Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
No matter what stage your business is at, it's no secret that nurturing strong business relationships with your customers is the key to success.
However, managing those relationships can be a daunting task without the help of a reliable Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. CRMs streamline the entire customer journey, from lead to close and beyond, by centralizing customer data and automating time-consuming manual processes. With so many CRM systems available on the market, it can be challenging to decide which one is right for you.
In this blog post, we'll compare two popular CRM systems, Freshsales and HubSpot, to help you determine which one is best suited for your team and business needs. We'll also introduce you to folk. A firm favourite for large organizations and growing teams.
Presentation of Freshsales CRM
The Freshsales CRM was designed by Freshworks to help sales teams leverage their customer data to boost their engagement efforts, shorten the sales cycle and help them prioritise their efforts on the right people. If you have marketing-specific goals, customer support goals or customer conversation-driven ones Freshworks have built separate CRMs for each. Or you can get all of them under what they call a Freshsales suite for a hefty price.
Presentation of HubSpot CRM
HubSpot is an all-in-one software solution that includes a CRM as one of its core components. HubSpot's CRM is designed to help businesses track all interactions with their customers across their sales and marketing teams, from initial contact to closed deals. HubSpot's CRM system offers a range of features, including lead management, contact management, deal management, and marketing automation.
Presentation of folk
folk is a user-friendly CRM system loved for their Notion-like design. It's perfect for those who want a powerful tool without the complexity. folk can help with marketing efforts and automate tasks for busy sales teams. It can also help you with your fundraising, partnerships, recruiting and investing efforts.
The CRM provides a range of features, including contact management, an AI-powered email marketing function and more. It also comes with a powerful Chrome extension called folkX that lets users import profiles from across the web straight into folk without leaving the page.
Comparison of the CRMs
Now that we have a high-level understanding of the CRM systems, let's take a closer look at each one.
Contact Management
When it comes to contact management, the best CRMs should help you streamline your workflow and save time by automating manual tasks.
Freshsales Contact Management
Freshsales' contact management is sales driven. Users can see exactly where each lead is at in their sales cycle. It also shows a lead score, content score, last contact date and associated tasks you have with that contact.
HubSpot Contact Management
HubSpot offers contact management software that allows users to create contact records, log sales activities and look at previous interactions. It also has automation features which update contact records automatically.
folk Contact Management
With folk, you can stay organized by grouping individuals in your contact list into different categories effortlessly. If you prefer to automate these tasks, folk can automatically detect contacts that can be grouped together and then suggest a group for them, or help you de-duplicate them. Should you find that you're missing certain contact details, you can simply use the contact enrichment feature to fill in the blank in moments. Or import new contacts from any website with its handy Chrome extension, folkX.
Integrations
Integrations with third-party applications can help you customize all your needs to one platform. But sometimes, it's best to keep it simple to keep your costs down.
Freshsales Integrations
Freshwork have a huge library of integrations build specifically for their entire Freshsales Suite. There's one specifically built for Freshsales Classic so that users can choose from ones to boost their productivity, or from their popular app integrations.
HubSpot Integrations
HubSpot's CRM lets users integrate with 1000s of popular third-party tools through their integrations library. While many of these integrations are native, some of them require someone to develop an API integration that can only be accessed via HubSpot's CRM consultants. Making the process expensive, time-consuming, and gated.
folk Integrations
folk keeps it simple so that users can keep their costs down. Users have the option of choosing from a list of their favourite tools to sync and import contacts from or connect with 1000s of integrations via Zapier.
User Experience
Good user experience should aim to provide a platform that is intuitive, efficient, and tailored to the specific needs of the user, ensuring they can navigate and utilize the tools smoothly and effectively. Without breaking the bank.
Freshsales User Experience
Freshsales gives users access to a 360-degree view of their customer's information and sales automation features. It's also accessible from your phone and desktop so you can close deals on the go. But even though this provides people with flexibility and the ability to choose where they work, users may struggle with work-life balance.
HubSpot User Experience
HubSpot's CRM is powerful, but it's known to be complicated for new users to navigate. New users face a steep learning curve which can last up to a month but many suggest it pays off in the long run.
folk User Experience
folk is loved by users for their Notion-like design. It's easy to use and packs a powerful punch with all the features they provide. Unlike HubSpot and Freshsales, users will not need to worry about blocking time just to learn how to use the platform.
Mail Merge
Having access to email marketing capabilities directly from your CRM can help you streamline your workflow process.
Freshsales Mail Merge
With Freshsales, users can get access to an email template library and analytics to understand its performance. As it's sales-driven, you can also craft emails with targeted content to specific prospects and schedule some specific ones to follow up after attending events.
HubSpot Mail Merge
HubSpot's email marketing tool lets users create and design email campaigns directly on the HubSpot platform. Users can also perform A/B tests to see what subject lines get you the most opens and click-through rates.
folk Mail Merge
folk's email marketing feature is easy to set up and packed with some powerful tools that streamline your workflow. Users get access to a huge library of email templates designed to help them save time. There is also an all-in-one messaging solution that comes with analytics and can help you send ultra-personalized emails to multiple recipients. Their game-changing AI feature 'Magic Field' you can create custom prompts that tell the AI what data to pull out from your database so that you can save time.
Customer Support
Getting the right customer support is vital. A good support team and access to the right type of resources that suit your learning style can make a huge difference.
Freshsales Customer Support
All Freshsale customers get access to 24x5 support through phone, chat and email. There is also a video library called 'Product Tours' that provides tips and best practices on how to use each feature in the CRM platform for specific use cases.
HubSpot Customer Support
HubSpot offer support options based on your product plan. Free users get community support but response time can be unpredictable. Access to their email support and live chat start from the starter plan, and only professional and enterprise customers get access to their hotline.
folk Customer Support
If you're looking for something that can cater to different learning styles, folk's customer support is king. All their users get access to a help centre full of useful technical step-by-step guides as well as a resource centre loaded with how-to video guides to suit different learning styles. Paid users get something a little more personal, depending on what plan they're on. Premium plan users get access to a dedicated migration service, priority support and a dedicated customer support manager. Beyond Limit plan users get access to personalized support through a dedicated Slack channel and dedicated point of contact to help with onboarding, data migration, and any issues.
Pricing and Plans
Freshsales Pricing and Plans
Freshsales has a generous free plan that accommodates up to 3 users that comes with limited features. Their paid plan is split into three tiers and can be billed monthly or annually. An annual plan starts from $14 a month per user, $35 a month per user goes up to $67 a month per user. Monthly plans start from $18 per month per user and goes up to $80 per month per user.
HubSpot Pricing and Plans
HubSpot isn't ideal for teams who might be on a lean budget. For their CRM suite, HubSpot offers a choice of either a Professional plan or Enterprise plan which are $19201 or $60000 on an annual basis. They come with marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations software. A monthly payment plan starts from $1781 a month for the Professional plan, and goes up to $5000 a month for the Enterprise.
folk Pricing and Plans
folk provides generous price plans that cater to businesses with different budgets.
Annual price plans start from $18 a month per user for access to unlimited contacts, bulk emailing, AI integration and more. This goes up to $29 a month per user for more advanced features such as migration services, priority support, and ability to send emails from multiple domains. Monthly payment options that start from $24 a month per user and $39 a month per user respectively. Customers can also request a tailored price plan if they are after more advanced features, such as a dedicated point of contact.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the CRM system that's right for your business will depend on your specific needs and budget. With the information provided in this post, you can confidently evaluate which CRM is the best fit for your business.
After comparing Freshsales and HubSpot, it's clear that both are powerful CRM systems. But they might not suit every budget. If you're looking for a more simple, user-friendly solution that's packed with powerful features folk is the way to go.
folk offers a range of features that are essential for managing customer relationships, including contact management, email marketing, and project management. Its simple interface and affordable pricing make it a great choice for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and freelancers.
Discover folk - the CRM for people-powered businesses
