Best Mobile CRM for Small Business

#1 Base CRM

As of April 2013 Base CRM, by Future Sim­ple, still leads the way for the best mobile CRM for small busi­ness. They now have ​“native apps” for the iPhone, Android, Win­dows Phone, iPad & Android Tablets. They also have devel­oped some key plu­g­ins, apps and exten­sions for those still using Microsoft Out­look, Gmail & Mac. The rea­son I give Base first place is how quick­ly they were able to devel­op a clean and use­ful appli­ca­tion for many of their users. In just a few short years, the major­i­ty of busi­ness­es own­ers and sales­peo­ple have ditched their Black­ber­ry and now use either and iPhone or an Android phone. These were the first two apps that Base CRM devel­oped. They were think­ing ahead! There are always lit­tle bugs to squash in every app I’ve tried, but Future Sim­ple has done a good job of releas­ing Apps where the main CRM fea­tures just work: con­tacts, deals & task. I am one of their testers, so I give them con­stant feed­back of things I want to change, update and/​or bugs to fix. But all in all, it is tru­ly an awe­some expe­ri­ence. Those who want to expe­ri­ence their first CRM or don’t want to spend a lot can try Base CRM for free. The mobile fea­tures don’t cost any­thing. It is only when you get above 50 sales (deals) or need more ​“cool” fea­tures that you pay for the app. Com­pa­nies who run a sim­ple sales cycle and rely on Google or Out­look for their main tools, might get by with their basic paid ver­sion of $15 a month. I would rec­om­mend their main paid ver­sion for those who have a more com­plex sale and want to care­ful­ly track each stage of the cycle. This would cost $45 a user per month. This is still not bad for how much time you save, and it makes sure you don’t drop the ball with your sales process.

#2 & 3 Sales­force and Zoho

Zoho CRM is basi­cal­ly a copy­cat of Sales­force. The fea­tures are pret­ty sim­i­lar. Sales­force was one of the first cloud-based CRMs on the mar­ket and is still con­sid­ered the leader. Sales­force had one big prob­lem that has hurt their foothold into the small busi­ness world. This is only my opin­ion form observ­ing them over the years, by the way. First, I think their prices were too high ear­ly on for most small busi­ness­es to jus­ti­fy, and sec­ond, they had way too many fea­tures and apps. Almost all the com­pa­nies I spoke to about what CRM was best for them had already explored Sales­force. They all said basi­cal­ly the same thing: ​“It is too expen­sive. It is com­pli­cat­ed and it has more fea­tures than I need.” Sales­force has since low­ered their fees and has begun to cater more to the small busi­ness mar­ket. They seem to have a lot of fund­ing, so I will assume they will main­tain a strong pres­ence. I have tried their iPhone App sev­er­al times the past cou­ple of years and con­sid­er it func­tion­al and good. Though it is not my favorite nor as easy to use as Base CRM. I have a num­ber of clients who use Sales­force and seem to like it. It does require a bit of train­ing, and their tech sup­port is fee-based. I will end with this, even though their tech sup­port is fee based, they are good. They will help you do what you want with your CRM as Sales­force is VERY cus­tomiz­able. Zoho CRM’s iPad and iPhone Apps are actu­al­ly pret­ty slick and easy to use. I like the design (UI) and user expe­ri­ence. My num­ber one prob­lem of why I don’t rec­om­mend Zoho CRM all that much is their pric­ing struc­ture is such a pain. Every­thing is an Add-on. i.e. You want more stor­age, add more per month. You want to use our mobile app, add more per month. You want to _______, add more per month. This is the stan­dard com­plaint I’ve heard from folks who have tried Zoho. Sor­ry Zoho, love your prod­uct but the small busi­ness own­ers out there need a sim­ple prod­uct with 1 price option (hint hint).

#4 Pipeline Deals for iPhone Only

This is sad that I have to put Pipeline Deals in 4^th place. Why? Because they have one of the most sta­ble, reli­able and sim­ple CRM prod­ucts I’ve ever used (desk­top / cloud). I rarely ever find a bug using their prod­uct. Many of my cus­tomers actu­al­ly use CRM as well. This was because they were ear­ly adapters to inte­grat­ing their prod­uct with Google Apps for Busi­ness. They also has a mobile ver­sion that you could (still can) access from your mobile brows­er. The mobile ver­sion does work ok for quick access, but over­all it is very clunky. The good news is that Pipeline Deals is fin­ish­ing up their first native iPhone App. This will be released with­in the next cou­ple of weeks of writ­ing this post. I’ve been test­ing this App for a cou­ple of months, and it is very good. Their goal is to make an App that repli­cates what you can do with their online ver­sion. Ver­sion 1 is not quite there, but the basic func­tions that one needs in the field work quite well. I think Pipeline Deal cus­tomers who have an iPhone will be thrilled with the first release. Also their price point is real­ly the best on the mar­ket. You can’t go wrong. They recent­ly increased their prices, but I think that was a good move. One price: $25 per user/​per month: plain and sim­ple. My hats off to Pipeline Deals. They are slow­er in devel­op­ment, but I think it shows a lot of wis­dom. My guess is they oper­ate on very lit­tle debt and bor­rowed funds. They make sure they release qual­i­ty updates and prod­ucts. Their tech sup­port is the best I’ve seen as well! They post their phone num­ber on their home page! So there you have it. I only named the top four mobile CRMs I’ve test­ed and like. There are prob­a­bly anoth­er dozen that I did not list. Some of those are fine prod­ucts as well. For those who like test­ing and try­ing out CRMs for fun, give Nut­shell CRM a try. Let me know what you decide on and why.