HubSpot CRM Review

When you talk of the most popular CRMs for business, HubSpot CRM is among the top software out there. Sure, some people may tell you the joy they have using an excel sheet to store customer information, but once they get acquainted with HubSpot, it opens up a whole new world.

Its free CRM functionalities can help both small and big businesses remain in touch with their customers and store important information necessary to provide customized services to them. It does that and a whole lot more that we shall see below. But first things first.

What is HubSpot CRM?

This is a free platform (with already over 100,000 customers) within the HubSpot ecosystem that offers users the tools to bond with their customers while improving revenue channels. The different features of this platform enable users to communicate with clients, store and retrieve personal details of customers as well as carry out different sales and marketing tasks in a seamless process.

Imagine being able to retrieve every communication between a sales rep and a client from the first time they made contact with your business. Not just that, it will even list the items they purchased and what quantity. You can go further and research their social media interactions. And the icing on the cake for many marketers is the ability to automate marketing tasks.

HubSpot CRM Features

The developers of HubSpot must have taken time to understand what different segments of users would wish to accomplish in their interactions with customers. This is why HubSpot CRM features are designed with various roles in mind. These include Customer Service, Sales, Marketing as well as Management.

HubSpot CRM Customer Care Features

• Ticketing for more organized customer assistance.
• Live chat to enable instant interaction and assistance.
• Organized team emails that store all team interactions in one place.
• Email templates for standardized customer communication and efficiency.
• Ticket reports to help evaluate and improve performance.

Sales CRM Features for HubSpot

• Stores 1 million company contacts and records.
• Lead management with email notification, pipeline management, and company insights.
• Communication tracker that provides notification when a lead opens an email, downloads a document, or clicks a link.
• Email integration to manage all your email accounts on a single screen.
• Customized dashboard for one-stop view of the sales pipeline.  
• Call recording for sales calls and emails.
• Task scheduling and automated email responses.
• Prospect tracking and live chat.
• Automated contact revival for cold leads.

CRM Marketing Features in HubSpot

• Predesigned email templates to manage the customer journey.
• Email marketing tools with automated features.
• Live chatbot to manage interactions with site visitors.
• Updated metrics for email marketing campaigns which include open and click-through rates.
• Ad management tools.
• Forms to help gather more data and establish leads.

HubSpot CRM Management Features

• Over 200 free integrations.
• Company insights as well as reporting tools to provide important metrics needed to make decisions.
• Ability to connect existing software to third-party tools.

HubSpot CRM Integrations

Many businesses that have existing software are pleased by HubSpot CRM integration which offers over 200 integrations. This is part of their App Partner Program which they continuously expand to ensure more apps can be integrated with their platform.

Despite the many tools that exist within the HubSpot ecosystem, it still allows users to integrate with similar third-party apps. for example, although it has its own email marketing tools, it will still integrate smoothly with MailChimp and other similar email marketing apps. this makes it easy for businesses that are already used to a particular software but would like to enjoy a particular feature on HubSpot CRM.

A user can avail any of the following integrations and more:

• Ecommerce integrations to automate processes like handling abandoned carts.
• Social media integrations to schedule and automate posts to different social media platforms.
• Email integrations that link conversations with customers on other email accounts to the HubSpot
• Calling integrations to allow users to make conference calls within HubSpot.

With more integrations being added, users can discover many more apps that they can integrate with the CRM. Users will also enjoy the user interface which clearly indicates what apps have been integrated and it is easy to check on the progress of tasks being performed.

If you choose to automate certain actions, you still remain in the loop about what’s going on and how much has been accomplished.

HubSpot CRM Pricing

If you are impressed by the features and what you can accomplish with HubSpot, then hearing that HubSpot CRM pricing is absolutely free, will be exciting news. While they provide other products that you may have to pay for, the CRM comes with a free plan that will offer you the features you have already read about.

However, you may enjoy using the CRM so much that you decide you may want to have access to other products. Since it is quite an exhaustive platform, you can be sure that there is a lot you can gain from trying out the plans. A summary of them is here.

HubSpot offers 4 plans. These are free, starter, professional, and enterprise. These plans have separate pricing for the 5 main Hubs which are: CRM Hub, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and Growth Suite.

CRM Hub: This is completely free and allows unlimited users with 1 million contacts.

Marketing Hub: The free plan offers Forms, Team emails, 2000 emails a month, and basic chat. The Starter plan is $50 a month, Professional costs $890, and Enterprise is $3,200 per month.

Sales Hub: It has a Free plan that gives access to tracking 200 emails a month and 15 mins calls. The Starter plan is at $50, while Professional costs $50 and enterprise costs $1200.

Service Hub:  The Free plan has a number of tools but access is limited for example a user is grunted just one meeting link per month. The Starter plan is $50/month, Professional is $400/month and Enterprise costs $1200/month.

HubSpot CRM Review

HubSpot CRM has had a comfortable ride to fame as a result of its parent product HubSpot. Note that the two are different products although they are part of the same company. However, when you take into consideration the features that this CRM provides, you realize that it genuinely is worth the hype.

Almost every HubSpot CRM review will mention the fact that the majority of features are available free. However, there are limitations to what you can accomplish with an entirely free tier and so it is advisable to also consider the paid plans.

HubSpot is not without competitors, there are both CRMs as well as apps that may provide similar features like chat apps, email marketing tools, and contact management tools. Salesforce and Zoho CRM are among the competitors that get frequently compared to HubSpot’s CRM. It particularly makes headway when it comes to features, but HubSpot beats most of the competition with its user interface that is easy to find your way around and its “freemium” offer.

The CRM has a major appeal to small as well as medium enterprises because it provides free features that many other alternatives charge for. It supports a growing business since it allows them to immediately begin performing professional customer relationship management and not have to worry about paying for them. As a business grows, it can then add more features that they can afford and may be needed at that point.

Pros of HubSpot CRM

• It provides an intuitive user interface that makes it easy for beginners to get up and running.
• The free version gives users substantial features that they would have had to pay for with other alternatives.
• Offers a wide range of integrations especially for email management.
• It is continuously growing its list of integrations.
• Email lists can be segmented for targeted email campaigns.
• It makes inbound sales easy.
• It has useful analytics that help when determining improvements to be made in customer interactions.

Cons

• Premium features come at a substantial cost.
• Users need to be careful when filling forms because sometimes it can merge contacts causing confusion.

Final Word

HubSpot CRM is unique in its provision of free tools to keep in touch with your customers. With an intuitive interface and smooth integrations, it is no surprise that many of the users who review it, rate it up there with some of its paid alternatives. A business that is looking for a starter CRM with powerful features and the ability to grow with it can depend on HubSpot. It also supports automation of different CRM tasks which will improve efficiency within the organization and the customers will be impressed by the service that they will be accorded.