Best CRM for midsize companies

As a mid-sized company, managing customer relationships, sales processes, and internal communications can become increasingly complex as you grow. A powerful Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help you streamline these processes, providing a centralized platform to manage leads, track customer interactions, and analyze sales performance. The right CRM can enhance collaboration across teams, improve customer satisfaction, and drive growth by offering the tools you need to manage your expanding operations effectively.
In this blog post, we’ll explore the best CRM options for mid-sized companies like yours, focusing on solutions that offer scalability, robust features, and ease of use to support your business as it continues to grow.

Why you need a CRM

As a midsize company, the need to streamline operations and maximize growth is often front of mind. Making the need to implement a CRM system crucial.

Challenges without a CRM

Your colleagues across the business might already be experiencing these challenges without realising it. The challenges below are the most common ones we find amongst teams without access to the right CRM in their tech stack.

• Disorganization: Managing customer data across multiple platforms leads to chaos.
• Missed opportunities: Lack of a centralized system results in lost leads and sales.
• Inefficient processes: Manual tasks consume time and resources.
• Lack of insight: Inability to analyze data effectively hampers strategic decisions.
• Inconsistent communication: Disjointed interactions with clients affect customer satisfaction.

Benefits of a CRM

If you're unsure whether or not it is time to invest in a suitable CRM, below are a few reasons why busy teams in a mid-size company finally go for it.

• Centralized information: All customer data in one place enhances accessibility and organization.
• Enhanced efficiency: Automates routine tasks, freeing up time for strategic activities.
• Improved customer relationships: Personalized interactions foster stronger client connections.
• Better decision-making: Data-driven insights support informed business strategies.
• Increased sales: Streamlined processes and better lead management boost revenue.
• Consistent communication: Ensures seamless and professional client interactions.

How to boost your midsize company's efficiency with a CRM

Wondering how a CRM can benefit you more than an Excel spreadsheet? There are a few ways it can boost your efficiency at every stage of your sales process.

1. Mapping your process

Having to manually update spreadsheets with up-to-date contact information can eat up a lot of time and take your team away from important business priorities. But a good CRM system can help you map your process out whether you're in sales, marketing, recruitment.

• Identify key stages: Break down your sales process into clear, manageable stages to ensure your CRM aligns with your workflow.
• Set milestones: Define specific milestones for each stage to track progress and ensure consistency in your sales process.
• Automate tracking: Use CRM features to automate the tracking of each stage, reducing manual effort and increasing accuracy.

2. Lead qualification

You can also use your CRM as a method for assessing and qualifying leads and customers.

• Define criteria: Establish clear criteria for what constitutes a qualified lead based on your target market and business goals.
• Use scoring models: Implement lead scoring models within your CRM to prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert.
• Automate qualification: Leverage CRM automation to assess and qualify leads in real-time, ensuring timely follow-ups.

3. Outreach and follow-up

Instead of manually reaching out to leads and customers one by one, you can use your CRM's mail merge and email sequences features to automate this.

• Email campaigns: Use your CRM to design and automate personalized email campaigns targeting specific segments of your leads and customers.
• LinkedIn integration: Integrate your CRM with LinkedIn to manage and automate outreach campaigns directly from the platform.
• Follow-up reminders: Set automated follow-up reminders in your CRM to ensure no lead or customer falls through the cracks.

4. Nurture existing leads and customers

A CRM can also help you nurture your relationship with existing leads and customers. You can use it to do the following.

• Segment audiences: Use your CRM to segment your existing leads and customers based on their behavior and purchase history.
• Personalized offers: Create personalized upsell and cross-sell offers tailored to each segment to increase conversion rates.
• Automate campaigns: Automate nurturing campaigns within your CRM to consistently engage and convert your leads and customers.

How to evaluate and choose a CRM platform

With a lot of CRMs to choose from in a saturated market – it can feel overwhelming if you're unsure how. Below we've outlined some processes for you to consider as part of your decision making process.

1. Define your requirements

Identifying the key features your midsize company needs is crucial. Consider functionalities such as lead management, sales automation, customer service tools, and integration capabilities with existing software. Understanding your specific needs will help narrow down the best CRM for midsize companies, ensuring the solution aligns with your business goals.

Key features of a CRM for midsize companies

• Automated processes: Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically finds Leads, Customers email addresses and contact information, enhancing efficiency.
• Structured Pppeline: Tracks Leads, Customers through defined stages, ensuring process clarity and effectiveness.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Increases communication efficiency with follow-up templates and automated sequences.
• Social media integration: Seamlessly imports leads and customers from LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and more to bring all contact information within the CRM effortlessly.
• Analytics: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for better planning.

2. Budget considerations

Balancing cost and return on investment is vital when selecting a CRM. Evaluate the pricing models of different platforms, considering both upfront costs and long-term value. Look for options that offer scalable pricing to match your company's growth, ensuring you get the best CRM software for midsize enterprises without overspending.

3. Selection process

Researching and choosing the right CRM vendor involves several steps. Start by gathering recommendations and reading reviews specific to CRM for growing businesses. Shortlist vendors with a strong reputation and proven track record in serving medium-sized companies. Request demos and engage with sales representatives to assess their support and service levels.

4. Get a demo

Trial and comparison are essential in selecting the best CRM for midsize companies. Utilize free trials or demo versions to test the usability and functionality of different platforms. Engage your team in the evaluation process to gather diverse feedback. Compare features, ease of use, and customer support to make an informed decision that will drive your midsize company's growth and efficiency. Get started by with a demo of folk, and contact their sales team.

3 tips for implementing a CRM

1. Import your data in your new CRM

Transitioning to a new CRM can be seamless if you import your existing data correctly. Start by exporting your data as a CSV file from your current CRM. Proper data migration ensures that you don't lose any critical information during the switch.

2. Create your first pipeline

Setting up your first pipeline is crucial for managing your sales process effectively. For midsize companies, it's essential to create a pipeline with statuses that reflect your specific business stages. Typical stages might include Lead Qualification, Proposal Sent, Negotiation, and Closed Won/Lost. This tailored approach helps in tracking the progress of deals and identifying bottlenecks.

3. Onboard your team

Finally, onboarding your team is a critical step in ensuring the successful implementation of your new CRM. Provide comprehensive training sessions to familiarize your team with the CRM's features and functionalities. Encourage them to explore the software and ask questions. A well-trained team can leverage the CRM to boost productivity and drive business growth.

The 5 best CRMs for midsize companies

1. folk

folk is a modern CRM platform for managing contacts, workflows, and relationships, offering customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and integrations to enhance deal management and prospecting.

Key features

• Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling efficient outreach without manual data entry or additional costs for email services.
• Social media integration: Seamlessly import contacts from LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and more to bring all contact information within folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• AI-powered features: AI tools assist in managing contacts and relationships, automating routine tasks, and suggesting actions to improve productivity.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Pros

• Ease of use: folk is praised for its intuitive interface, making it accessible even to non-technical users with quick onboarding and a minimal learning curve.
• All-in-one: folk streamlines your workflow by allowing you to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find their emails, reach out through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in a pipeline, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving time and money.
• Customizability: Custom fields, dashboards, multiple pipelines, and workflows.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Cons

• Reporting: Currently lacks reporting features, but there are plans for future implementation.

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14-day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month.

2. HubSpot

Hubspot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently.

Key features

• Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools, making it ideal for capturing and nurturing leads.
• Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, essential for managing customer relationships and sales processes.
• Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases, ensuring efficient customer support and satisfaction.
• Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems, enhancing operational efficiency and data consistency.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency and focus on high-potential opportunities.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: The intuitive interface makes it accessible for users of all skill levels, reducing the learning curve.
• Automation capabilities: Provides powerful automation tools for tasks like email marketing, lead nurturing, and sales workflows, helping businesses save time and improve efficiency.
• Customizable dashboard and reports: Allows users to create customized dashboards and reports to track metrics and gain insights into business performance.
• Scalability: The platform is highly scalable, offering different tiers that cater to growing businesses, from small startups to large enterprises.
• Strong customer support: HubSpot provides excellent customer support, including live chat, phone support, and a vast knowledge base.

Cons

• High cost at higher tiers: HubSpot’s pricing can become expensive as you move to higher tiers, which may be prohibitive for small businesses as they scale.
• Limited customization in free plan: The free plan and lower tiers have limited customization options, which can restrict flexibility for growing businesses.
• Complexity in advanced features: Some advanced features, such as custom reporting and workflows, have a steep learning curve and may require additional training.
• Additional costs for add-ons: Many useful features, like advanced CRM capabilities and integrations, come as paid add-ons, increasing the overall cost.
• Steep learning curve for new users: While the interface is user-friendly, the breadth of features can be overwhelming for new users, requiring time to learn.

Price and plans

Prices and plans on the CRM suite for an annual subscription are as follows.

• Starter: $15 per user, per month.
• Professional: $450 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $1,500 per user, per month.

3. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM for small businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines to optimize sales.

Key features

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage customer data, interactions, and sales pipelines, helping teams act quickly on opportunities.
• Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences, allowing sales teams to focus on closing deals.
• Email integration: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track sales performance, forecast revenue, and gain actionable insights.
• Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions, with robust security measures to protect data.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: The CRM is known for its intuitive and visually appealing interface, making it easy for midsize companies to navigate and manage their sales pipelines.
• Sales pipeline focus: Designed specifically for managing sales pipelines, offering a visual approach that helps sales teams track deals and activities effectively.
• Customization: Allows for a high degree of customization, enabling users to tailor the platform to their specific sales processes with custom fields and workflows.
• Affordability: Offers competitive pricing, making it accessible to midsize businesses without sacrificing essential CRM features.
• Automation features: Includes automation tools that help streamline repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails and moving deals through the pipeline, saving time and boosting productivity.

Cons

• Limited advanced features: Lacks some of the more advanced CRM features, such as extensive marketing automation and AI capabilities, which are available in other platforms.
• Basic reporting in lower tiers: The reporting and analytics features in the basic plans are somewhat limited, requiring upgrades to access more in-depth insights.
• Restricted customization options: While customizable, it does not offer as many advanced customization options as some other CRMs, which can be a drawback for businesses with complex needs.

Price and plans

An annual subscription plan basis is as follows.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

4. Capsule CRM

Capsule CRM is a user-friendly customer relationship management platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers a clean, intuitive interface that helps users manage customer relationships, track sales pipelines, and organize tasks and communications efficiently.

Key features

• 30,000 contacts: Manage a substantial number of leads and customers efficiently.
• Workflow automation: Automate repetitive tasks to streamline operations and save time.
• Advanced sales reporting: Gain insights into your sales performance with detailed reports.
• Key integrations: Seamlessly integrate with essential tools like G Suite, Microsoft 365, and Mailchimp.
• User roles and permissions: Control access and ensure data security with customizable user roles.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: Capsule CRM's clean and intuitive design makes it easy for midsize companies to navigate and access important features quickly, reducing the learning curve.
• Contact and sales management: Robust tools for managing contacts and tracking sales opportunities help maintain a clear view of customer relationships and sales pipelines.
• Customization options: Tailor fields, tags, and pipelines to fit specific business needs, offering flexibility in data and process management.
• Integration capabilities: Integrates with popular third-party applications like G Suite, Microsoft 365, Mailchimp, and QuickBooks, creating a seamless workflow across business tools.
• Affordability: Competitive pricing with affordable premium options makes it accessible for midsize companies looking to optimize their CRM without breaking the bank.

Cons

• Limited advanced features: Lacks more advanced features such as in-depth analytics and complex reporting capabilities, which can be a limitation for midsize companies with complex CRM needs.
• Basic email marketing capabilities: Built-in email marketing features are relatively basic, requiring reliance on third-party integrations for advanced email marketing.
• Limited customer support: Primarily offers support through email and an online help center, which might be a downside for users preferring immediate assistance.
• No built-in phone or SMS integration: Does not include built-in phone or SMS functionality, which could be a disadvantage for businesses relying heavily on direct communication with clients.
• Scalability concerns: While suitable for small to medium-sized businesses, rapidly growing companies might find the platform less scalable as they expand.

Price and plans

• Starter plan: Starts from $21 per user, per month.
• Growth plan: Starts from $38 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $60 per user, per month.
• Ultimate plan: Starts from $75 per user, per month.

5. Zoho

Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus. Its got features such as journey orchestration, sales process management and workflow automation. There's also something for marketing teams, including lead hurting, event management and customer segmentation.

Key features

• Sales automation: Automates sales tasks like lead management, deal tracking, and follow-up actions.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Allows users to create and customize dashboards and reports for in-depth analytics.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates with email, phone, social media, and live chat to manage customer interactions.
• Lead and contact management: Manages customer information, tracks interactions, and segments contacts for targeted campaigns.
• Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks and processes to improve efficiency and reduce manual effort.

Pros

• Affordability: Zoho CRM offers competitive pricing with various tiers, making it accessible to small and medium-sized businesses as well as larger enterprises.
• Customization: Extensive customization options allow businesses to tailor the CRM to their specific needs, including custom fields, modules, and workflows.
• Integration with Zoho Suite: Seamless integration with other Zoho products (like Zoho Books, Zoho Projects, and Zoho Campaigns) creates a comprehensive ecosystem for managing different business functions.
• Multi-channel communication: Zoho CRM supports email, phone, social media, and live chat, enabling businesses to manage all customer interactions from a single platform.
• AI-powered features: Zia, the AI assistant, provides intelligent insights, predictive analytics, and task automation, helping to improve sales and marketing efficiency.

Cons

• Steep learning curve: The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring a significant time investment to master the platform.
• Complex setup: Initial setup and configuration can be complex, particularly for businesses without technical expertise or dedicated IT resources.
• User interface: Some users find the interface to be outdated or cluttered compared to other modern CRM platforms, which can affect usability.
• Performance issues: Occasional reports of slow performance, especially with large datasets or complex operations, can hinder productivity.
• Limited third-party integrations: While Zoho integrates well with its own suite of products, integration with third-party applications can be limited or require additional effort.

Price and plans

Zoho's free plan is limited to three users suitable for small businesses. After that, an annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Professional: $35 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $50 per user, per month.

Conclusion

Choosing the best CRM for your midsize company is a critical decision that can significantly impact your business growth and efficiency. Each CRM platform—folk, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Capsule CRM, and Zoho—offers unique features, pricing models, and strengths that cater to different business needs. While folk stands out for its contact enrichment and LinkedIn integration, HubSpot excels in comprehensive marketing and sales tools. Pipedrive is ideal for sales pipeline management, Capsule CRM offers a user-friendly interface with essential integrations, and Zoho provides extensive customization and multi-channel communication.

Ultimately, the best CRM for your midsize company will depend on your specific requirements, budget, and growth objectives. We recommend taking advantage of free trials and demos to explore these platforms firsthand. Start by mapping your processes, defining your CRM needs, and involving your team in the evaluation process to ensure a smooth implementation. Ready to experience a modern CRM tailored for midsize companies? Try folk for free here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does amidsize company use as a CRM?

Midsize companies often use CRM platforms like folk, Hubspot, Pipedrive, Capsule CRM, and Zoho. Each offers unique features tailored to streamline operations, manage customer relationships, and enhance sales processes. These CRMs provide robust tools for lead management, sales automation, and data analysis, making them ideal for growing businesses.

Do I need a CRM?

Yes, depending on the complexity of your process. A CRM system can significantly improve how you manage customer interactions, streamline workflows, and track sales activities. For midsize companies, a CRM helps in organizing data, automating repetitive tasks, and providing valuable insights, which are crucial for scaling operations and improving efficiency.

How much does a CRM cost?

CRM costs vary widely depending on the platform and the features offered. Prices typically range from $15 to $1500 per user per month. For example, entry-level plans might start at $15 per user per month, while more advanced plans with additional features can go up to $1500 per user per month. It's essential to evaluate your needs and budget to choose the right plan.

Does folk’s CRM respond to midsize companies needs?

Yes, folk’s CRM is well-suited for midsize companies. It offers ease of use with an intuitive interface, making it accessible even for non-technical users. The platform's all-in-one approach allows seamless import of contacts from LinkedIn, automatic email finding, customizable email sequences, and interaction tracking in a pipeline. Additionally, folk integrates with over 6,000 apps, centralizing workflows and reducing manual data entry, which is ideal for midsize businesses looking to streamline operations and improve efficiency.