In the business of selling, who you know is more important than what you know. The lifeblood of your sales team is a 360-degree view of all your sales leads and contacts, which is why CRM contact management software is essential for pipeline management and the full sales process.
A contact management system enables you to synchronize all of your contacts into a single record, monitor your networks, and interact in real-time. In addition, representatives may access conversation histories and filter their contact lists by title, industry, business relationship, and a variety of other criteria and custom fields.
As you read this article on CRM.org, you may be asking what the difference is between contact management software and CRM Software, or customer relationship management software. Not both CRM systems, right?
This article will examine the most effective contact management tools currently available. It will describe their paid plans and whether or not they provide free plans or trials in addition to their paid ones. We will examine the overlap between contact management and basic sales CRM systems and other aspects such as marketing tools.
What is Contact Management Software?
A contact management software is, in essence, an address book with steroids. In other words, it is software for managing contacts, which is a common requirement for sales management.
It supplies the essential building blocks (contact information) for developing sales and marketing strategies and retaining customers. However, more complex contact management tools are continually being developed.
When a team member or sales agent/manager assumes many duties for a single contact, SMBs are especially fond of contact management solution products. In this perspective, contact relationship management may be viewed as a form of CRM with streamlined, linear functionality. Contact management is especially critical for eCommerce businesses because repeat customers represent the difference between a one-time sale and a customer’s lifetime worth.
In contrast, a genuine CRM platform is more comprehensive company software. There are more full-featured CRM programs that manage leads and transactions and provide expanded features for project management, sales, marketing, and customer service. Nonetheless, the vast majority of CRM solutions include contact management as a central component of their business suite.
Why Use Contact Manager Software?
Save Your Customer Interactions
Record all of your cross-channel conversations with consumers in order to have a record for future reference. This information is critical for selecting what product or service to offer them for cross-selling and up-selling, the tone of your next conversation, and how to effectively communicate with similar clients in the future.
Enhance The Client Experience
With a unified contact management system, customer care workers can perform better with less effort. They will have simple access to a consolidated contact list including extensive records of prior cross-channel client contacts, as well as get task notifications and reminders for follow-up. All of these factors lead to enhanced customer satisfaction, decreased churn, and customer loyalty.
Keep All Your Contact Information Centralized
Numerous avenues, including social media, live chat, phone calls, your company’s website, face-to-face conversations, web form capture, and purchase records, provide you with contact information. A contact management platform integrates all of this information, including address book and phone numbers, into a single business contact record, so you can access it from a single location.
Helps Team Collaboration
A consolidated contact database increases visibility and makes your company more intelligent and transparent for all employees. Team members may access case files being worked on by other staff members in real-time, decreasing the need for in-person meetings. This removes duties, errors in handoffs, and redundant work, and promotes open cooperation.
Provides Insights Based On Contact Information
Reporting and analytics systems scan your customer data to provide insights about your audience, the type of marketing campaigns you should conduct, and your business’s overall requirements. Tools for intelligent lead management and segmentation help discover the clients on whom to concentrate resources.
Key Features Of A Good Contact Manager Software
List And Segment Your Contacts
Segmentation tools organise contacts by industry, region, customer lifecycle stage, and other characteristics. Identifying client profiles allows you to customise the customer experience and determine which demography offers the most prospects.
Access On The Go
Mobile apps for Android and iOS are now common for all contact management platforms. You may receive rapid access through mobile device to contact lists and important information for sales, support, customer care, and marketing duties, regardless of your location.
Task And Project Administration
Assign assignments to particular team members, ensure that everyone is aware of who is doing what, and establish deadlines with reminder alerts. Cloud-based SaaS contact management systems, when functioning as part of a CRM, centralise all your work activities in a single location and enable you to handle tasks and workflows on the move.
Automated Data Entry
Automate the entry of client data, avoiding tedious administrative processes and freeing you time for more vital activities. In turn, automated data recording may be utilised for email marketing automation, sales automation, and other purposes.
Easy Import And Export
Import contact information from CSV, Microsoft Excel, or Google Sheets spreadsheets, business cards, CRM, and other digital sources. As a result, you are protected in the event that you relocate platforms, begin utilising new applications, or need external stakeholders to have data visibility.
What is the best software for managing contacts? Here are our top 16 picks:
Let’s now examine the top contact database management systems, from well-known to up-and-coming names and from free to premium-priced plans.
Less Annoying CRM (Best contact management software overall)
Less Annoying CRM (also known as LACRM) is particularly built for small organisations. They provide an all-inclusive, single-priced package for task management, contact monitoring, lead tracking, and ensuring that follow-ups are sent.
Pros:
When it comes to managing all your customers and other contacts, following your prospects through pipelines, and staying on top of events and tasks, LACRM’s small yet agile toolbox has you covered (in easy-to-use calendar and agenda forms).
Emails sent and received outside of a CRM platform may be tracked in LACRM, which gives a unique email logging address for each user (for which you create a contact with whatever email provider you use).
Cons:
There are no app connectors, which, depending on your needs, may be a big drawback. Notifications are sent by SMS or email, but not in-app.
Pricing:
$15 per user per month payable on a monthly basis
The HubSpot CRM (Top contact management platform for small business)
HubSpot provides a free CRM with contact management features in addition to a comprehensive range of commercial business applications.
Pros:
With a single click, you can import contact records from Gmail, Outlook, business email, and web forms into the CRM. Once a contact is created, the platform automatically updates its data and logs all associated sales actions. HubSpot automatically crawls its database of more than 20 million businesses and adds revenue, industry, and other facts to contact information wherever feasible. You also receive superior email tracking.
This information is used outside of the sales process to categorise clients and perform marketing efforts. The platform supports up to one million contact and corporate records, which should be sufficient for the vast majority of organisations.
Cons:
The filtering options for contacts should be more detailed. The programme has a modest learning curve, which is mitigated by the availability of video courses, support resources, and community forums.
Pricing:
- HubSpot CRM is free
- Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub begin at $45 per user per month when invoiced annually.
Monday.com (A fantastic contact management solution for those on a budget)
Monday.com is a configurable, adaptable CRM with an integrated contact list for project management. The software records calls, emails, and meetings with contacts, making them accessible at any time.
Pros:
Once your contacts are in the system and in your sales funnel, you can simply monitor sales progress with graphical displays, such as Kanban, maps, timeline, files, charts, and calendars. The visually-oriented platform offers a simple structure with flexible drag-and-drop functionality and vibrant accents that direct the eye to vital information.
The built-in global clock simplifies communication with contacts in many locations by presenting time zones (based on geolocation data) next to contacts (and team members).
Cons:
If you wish to tie phone calls to a contact record (or make voice-to-text transcriptions in-app), you’ll need a third-party application. Some users have regarded the mobile version as cumbersome and lacking some functions of the desktop application.
Pricing:
- Monday.com provides a free plan for pricing.
- Basic package costs $8 per user per month, yearly invoiced
- Standard package costs $10 per user per month, yearly invoiced
- Pro plan costs $16 per month per user when invoiced yearly.
- Enterprise strategy necessitates communication with Monday.com.
Bigin CRM by Zoho (Top free contact management system)
Zoho, the creator of the well-known Zoho CRM, also offers a contact management solution called Zoho Bigin. The application provides a centralised address book for customer connections, as well as email and social media interaction features for managing cross-channel customer relationships.
Pros:
It allows you to manage deals and classify task kinds with tagging tools, as well as define and assign responsibilities to team members and configure privacy settings for critical projects. Smart task and email templates expedite common customer enquiries and interactions and guarantee that each engagement adheres to standard practises.
Cons:
Some individuals find the variety of Zoho products to be perplexing. In summary, Bigin is an excellent tool for salespeople who need to organise their connections.
Pricing:
- Cost for Zoho CRM Bigin gives away a free plan
- Express plan begins at $7 per user per month yearly invoiced
- Premier package begins at $12 per user per month, yearly invoiced
Affinity(Good contact database software for relationship intelligence)
Affinity, marketed as a’relationship intelligence platform,’ is designed for contact management in venture capital, fundraising, sales, and real estate.
Pros:
The app’s collective intelligence compiles a contact list of firms and individuals with whom you’ve connected and gives real-time information on their activities. Using machine learning and natural language processing, your relationships are evaluated based on their sentiment and strength. Additionally, AI removes duplicate contacts and businesses from your database.
Alliances finds networking possibilities by identifying which of your connections may be able to give a warm introduction to another party, such as a key decision-maker at another organisation.
Cons:
Data visualisation options are restricted and pipeline visualisation tools lack clarity. The smartphone version is somewhat cumbersome.
Pricing:
Contact Affinity for precise price information depending on your requirements.
Copper (Great contact management solution for Google Workspace)
Copper is created for Google Workspace and has extensive interaction with Gmail, which is incredibly appealing if you’re currently doing the majority of your business through Gmail.
Pros:
Contacts may be reached in-app via email, voice, and text. In-app audio transcription enables you to take notes on the fly, allowing you to expand your contact database. Copper offers a one-click contact add and instantly imports Gmail contact information into your CRM, allowing you to create your contact list fast and have rapid access to email history, pipeline data, and other information.
A highly visible, well-designed sales pipeline allows you to manage your prospects throughout the qualifying process once your contact list is operational. Customizable filters and notifications keep you abreast of the most vital deals, while weekly reports on pipeline advancement propose ways to enhance team communication and productivity.
Cons:
Copper’s tutorials are not always enough for troubleshooting issues. In addition, there is unquestionably a learning curve, which may be unexpected considering the product’s apparent ease of use.
Pricing:
- Basic plan pricing is $25 per user per month when invoiced yearly.
- Professional package costs $59 per month per user when paid yearly
- Business plan is $119 per month per user, yearly paid
Pipedrive (Great contact data management system if you need to grow your network)
Pipedrive is a CRM focused on the sales pipeline that offers contact management and lead tracking, sales activity monitoring, and information synchronisation between channels.
Pros:
Intelligent contact data discovers web data from Google+, LinkedIn, and more, saving you time and keeping you from overlooking vital information. With simply an email address, leads may be pre-qualified with a single click. Pipedrive will scour the Internet for the most comprehensive contact information possible and determine if a prospect is likely to purchase.
Integration with Gmail (appearing as a sidebar) facilitates the addition of contacts from email, the creation of notes, and the scheduling of sales activities. Full email sync enables you to check messages from any email provider within the app.
Cons:
Pipedrive’s email facilities, which include email sync, tracking, and scheduling, are very new and might use some fine-tuning. A further disadvantage cited by several customers is the platform’s premium pricing.
Pricing:
- Essential plan pricing is $14.90 per user per month when invoiced yearly.
- The Advanced plan costs $24.90 per month per user when invoiced yearly.
- The Professional package costs $49.90 per user per month, yearly invoiced
- Enterprise pricing is $99 per user per month, yearly paid.
Bitrix24 (Top contact management software for salespeople)
A well-rounded, complete CRM that performs every function expected of this type of software, including contact, project, and sales management, marketing campaign management, and intranet-based team collaboration. The contact centre enables the extraction of information about persons and organisations from social networks, mobile messaging applications, and landing sites, allowing for the compilation of a comprehensive contact list.
Pros:
The CRM supports two distinct modes: Simple CRM (deals and contacts, but no leads) and Classic CRM (with leads). This unique ‘difficulty level’ function gives a great deal of assistance with team adoption by allowing you to begin with simple tasks.
Bitrix24 is the most widely used free CRM in the world. They provide a free cloud CRM solution for up to 12 users with a 5 GB data storage limit. It offers the majority of the same services as paying plans, although in a reduced capacity.
Cons:
There are several features, which might be first overwhelming (hence the choice to toggle to the Simple CRM option). When you log in, the notifications function might be cumbersome, presenting the same alerts many times. The customization possibilities are subpar.
Pricing:
- Bitrix24’s pricing includes a free plan.
- Basic package for up to 5 users is $39 per month yearly invoiced.
- Standard package for up to 50 users is $79 per month yearly invoiced.
- Professional package for unlimited users is $159 per month yearly paid.
Nimble (Great contact database software for social media)
Nimble is a simple CRM optimised for social networking, featuring intelligent social search and potent market segmentation features. Nimble’s contact record can consolidate cross-channel contact and lead data into a cohesive profile.
Pros:
The entire platform is centred around Contact Page View (CPV). This interface displays all pertinent information about a contact, including emails sent or received, social interactions on all social networks, activities you’re working on or have accomplished in regard to the contact, notes, and closed or pending agreements. Since the CRM is compatible with Office 365 and G Suite, you can easily import and manage contacts from your existing platform.
Nimble gathers user-generated content in a single location so that you have rapid, real-time access into how people engage with your business. In addition to being a fantastic tool to add new connections, this is really helpful for streamlining your operations across social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. The features of data organisation, sales pipeline, and reporting keep your operations on track.
Cons:
Numerous customers have noted that Nimble’s Android app is inferior to its iOS counterpart. Additionally, keeping track of closed agreements and removing communications may be a bit of a nuisance (which you have to do one page at a time).
Pricing:
Nimble costs $19 per user each month when invoiced annually.
Maximizer (Best contact management solution for team collaboration)
Maximizer is a fully-fledged CRM platform that focuses on offering tailored client involvement that is compatible with your business strategy. It enables the creation and management of a sophisticated contact database with call logging, automated email tracking, document attachments, and powerful search and filtering features.
Pros:
The platform stresses the significance of data integrity and is equipped with advanced tools to clean “dirty data” so that your sales forecasts and reporting are reliable. Data cleansing eliminates duplicate entries and ensures that contact information is organised and easily available, while date range purge tools (old logs may be exported to Excel for safekeeping) guarantee that only current information is utilised. A common address book and audit log (which logs changes to contact fields, comments, and documents) ensures that the whole team has insight into customer-facing interactions.
Utilize alerts and follow-ups to guarantee that time-sensitive concerns are addressed. Use a mobile-friendly calendar to manage your workday, book appointments, and review your priority to-do list. Consult the calendars of other team members and easily reassign assignments to other users.
Cons:
There are several features, which might be first overwhelming. It is also somewhat expensive (with a straightforward but rigid pricing structure), which may deter small firms with limited funds.
Pricing:
- Small Office package pricing is $29 per user per month when invoiced yearly.
- Business Plus costs $49 per month per person when paid yearly
- The Insights package costs $89 per month per user when invoiced yearly.
Nutshell
Nutshell is a comprehensive CRM system with powerful contact management features. Create and see customer profiles with entire chat histories. Utilize lead form integration to convert website visitors into contacts with their names, emails, and other contact information. Advanced segmentation of prospects and consumers (including industry, lifetime value, and location).
Pros:
Nutshell’s Gmail Chrome addon syncs and automatically updates Google events with Nutshell activity, and integrates your Google and Nutshell contacts and emails. It also enables you to save emails to Nutshell, synchronise Google Calendar activities, create tasks, manage conversation timelines, jot down notes, and check which emails have been shared with coworkers within the programme.
Cons:
Importing data can yield duplicate leads, therefore data can grow cluttered if duplicates are not identified. Users lament the absence of automatic integrations and customization options (although there are third-party integrations through Zapier).
Pricing:
- Pricing is $20 per user per month invoiced yearly for the Starter plan
- Pro plan costs $42 per month per user when invoiced yearly.
Freshsales
Freshworks’ CRM system is Freshsales CRM. It provides extensive contact management. It provides a contact record with complete visibility, including notes, recent chats, recent actions, time zone, and other information.
Pros:
Lead capture mechanically extracts leads from email correspondence. You may create your own lead score criteria in order to identify the top leads, as well as put up your own organisational requirements, such as sorting categories. Overall, the platform is designed to help you expand your client base, scale your business, monitor transactions, minimise monotonous jobs, manage sales email campaigns, and centralise your data to generate efficiency.
Cons:
The process of screening duties so that you can concentrate on your most important relationships is likely more complicated than it has to be. Sometimes, customer service might be slow to resolve difficulties.
Pricing:
- FreshSales provides a free plan for pricing
- Growth plan begins at $15 per user per month, yearly paid
- Pro plan begins at $39 per user per month, yearly paid
- Enterprise package begins at $69 per user per month, yearly paid
Insightly CRM
Insightly CRM is intended to expedite interactions with clients, enhance cooperation inside enterprises, and boost the productivity of businesses. It interacts with Google, allowing users in-app access to Google Calendar, Gmail, and Google Docs, as well as third-party applications such as MailChimp, Evernote, Xero, and Dropbox.
Pros:
Insightly’s interface records contacts, messages, projects, sales, and documents. It includes the standard fields for representing and storing contact information, such as name, email address, and phone number, but users may also define their own specialised fields to add unique data, such as customer type, subscription type, contract renewal dates, and billing ID numbers.
Drag-and-drop Customized layouts and fields provide more customised and accurate record-keeping. By rapidly developing screens that are compatible with your process, your firm can concentrate on the relevant clients and possibilities.
Cons:
The search feature for contacts in Insightly is not as comprehensive as it might be. The platform’s learning curve is quite steep. Some users have observed that it has a tendency to crash sometimes.
Pricing:
- Plus costs $29 per user per month when paid yearly, while Professional costs $49 per user per month when billed annually.
- Enterprise costs $99 per user per month, yearly paid
Contacts+
Contacts+ manages the updating and organisation of your contacts, allowing you to devote more time to cultivating deeper connections.
Pros:
It synchronises with Google and Gmail accounts, Apple Mail and iCloud accounts, as well as Microsoft Outlook, Exchange, and Office 365 accounts.
It is accessible on the desktop in two forms: as a Chrome Webstore extension for Gmail and as a downloaded software for Mac and Windows.
Cons:
Sync fails to identify duplicate contacts on occasion. Some people complain about customer service that is too sluggish.
Pricing:
- Contacts+ provides a complimentary plan.
- Premium plan is $8.33 per month yearly invoiced.
Centra Hub CRM
Centra Hub CRM delivers a comprehensive contact record, which includes the contact source, address, phone number, and other pertinent information.
Pros:
This contact management system serves as the foundation for the rest of the application, providing a consolidated database of individuals around which you may construct your business processes and workflow.
Plan tasks and meetings, monitor contact activity, and import and export contacts. Track client sentiment using conversation logs, social media profiles, and other means. The platform is extremely configurable, and its contact management effortlessly interacts with sales, marketing, service, and help desk operations.
Cons:
Could benefit from more robust integrations with other applications. Automation of reporting tools might be made more advanced.
Pricing:
- Start-Up plan pricing is $10 per user each month, payable annually.
- The Professional plan costs $17 per month per user when invoiced yearly.
- Enterprise package costs $28 per user per month, yearly invoiced
- Ultimate plan costs $50 per month per user when invoiced yearly
Salesmate
Sales CRM offers contact management capabilities that enable you to cultivate connections, prioritise discussions, and maximise sales.
Pros:
Manage all of your contacts on a single page and track their progress using a graphical timeline that displays activity and emails over time in a simple and comprehensive manner. The bulk activity function allows you to send tailored messages to several contacts in order to save time.
Integration with Zapier enables you to synchronise contact information with third-party applications and access all of your cross-platform prospect information from inside Salesmate.
Cons:
Sometimes the user interface is not the most obvious, and going through certain crucial functions might be first puzzling. In addition, the platform lacks a lead scoring capability.
Pricing:
- Pricing is $12 per user per month invoiced yearly for the Starter plan
- Growth plan costs $24 per user per month, yearly billed
- The Boost package costs $40 per month per user when invoiced yearly.
- For Business pricing, please contact the vendor
What is the best contact management programme for me?
Our conclusion
The conclusion is such. You may not be shocked to find large vendors such as HubSpot CRM, Freshsales, and Zoho on this list, although Affinity, Maximizer, and Salesmate may be unfamiliar. You might also choose more comprehensive CRM platforms like Salesforce or Keap. In any case, these alternatives are superior to a plain Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
If you’re still undecided about which contact management system is suitable for you, remember that free trials are typically available, and you won’t even need to submit your credit card information.
While you are here, maybe you want to learn about the best project management softwares. Click here to learn more.
