3 Tips On Finding The Best Ecommerce CRMs

The best ecommerce CRM software options are going to surprise you. Many of them offer full-featured programs and services that may only involve hosting costs, or no costs at all. CRM freeware is one of the fastest growing categories on the Internet. This isn’t a case of people wanting something for nothing or designed solely for small businesses or entrepreneurs, there is an actual movement behind free cloud CRM, and it was spearheaded by the program CiviCRM.

What Is CiviCRM?

CiviCRM is considered one of the best CRM software free options available. It is also one of the oldest CRM freeware programs. It was designed as an antidote to the high price of premium CRM for nonprofits. The founders used the open-source system to develop the program because they felt that with funding so tight it was ethically wrong to expect nonprofits to pay for expensive software that was critical to their fundraising abilities. CiviCRM remains the most robust of the CRM freeware options, but it is also highly specialized to nonprofit needs. It comes with an extensive support and resource system that can provide all the training you need for free too, but does this ecommerce CRM software live up to the hype?

What Are Other Best CRM Software Free Options?

The list of the free cloud ecommerce CRM services and programs that are available grows monthly. Many of the premium services are now offering CRM freeware with freemium upgrade possibilities. There are four that appear at the top of everyone’s list for best CRM software free options. They are mostly cloud CRM programs and have been around enough to establish reputations. They are:

1. SugarCRM – A commercial open source project, Sugar CRM offers a variety of CRM solutions. They have different access levels from free to premium, and different editions that are targeted towards varying industries.

2. FreeCRM – Considered one of the best social media CRM services this product is aimed at small and mid-sized businesses looking to maximize social media as part of their CRM.

3. ClusterCRM – Offers a broad focus on sales and pipeline activities. Reporting features are very powerful. Zoho is aimed toward small and mid-sized businesses.

4. Insightly – This is one of the highest-rated free and freemium CRM platforms that also has a straight out premium service. A cloud based CRM service, this is geared towards small businesses.

Free Makes Finding What Works For You Easy – With A Catch

One of the benefits of choosing CRM is that testing them out is easy and typically free. You don’t have to worry about trial periods expiring as with the premium versions. One thing you do want to be careful of is how your data is stored. If you are trying out a free cloud CRM software and it doesn’t work for you, then what happens to the data used in the trial? Make sure you understand how data is stored, and be sure you are aware of how to optimize your ecommerce CRM software, and how it can be exported before giving the CRM freeware of your choice a trial run.