Tag Archives: Hubspot

SalesForce vs. HubSpot: A Side-by-Side Comparison (2020)

June 5, 2020 Hutch Morzaria Leave a comment

In the year 2020, no matter what the size of your company or business the selection of the best client management software is not an easy task. I’ve just created this 6-Round head-on-head comparison for SalesForce vs. HubSpot which are two of the best options out there. Let’s see who takes the lead.

Many questions went through my mind while selecting the best CRM system. I asked how exactly I could improve marketing results with customer satisfaction. How can I opt for the best contact management software? In the end I managed to get the most of the best CRM system I selected for myself and I used the same selection criteria I’m using for this comparison.

The selection of the best client management software is no doubt an investment that guarantees the growth of your company and engages more clients. I’ve talked about Why Does the Right CRM Make a Difference in an earlier post and I’ve also talked about The 5 Best CRM Systems in 2020 so I’m not going to go into too much depth about CRMs in general here.

HubSpot vs SalesForce

There are as many differences between these two products as there are similarities.

HubSpot sells software specially designed for content management and search engine optimization under inbound marketing.

Salesforce is one of the cloud computing services that focus on customer relationship management (CRM). It connects the different customers and partners by using cloud technology. HubSpot enables small businesses to grow fastly with the lead generation whereas Salesforce possesses the attributes to streamline sales operations.

CRM is a model that automates and organizes marketing and sales for better customer service. CRM allows your team to maintain a relationship strategy by increasing shared intelligence and functionality. In short, I can say that companies manage their interactions with present and future customers under customer relationship management (CRM).

This detailed SalesForce vs. HubSpot comparison will help you out. Remember, the comparison is based on the top six features you need to look for. It is not an easy task to compare two of the best client management software, but taking the features one by one can make things a lot easier. It will be a guide for your ideas to make a clear understanding of the right direction for solid reasons.

In this post comparing SalesForce vs. HubSpot we will be looking at the following key areas:

Features
Reporting and Analytics
Marketing and Automation
Cost
Implementation and Support
Scalability

ROUND 1. Features

Salesforce Features

It follows the lead process and shares an organized contact list with the team.
It assigns various tasks to the team and oversees the schedules.
It manages the analytics and sales for future forecasts and completes all contract requirements.

HubSpot Features

HubSpot learns about customer needs and creates targeted campaigns to enhance customer service.
It also examines new prospects for the support and products under the lead segmentation.
HubSpot boosts your revenue by targeting the sales and it is the core module of the system.
It also manages the contacts and sends email templates along with books the meetings.

Round 1 Winner?

If your target is the sales and content marketing field then try HubSpot as it better than SalesForce and easier to use.

ROUND 2. Reporting & Analytics

Salesforce Reporting & Analysis

Salesforce is always on time in terms of analytics and reporting as a small delay can cause the information to become outdated.
It provides the proper analytics dashboards and continuously receives and delivers the reports without any delay.
The output of the analytics dashboard is that users can access it and operate it easily with the best features of intuitive controls.

HubSpot Reporting & Analysis

The reporting and analytics of HubSpot evaluate the progress and marketing of the sale.
It comprised of reports, analytics tools, dashboards. HubSpot analytics tools do not provide a deeper idea of customer behavior and marketing trends.
It does not give deeper insight and metrics relating to the performance of the business by combing the CRM software.
It does not properly guide relating to the traffic tags or UTM parameters on your traffic data

Round 2 Winner?

HubSpot needs improvement in reporting and analytics. Thus, Salesforce is more beneficial in terms of Reporting and analytics.

ROUND 3. Marketing Automation Platform

Salesforce Automation

It is not easy to get accustomed to the software system and personal touch disappears with automation.
A high level of cost is included in the installation and for handling the system due to which it doesn’t increase productivity.
It is very difficult to every time update the system and deleting the irrelevant entries.
It also not easy to compete for the market advantage in terms of revenue and cost.

HubSpot Automation

Through HubSpot, you can attract the visitors, build the community, and convert leads as it is a marketing automation software.
It has no coding issues and most of the organizations already using it are familiar with it.
It enables content management systems to move in the right direction across multiple channels.
The team creates add-ons and peripherals at the right time for the system. HubSpot sends an email at the right time to your potential and valuable clients.

Round 3 Winner?

HubSpot offers better and simpler automation as compared to Salesforce with better tools and standards. As it is also easy to use at the user interface and anyone can access it easily even through the mobile app. The key point is that it is simple and easy to setup.

ROUND 4. Cost

Salesforce Cost

There is no free plan of Salesforce for the benefit and convenience of customers.
Salesforce tends to force and pressurize you to purchase preferably their yearly plans.
They use hidden tactics to attract customers and they start paying for Sales Cloud at $150/user/month for their Lightning Enterprise plan.

HubSpot Cost

The major feature of CRM is the fact that it is free in HubSpot and starter plans are as follows

Service hub: starts from $50 – $1,200 per month
HubSpot CMS: starts from $300 per month
Marketing hub: starts from $50 – $3,200 per month
Sales hub: starts from $50 – $1,200 per month

Round 4 Winner?

If your budget is low then you should go for the HubSpot as it also provides the Free (Forever Plan)

ROUND 5. Implementation & Support

Salesforce Implementation & Support

Salesforce is expensive and its setup and configuration are intricate. Only a plan of 14-day free trial offers by the Salesforce and there is no free CRM
It asks for the add-ons payment and cluttered interface makes tasks complex.
The Salesforce customer support is limited and most of the queries remain unanswered due to the weak support system.
The internet connection should be stable as it relies on it. So, for the persistency of business and CRM support connection must be secured.

HubSpot Implementation & Support

HubSpot provides the feature of free sign up and you can import all your contacts and can match the existing standards and properties. Hubspot easily integrates with Gmail and other mail clients.
HubSpot keeps the same software as your company grows and track the leads. It simplifies the administrative tasks by saving the contact information and emails following the CRM.
In HubSpot, CRMs can collect and oversee the data including the sales dashboards. Personal performance can also be evaluated and monitored.

Round 5 Winner?

HubSpot wins this round, not because SalesForce is not capable, but rather due to its ease of use. SalesForce can do almost anything you want, but to implement those solutions you need a dedicated team working on the solution. HubSpot by contrast can be quickly and easily configured with little to no knowledge and still be a useful solution.

ROUND 6. Scalability

Salesforce Scalability

Salesforce has the potential to design and scale the teams along with the thousands and millions of the users
Salesforce scalability increases with the increase in the needs of the customer.
It supports the merchandising, marketing, and artificial intelligence that maximizes the B2C and B2B user integration.

HotSpot Scalability

You can start with the free plans but as companies grow, they might need a more robust solution for their B2B and B2C requirements.
Sometimes HubSpot develops workflows as confusing and features are a little bit overwhelming.
Extra programming is required for integration in HubSpot and CSS knowledge is though required

Round 6 Winner?

Salesforce is better than the HubSpot as far as scalability is concerned, but what I observed that both needs the improvement

Verdict

It’s a tough competition as both, Salesforce and HubSpot are contributing more and more to the industry. Both have attracted millions of clients from all over the world. Both client management software have an extensive and reliable history. I’ve decided based on minor differences that HubSpot is better than Salesforce, especially for small and medium businesses. This does not mean that Salesforce isn’t a wise choice, it’s just there is a better and cheaper option out there.

CRM, Tools

The 5 Best CRM Systems in 2020

April 30, 2020 Hutch Morzaria 2 Comments

In an earlier post, I talked a bit about the creation and set up of a CRM for a friend working within the medical sector. That post and task got me thinking a lot about why I selected the CRM that I did. I realized that I spent a lot of time searching for the right solution and if a “best CRM systems” post in 2020 had been available to me, I might have saved myself some effort. So I thought I’d share some of that research and thinking with you here.

Over the course of my rather long career in CX, I’ve had the pleasure and pain of working with many different CRMs. Some of them are better than others as I’m sure you’re well aware. So without further ado, here’s my list of the 5 best CRM systems in 2020.

What is a CRM?

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system efficiently collects data about the company-customer interaction and this information comes from a variety of sources including integrated social media handles, official websites, support logs, and testimonials, and reviews from the customers. The central database of the CRM system keeps this information for the company to analyze data for optimal decision making while addressing customers’ concerns.

In this post we’re going to be looking at five different CRM systems and will try to provide an unbiased opinion on them.

System	Pros	Cons
HubSpot	Convenient connectivity to sales, service, and marketing hubs Integrated tools for tracking pipelines The efficient activity log of interactions from different sources Free CRM services	Developers are working on introducing in-depth features as the platform is relatively new Customization issues for only large businesses
Zoho	New business leads, client accounts, and client meetings Easy lead conversion Easy tracking of deadlines Convenient access to read-only data to all team members	Occasional bugs when entering data The upper limit on modules should be elevated
Agile	Adding contacts (automatically or manually) is easy via on-site form filling Banners for important updates for users Easy email reporting and access to CTR open rate	No open HTML section for email builder There should be more help documents for optimal campaign
Streak	Free Gmail add-on No email clogging Convenient customization	You have to manually add the email addresses Searching keywords needs improvement (for box correspondence items)
SalesForce	Ensures data integrity Efficient automation Simple User Interface Easy customization Easy to navigate mobile app	Data mapping and visualization needs improvement A bit expensive on a shoestring budget

Our list of the top 5 Best CRM systems includes only those platforms that are suitable for most small to medium businesses.

1. Best Overall: HubSpot (Optimal Scalability)

No matter how small your business is, hopefully, it’ll grow with the right strategy and that is why HubSpot is there for you. With HubSpot, you can start with only a couple of modules or the whole enchilada. The best part is that it’s all free! HubSpot lets you have a scalable CRM system for the long run. Some features are:

Interactive Visual Dashboard

HubSpot offers a highly interactive dashboard to let you see live updates of the sales funnel. It lets you track performance and schedule appointments within minutes.

Automatic Logs

HubSpot efficiently updates log of social media, call, and email interactions with the customer and you can easily sync it with Outlook and Gmail. You can easily tie Gmail accounts into your ticket feeds helping you import customer contact information in one click.

Timeline View

The follow up become fairly easy with the timeline view of HubSpot CRM. You can not only send personalized emails but you can also set schedules and access all actionable insights.

Marketing Hub

The HubSpot Marketing Hub allows you to create templates for email, optimize landing pages, and analyze SEO-based ROI.

Office 365 and G-Suite Compatibility

One of the biggest HubSpot features is its seamless compatibility with third-party platforms including Office 365 and G-Suite.

2. Best Cloud-Based CRM System: Zoho

Zoho is something I used when I was looking for a free version of Office but word processing and spreadsheets are definitely not the only things Zoho does. They call Zoho CRM the “Remote-Ready” CRM – from a company with an incredible portfolio from collaborative apps to accounting tools. If you are not comfortable with self-hosting you need to consider Zoho – the self-hosted CRM system.

Multichannel Online CRM

Zoho extracts customer date from live chat, social media, calls, emails, and other online sources.

SalesSignals

The Zoho SalesSignals include customer notifications and serve with real-time analytics. It lets you assign the team members individual targets while you can use the central dashboard to monitor the progress of each team member.

Sales Process Automation

You can not only build sales processes but can also automate these processes using Zoho CRM. Besides, for different customers, you can create distinct portals.

Develop and Integrate Custom Solutions

You can use the Zoho libraries and REST API to develop as well as integrate custom solutions.

Zoho Marketplace

The Zoho Marketplace offers scores and extensions you can add to your Zoho CRM dashboard to optimize its functionality.

3. Best for Automation – Agile

Agile takes the lead when it comes to extensive automation. The pricing of this CRM system is competitive – $8.99/month as we write – and specifically targets small businesses.

Extensive Database

Agile lets you store the details of approximately 10k contacts or companies.

2-Way Email Tracking

Agile supports tracking of 2-way integrated emails in addition to custom deal milestones, and lead scoring.

Builder Tools

To facilitate marketing teams, Agile provides builder tools. Marketers can use these tools for email templates, forms, and website landing pages.

Automate Tasks and Monitoring

You can monitor social media and automate tasks for marketing and the procedure is fairly convenient.

Plugin Optimization

Agile lets you use different plugins to optimize the functionality of the CRM system. You can respond to reports by using canned responses.

4. Best User-Friendly CRM: Streak

There is no need to worry if you aren’t comfortable with the modern-day complex CRM systems. Streak is the one you need to consider if you are looking for an easy-to-use CRM system in 2020. Streak is a CRM I’ve really enjoyed using as I’m a huge Gmail fan and user.

While I ended up selecting HubSpot for my personal project and Freshdesk for a recent corporate rollout – it was not due to Streaks’ capabilities, but simply the price.

Built on the Gmail App

You can transform the Gmail interface into the CRM system instantly because all you need is to install the Streak extension.

Easy Collaboration

You can easily share files to collaborate with the team members. Managing deals, task scheduling, and reminders, and supporting queues are easy with Google Calendar.

A Mixture of Efficient Features

Webhook API access, shared pipelines, mail tracking, and mail merge are the valuable features available with Streak CRM. Thanks to Gmail integration, Streak easily uses Google Web Apps. It is also compatible with school and personal Gmail accounts and environments such as Product Development and Sales.

5. Best Binge – SalesForce

If you can pay a bit higher to the benefit of your business in the long run then SalesForce CRM is definitely an option to consider. There is, after all, a good reason for it being the biggest CRM in the world.

Professional Editing

The editing features on SalesForce are exceptional, for instance, campaign management, lead scoring (rules-based), and automation of the B2B market. SalesForce offers customizable sales process, contact management, and account management.

Mobile App

The SalesForce mobile app lets you track customer interaction anywhere anytime. The dashboard is configurable and you can access reports with real-time insights.

Convenient Collaboration

You can establish convenient collaboration within the company and share recommendations and files easily. SalesForce is also compatible with third-party platforms including Lightning Sync and Google Apps.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this list is a good start on your CRM journey. While it is possible to migrate from one CRM to another it is often not as easy as you might think (despite what their salespeople will tell you).

At my current company, we recently went through a 4-month nightmare migration which saw our support portal unavailable for days at a time. In that case, it was simply moving one SalesForce instance into another.

So if I can give you one piece of advice it is this.

Do your homework well. Try to get some trial accounts organized so that you can test different CRMs and make sure they integrate into the way you work, not the other way around! When picking the best CRM systems for your organization it’s important to ensure that it suits the way you work.

CRM

Can a Call Center Help in a Pandemic?

April 3, 2020 Hutch Morzaria 3 Comments

Firstly I hope that everyone is staying safe and sane during this very weird and bizarre time in the world! What is currently going on is something no-one expected & how people have generally responded is nothing short of miraculous. There are of course exceptions out there – I’m looking at you toilet paper hoarders – but otherwise, I’d say in most cases people are acting reasonably well. However, how people are behaving does not really explain how a call center comes into the equation does it? Well, stick with me.

Now one group that is going above and beyond during this crisis is probably the medical profession. I think regardless of whether we’re talking about doctors, nurses, admin staff or even cleaners in the hospitals, those individuals have literally been putting their lives on the line to help us. I’m lucky enough to know a doctor and in one small way, I believe that I was able to help also.

The Situation

You see, many people are frightened by what is going on. Normally the doctor would be the perfect person to speak to for advice and information. But when we’re talking about a disease that seems to be this contagious, people are staying away from doctors’ offices. This tends to only increase the level of fear and confusion.

Now my friend wanted to help address this gap. So he came up with a very innovative solution. With potential clients and patients being frightened of meeting a doctor in person, he thought going virtual would be a good solution. However, this was going to be a free service so the overall cost was definitely a factor. Knowing that I was involved in customer management and experience he reached out to me for some guidance and help. So we came up with a strategy.

We basically split it up into three different parts. A website, a call center and a CRM. Coming from a corporate background, this might have been overkill, but I thought we could do it all at a reasonable budget. Luckily I was wrong!

Website

Create and launch a website to inform people of what he was doing. Why he was doing it and how it could be of use to them. The website was not only used as promotion though. It was an entry point with an integrated form that could be filled in. This ensured the doctor had the required information they needed to help. We didn’t really get into SEO and advertisement as that was not the function. He was basically going to promote it through his own local channels and with the current panic, had no concern about traffic.

Call Center Phone Services

Potential patients and interested parties needed a way of getting in touch. Here’s where things got a bit interesting. I found a company called MightyCall that offered a cloud-based IVR solution. This was a US-based company, but one that had operations in Canada so it was ideal. The best part – they had a special offer for Health Care professionals and offered their service for FREE for three months as a response to Covid19.

This made things super easy in terms of decision making. I’m happy to say that the setup was exceptionally simple and the features were more than I could have asked for. I was able to quickly configure an ACD/IVR for my friend with defined operating hours and voicemail services. In this time of social distancing, having the system point to individual cell phone numbers was super simple and easy. In addition setting it up as round-robin ensured that no one, single call taker got overwhelmed.

For anyone looking for a simple solution, I cannot recommend MightyCall enough. It is a great solution for a call center and can be easily expanded as requirements change.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Now, this was something my friend didn’t really understand that well until I showed him. By integrating the form into a simple CRM – I used Hubspot because it offered a free option – I was able to get all of the information into a single location.

However, the CRM had other benefits. In addition to providing a single source of truth, it gave us the capability of assigning work based on skill and availability. Added to this was the fact that repeat calls/emails could now be tracked and a record maintained of previous interactions. It all started to make sense really quickly.

As I continued to play with Hubspot I became even more impressed with its ease of use and capabilities. As someone that uses SalesForce on a daily basis, I’m used to complex systems. Similarly, with the time I’d spent on Freshdesk over the years, I was familiar with simple ticketing systems (well, Freshdesk is simple to use but deceptively powerful).

Hubspot however, seemed to be a perfect, happy medium. It provided a fully functional CRM, but one that didn’t require hours, days and weeks of study. In fact, I probably had it up and running for the purposes we needed inside of an hour. If you’re looking for a great CRM at a great price (you can’t go wrong with free!), I’d really urge you to look at Hubspot.

Now we didn’t go the full-service desk route with integrated Chat and Chatbots. That’s potentially a step we’ll take in the future as this offering grows. However, it’s really nice to see how technology can help in a really measurable way. For me, it’s even more important as I can say that I potentially helped save lives. Like the MasterCard add, that’s something that is truly priceless.