboration and project management platform that enables individuals and teams to manage their work, projects, and workflows in a visual and intuitive manner. It has 4 product offerings: Monday sales CRM, Monday Marketer, Monday Projects, and Monday Dev.

1. Setup duration and Customizability:

Monday Sales CRM usually takes about one day to set up. Depending on the size of the business, this duration could be longer.

The best part about Monday Sales CRM is that you’ll not only have all the basic customizations like creating lead fields, custom lead status, automation, creating and saving lead filters, and creating custom pipelines,

but you’ll also be able to customize the CRM visually.

Some of Monday sales CRMs’ unique customizations are:

• Visual customization of Lead Fields: Apart from creating and editing lead fields, you can also add a variety of colors, change size, and even edit the placement of lead fields.
• Customize Leaderboard:  You can create key performance indicators and also visually design your leaderboard to make it more attractive and readable.
• Customize View: Not only can you can view your data in the form of a table, list, kanban, etc but you can even create custom views by integrating with other apps and adding widgets.

2. Pricing:

Standard CRN price but they provide good value for money. They offer 5 plans.

i) Free

• What you get: Up to 2 seats, iOS and Android Mobile app, 200+ templates, 3 boards (pipelines)

ii) Basic: $8 Per User Per Month, Billed annually

• What you get: Includes Free + Unlimited free viewers, Unlimited leads storage, 5 GB file storage, Prioritised customer support

iii) Standard: $10 Per User Per Month- billed annually

• What you get: Includes Basic + Automation (250 actions per month), Integrations, More viewing options

iv) Professional: $16 Per User Per Month-billed annually

• What you get: Includes standard + Automation (25000 actions per month), Integrations, Chart view, Time Tracking

v) Enterprise: Custom price for organizations seeking enterprise-grade features

3. Features:

Monday features are mainly centered around task and lead management. Some of the most prominent features are:

• Templates: Pre-loaded templates for automation, pipelines, and boards so that when you create new pipelines and automations, you won’t have to worry about creating them from scratch.
• Lead capturing: You can capture leads by integrating with your existing tools, by adding a form to your website, or simply by adding them manually.
• Mass emails: Send personalized emails to prospects and leads in bulk to save time on manual work and make outreach more efficient
• Import your data: Bring over all your existing leads, contacts, and accounts from Excel or through an API.

4. Ease of Use and Mobile Access:

Monday CRM’s mobile app has an easy user interface and is specially designed for calling and emailing leads. You’ll be able to customize lead fields and statuses, but all the other customizations are only available in the web application.

Also, it does not have very dynamic features; You don’t get pre-loaded templates for sending emails and you can’t send WhatsApp or SMS either.

Overall, the mobile app is easy to use but it is not a good option if you want to work remotely.

5. Customer support:

All Monday sales CRM plans have a 24/7 support system via email and live chat on their website.

You’ll have access to guides, daily webinars, community forums, customer stories, professional services, video tutorials, blogs, and podcasts.

Pros:

• You can customize the CRM in any way you want, be it visual customizations or feature customizations.
• Free forever plan is available

Cons:

• No automation in the free and basic plans.
• An excess of customizations might confuse your sales team

Final Verdict:

It has all the core functionalities of a CRM plus it can be visually customized. The free and basic plans are very limited and not suitable even for a small business.

You should buy the Standard plan if you have a small team of about 10-15 people, because there you get good integration and automation features.

Pipedrive

Pipedrive CRM is a pipeline management CRM for small businesses that enables businesses to plan their sales activities and monitor deals. It works as an account management tool and you can also run marketing campaigns.

1. Setup and Customizability:

Setup duration can vary depending on the specific needs and requirements of each business. Generally, it could take around a week or so to set up.

With Pipedrive, you get the following customizations:

• Pipeline Stages: You can create and customize as many pipeline stages as you want.
• Custom Lead fields and custom filters can be added and then saved.
• Custom KPI: You can also customize Key Performance Indicators displayed on the leaderboard via the filters option.
• Custom API: You can connect any software, system, or app with Pipedrive to centralize all your data in one place.
• Custom templates: To send emails to your leads.

2. Pricing:

It’s a bit on the costly side. You get the following plans:

i) Essential:

$9.90 Per User Per Month, billed annually

• What you get: Lead, deal, contact, calendar, pipeline management, 400+ integrations, 24/7, multi-language support, basic customizations (no automation)

ii) Advanced plans:

$19.90 Per User Per Month, billed annually

• What you get: Essential + Email sync with templates, open and click tracking and group emailing, Automations builder, including email sequences, Meeting, email and video call scheduling

iii) Professional:

$39.90 Per User Per Month, billed annually

• What you get: Advanced + Revenue forecasts and deeper reporting capabilities, Extra deal and field customization options

iv) Power:

$49.90 Per User Per Month, billed annually

• What you get: Professional + Project planning, tracking and delivery, Phone support and CRM implementation, control of account permissions and visibilities.

v) Enterprise:

$59.90 Per User Per Month, billed annually

• What you get: Professional + Complete access to all features, Unlimited reports and customizations, Double the number of automations per user

3. Features:

Pipedrive offers comprehensive features for lead, deal, contact, calendar, and pipeline management. Some of the most prominent features are:

• Rotting: This feature is used to set benchmarks, in how much time you want a deal to be closed. For example: if you set the rotting time to 1 week, the deal color will turn to red indicating that the deal has begun to rot.
• Group Emailing: You can send bulk emails to up to 100 contacts at once.
• Revenue Forecast: Based on current trends and reports, Pipedrive derives revenue forecast for you to plan your strategies.
• Audio Recording: Your sales team can record audio notes to keep track of their interactions with leads.
• Integration: You can integrate with 400+ apps including Zoom, Zapier, Google Meet etc. You can also build apps and integrations from the developer platform.

4. Ease of use and mobile access:

Pipedrive’s mobile app is a comprehensive tool for managing customer relations. You can call, record audio notes, add location, and schedule follow-ups. You can even import contacts from your phone.

One major drawback is there are little to no customizations available in the mobile app. It is strictly meant to interact with leads and there is no way for you to track your sales or deals from the app. And relatively speaking, the user interface is not as friendly as the other CRM’s mobile apps.

5. Customer support:

They provide 24/7 customer support in English and Portuguese, but there are specific timings for German, French, and Spanish.

Their support offerings include live chat for immediate assistance, access to third-party partners for additional help, a collection of video tutorials and informative blogs, and a comprehensive academy for self-paced learning.

One important thing to note is that there is no phone support in Essential, Advanced and Professional programs.

Pros:

• Web application has a simple UI
• 400+ integrations are available. You can even create some using API and the developer’s platform.

Cons:

• Basic plan is a good option overall but does not have custom templates and automated workflows.
• There is no free plan.

Final Verdict:

For small businesses seeking a sales-focused CRM with account management and marketing features with an easy-to-use user interface and all basic customizations. The basic plan would be good if you don’t want custom templates and automation, otherwise, the advanced plan is the best customizable CRM for small businesses with small teams.

Hubspot CRM:

HubSpot is a CRM platform with all the tools you need for marketing, sales, customer service, and content management. The Free version is a really simple and easy-to-use tool for small businesses and startups, especially for those with a focus on Social media and Google. It is one of the best customizable CRM for small business.

1. Setup duration and Customizability:

Hubspot takes up to 5-6 days to set up depending upon the size and use cases of a business.

The paid version of Hubspot is dynamic with a lot of unique customizations. On the other hand, the free version allows you to customize lead fields, filters, and templates, but automation capability is offered in only the paid version.

Also, there’s another catch, leads fields, templates, deals, forms etc can only be customized up to a certain limit in the free version.

Some other customizations offered in the free version are:

Custom Report and Dashboards:

In the free version, you’ll be able to customize reports and create dashboards with the help of existing filters. The paid versions have deeper reporting capabilities, but for a small business, the free version should be sufficient.

Custom Tasks:

With Hubspot, you can create and manage your tasks. It has a few pre-defined templates for tasks such as ‘Upcoming’, ‘Overdue’, ‘Due Today’, etc. You can also create custom tasks. All of this is available in the free version. Again, the paid version has even better capabilities for your report dashboard via filters.

Custom Forms:

You can create Registration, Contact us, newsletter signup, and Customer Support forms from scratch. All-in-all it has the customizations that would be required for a sales team.

2. Price:

It’s a bit on the costly site. Hubspot has 4 plans:

• FREE
• Starter: $30 per month
• Professional: $1200 per month
• Enterprise: $5000 per month

3. Features:

Hubspot has a lot of unique features. Apart from the core CRM functionalities, you can do a lot of other things as well.

Some of the key features are:

• Create blogs, landing pages, and websites.
• With paid plans, users can connect their social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn) to HubSpot, allowing them to post directly from the platform and track the performance of their social media campaigns. Additionally, it also gives you SEO suggestions to improve your ranking on Google.
• Tickets: By creating tickets, you can organize all of your customer inquiries in one place and address these tickets to your sales team for quick resolution of queries.
• Schedule Meetings: You can schedule meetings with leads and contacts. But in the free version, only one can be scheduled.
• Track your Google Ad campaigns from HubSpot
• Connect from Hubspot: You can email, live chat with the leads on the site, and message using Facebook messenger- all from Hubspot. (included in the free version)
• Integrations: A wide range of integrations are available in the Hubspot marketplace for marketing, sales, automation, connectivity apps, etc. You can even create private apps and integrate them into Hubspot.

4. Ease of use and Mobile access:

HubSpot has a dynamic mobile application. Though customizations are unavailable in the app, it has all the other basic CRM functions the desktop version provides.

You can make calls via your sim or through a number provided by Hubspot, send an email or SMS to your contacts, schedule follow-ups, and even view reports. It also has an easy-to-use interface- all this in the FREE version.

5. Customer support:

Hubspot has live chat, email, phone, and community support options. Unfortunately, for the free version, you’ll only have access to their community for resolving your queries.

You can also refer to the knowledge-based articles and tutorials on their site.

Pros:

• Simple UI (User Interface)
• Dynamic overall connectivity, not just lead management
• The free version is amazing and has all the core CRM functionalities

Cons:

• Extremely costly for small business
• No workflow automation in the free plan
• There’s a number limit on certain features in the free plan. For eg, you can only create 5 custom templates, only 5 custom fields can be added, only one meeting can be scheduled at a time, etc.

Final verdict:

Hubspot is a good option if you have a relatively big team with multiple departments and you wish to align and manage all their operations from the same place.

Even if you don’t want the high-end features and just want a CRM for your sales team, you can get their free version; apart from automation, it has all the basic customizations.

Still not convinced about a CRM?

I understand that you are super busy, and drastic changes don’t happen in any business overnight.

Here’s a simple 3 step process that you can use to get started without any commitment.

• Identify what problems you’re facing right now and what changes are required to solve them.
• Get on a call with our consultant and let him help you figure out if TeleCRM is the right choice for you to implement those changes.
• Sign up for the 5-day Free trial plan, setup your company, see if your problems are being solved, and then make the purchase.

Conclusion

So now that we’ve discussed some of the best customizable CRMs for small businesses, it’s your chance to make the move!

• Firstly, consider the key aspects we’ve discussed, such as features, customizability, customer support, mobile access, ease of use, suitability to your business, and narrow down your options.
• Then, take advantage of the free trials and demos offered and get a better feel for how the app works.
• And lastly, implement and train your team to take full advantage of the app’s features.

Remember, choosing the right customizable CRM can make all the difference in how effectively you can manage your customer interactions and boost your team’s productivity.

We recommend trying TeleCRM. With a comprehensive list of customizations, robust customer support, dynamic mobile app for both Android and iOS, it handles all major CRM functionalities and provides most features that a small business or startup founder is looking for in a customizable CRM.

What’s good is you get all of this at an unmatchable price.

So don’t hesitate. Take the first step towards upgrading your CRM today!