What is sales software?
Sales software is a digital tool designed to streamline sales operations, enhance efficiency, and improve revenue generation by automating tasks and providing valuable insights into customer relationships and sales processes. This guide will walk readers through the different kinds of software available to sales departments, examine current industry trends, and provide a case study of a market-leading solution.
Based on our evaluation of more than 30 titles, here are our recommendations for the top sales software in 2024:
- HubSpot Sales Hub: Best CRM for ease of use
- Salesforce Sales Hub: Best CRM for enterprises
- Seismic: Best sales enablement software for enterprises
- LevelEleven: Best sales gamification software
- MindTickle: Best sales training software
- Zoominfo Sales OS: Best sales intelligence software
- LeadSquared: Best lead management software
- Pipedrive: Best pipeline management software
Featured partners
Our choices for the best sales software in 2024
HubSpot Sales Hub: Best CRM for ease of use
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4.5/5
Lead management and prospecting: Automates the process of tracking and nurturing leads through the stages of the sales funnel.
Deal pipelines: Enables customization and visualization of sales pipelines to manage deals and forecast revenue.
Email templates and tracking: Offers customizable email templates and tracking features to monitor engagement.
HubSpot AI: Utilizes artificial intelligence for predictive lead scoring, content recommendations, and sales forecasting.
Sales analytics and reporting: Provides detailed analytics and reporting tools to analyze sales activities and performance metrics.
Extensive integration capabilities: In many cases, users do not have to pay for third-party app integrations.
Free trial available
Free plan available
Starter: $15/user/month
Professional: $90/user/month
Enterprise: $150/user/month
The greatest CRM for integration possibilities is HubSpot Sales Hub, which is endorsed because of its unmatched integration simplicity, free services, and an intuitive platform that streamlines intricate procedures. For companies that like having a unified, integrated set of tools to optimize their processes, this is the best option.
With scores of 95.83/100 for API availability and simplicity of connection as well as 100/100 for the variety of native add-ons and third-party connectors, HubSpot CRM achieves almost flawless ratings in every category.
Among rival platforms, the “no contract required” approach and free plan set the platform apart. You can choose a monthly subscription or an annual contract. There is a discount for the annual subscription and there are no cancellation fees associated with terminating your subscription early, but keep in mind you will not be refunded for the remaining time on your contract. This strategy makes it an appealing choice for companies of all sizes by democratizing access to its CRM.
Unlike Salesforce, which is known for its scalability and extensive ecosystem but at a higher complexity and cost, HubSpot provides a simpler, more intuitive experience that’s accessible to businesses of any size. Its free plan is particularly attractive, offering unlimited users and contacts, AI tools for task automation and content generation, mass emailing, and advanced features not commonly found in other freemium CRMs.
Pricing: 4.8/5
General features and interface: 4.4/5
Core features: 4.5/5
Advanced features: 3.8/5
Integration and compatibility: 4.8/5
UX: 4.8/5
HubSpot is a comprehensive cloud-based CRM solution launched in 2006 that aids businesses in bringing in leads, closing deals, and attracting visitors. Its user-friendly interface (UI) lowers the learning curve and makes it simple to operate. Because of its comprehensive free plan that offers a wide variety of functionalities, HubSpot is a well-liked CRM choice for startups and small businesses.
The platform is a leader in sales and marketing automation. Its products automate tedious tasks so businesses can put strategy ahead of day-to-day operations. Even in the free tier, reporting and analytics tools provide deep insights into sales KPIs and performance.
HubSpot’s emphasis on inbound marketing is seen in its email management and marketing automation products. By connecting with more than 200 technologies, HubSpot’s extensive integration capabilities assist businesses in building a cohesive tech stack.
Another important callout is its native capability and ecosystem coherence, particularly in content management and marketing automation. Scalability may be expensive, but its free features, ease of use, and marketing support make it a great choice for businesses looking for effective online growth and sales.
Salesforce Sales Hub: Best CRM for enterprises
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4.2/5
Customization and flexibility: Allows companies to tailor the CRM to their needs. Users can create fields, processes, and apps.
Sales and marketing: Lead management, opportunity management, email marketing, and campaign management capabilities.
Reporting: Lets companies create detailed reports and dashboards to track sales, customer interactions, and other key metrics. Strong native tools within the platform include Weflow, Tableau, Klipfolio, and many more.
AI insights: Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot AI improves decision-making and customer interactions via predictive analytics, lead scoring, and recommendation systems.
AppExchange: Has hundreds of pre-built CRM apps and interfaces for varied enterprise needs.
Strong integration: Interfaces with productivity, email, marketing, and finance technologies to improve operational efficiency and data coherence.
Free trial available
Essentials: $25/user/month
Professional: $75/user/month
Enterprise: $150/user/month
Unlimited: $300/user/month
*All plans billed annually
Salesforce is regarded as one of the best CRMs for enterprises mainly because of its scalability, ecosystem, and innovation. With a set of features that are always at the forefront of CRM technology, such as Einstein Copilot, it’s a platform that expands along with your organization and helps it develop.
The recently released Einstein Copilot allows Salesforce clients to create replies using their own secure data while upholding rigorous data governance without costly AI model training. Einstein Copilot can do various activities such as answering questions, summarizing material, generating new content, interpreting difficult discussions, and automating tasks across Salesforce’s products, providing users with a more unified experience.
Salesforce has very high ratings for customization, integration, and scalability when compared to rivals Pipedrive, for example, is suited to smaller businesses focused on sales pipeline management, whereas Zoho CRM offers more free features but lacks the level of customizability of Salesforce. Its customer service is good (and becomes better at higher levels), and its user interface is rather intuitive.
Salesforce is unique because of its ecosystem. Salesforce offers a dynamic platform that expands with your company, in contrast to rivals that only provide a static solution. With hundreds of third-party apps available in its AppExchange marketplace, there is a great deal of customization and extension possible.
Salesforce also wins in several other areas compared to similar enterprise level competitors. With more regular upgrades, a wider app marketplace, and a more vibrant user and developer community, Salesforce sets itself apart from rival CRMs like Oracle.
Pricing: 3.5/5
General features: 4.5/5
Advanced features: 4.5/5
Integration and compatibility: 3.5/5
UX: 3.5/5
For many years, Salesforce CRM has dominated the business space, and much of its influence is warranted. It is a formidable competitor in the market thanks to its extensive feature set, scalability, and creative approach to customer relationship management.
Although many large-scale enterprises benefit greatly from Salesforce’s many capabilities and customization choices, novice users may find the platform to have a high learning curve. Because of the platform’s depth and ability to be extensively tailored, using it may need a high level of skill and training. Organizations may have to pay more as a result of the time and materials needed for training.
Salesforce’s strong feature is its integration capabilities, which provide links to a wide range of business apps. However, there are occasions when this connectivity can become complicated, especially when handling and debugging cross-system integrations.
In general, the user experience is easy to use, and new features are added often. However, some users could find it difficult to stay up to speed with the regular upgrades, which might cause disruptions to workflows as teams adjust to the new capabilities.
Although Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot AI additions and mobile experience improvements are impressive and put the platform at the forefront of innovation, keep in mind that there is a significant cost involved in using these state-of-the-art features.
Also read: CRM Software Guide
Seismic: Best sales enablement software for enterprises
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4.2/5
Sales content management: Organize and manage sales materials for easy access and distribution.
Learning and coaching: Provides tools for sales training and performance coaching.
Buyer engagement: Enhances interactions with buyers through targeted content.
Content automation: Streamlines content creation and customization for sales teams.
Strategy and planning: Assists in aligning sales strategies with business goals.
Enablement intelligence: Offers insights and analytics for sales enablement activities.
Starting from $32/month
Seismic stands out from the competition thanks to its feature-rich content management system. This system is excellent at efficiently arranging, updating, and distributing sales materials, guaranteeing that sales teams have quick access to pertinent and up-to-date information. In contrast to many of its competitors, it offers exceptional integration capabilities and enables a smooth workflow between sales by integrating with a broad range of CRM systems, marketing tools, and productivity applications.
Seismic excels in another area as well: using AI to deliver useful insights about the performance of content. This allows sales teams to rank and customize their strategies according to the most influential content, providing a degree of insight and customization that distinguishes Seismic from rivals. Seismic’s acquisition of SAVO has also strengthened its coaching and training programs for salespeople, offering adaptable learning pathways that promote their ongoing development. Personalized learning and development is emphasized, which gives this platform a major advantage over many others.
Pricing: 2.5/5*
Core features: 4.5/5
Advanced features: 4.5/5
Usability and interface: 4.1/5
Support and training: 4.2/5
Integration and compatibility: 4.4/5
Security and innovation: 4.4/5
* Full pricing information is not disclosed by Seismic.
Seismic is a sales enablement platform designed to support customer-facing teams by providing them with the necessary skills, content, tools, and insights to enhance client engagement and business growth. Its key features include sales content management, learning and coaching, buyer engagement, content automation, strategy and planning, and enablement intelligence.
Also read: Sales Enablement Software Guide
LevelEleven: Best sales gamification software
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4.3/5
Personalized scorecards: Sales reps receive personalized scorecards that track their performance against key behaviors that drive sales and customer retention.
Real-time TV broadcasts: Includes a feature for broadcasting sales contests and leaderboards in real-time.
Data-driven coaching: Offers both out-of-the-box and customizable templates for sales coaching.
Competition amplification: Utilizing competitions to tap into sales reps’ natural competitive nature.
Mentorship opportunities: Opens up opportunities for mentorship and coaching by making individual rankings visible on leaderboards, encouraging lower-performing reps to seek advice and guidance from top performers.
Motivate: $40/user/month
Coach: $50/user/month
LevelEleven’s specific focus on sales gamification, combined with its comprehensive features and seamless Salesforce integration, makes it a compelling choice over competitors like Pointagram, Ambition, and Zoho Motivator for sales teams looking to drive performance and motivation through a data-driven, gamified approach.
It has developed into a full suite of tools intended to inspire, involve, and mentor sales teams in order to produce outcomes. This evolution sets it apart from competitors by providing a metric-driven sales approach that sales leaders who want to boost performance through data insights greatly value.
However, while it is no longer just a tool for gamifying sales procedures, it is important to note it is still primarily gamification software, adding and improving upon its gamification features regularly.
When contrasting LevelEleven with other gamification choices like Pointagram, Ambition, and Zoho Motivator, several benefits become apparent. LevelEleven specializes in sales gamification and has features designed especially for sales teams, in contrast to Pointagram, which offers a free plan with limited competition capabilities and focuses on a wide range of applications outside of sales. For businesses that prioritize sales, this focus makes sure that the functionalities are in line with KPIs and sales targets, increasing its effectiveness.
Another rival that provides a comprehensive sales management platform with KPI analysis, coaching, and gamification is Ambition. But LevelEleven sets itself apart with its extensive Salesforce integration, which makes it a great option for businesses with significant Salesforce ecosystem investments. The smooth integration guarantees that sales teams have instant access to vital performance metrics on a well-known platform, optimizing data flow.
Because of its native integration, Zoho Motivator may seem like a logical choice for companies that currently use Zoho CRM, but that is not necessarily the case. For teams seeking more than just basic gamification integrated with their CRM system, LevelEleven’s wider feature set and emphasis on sales gamification provide a more complete solution.
Pricing: 3.2/5*
Features and engagement: 4.6/5
Analytics and scalability: 4.2/5
Integration and usability: 4.4/5
Security and support: 4.2/5
*LevelEleven does not offer a free trial or free plan, which brought down its pricing score. Its plans are competitive for the field, however.
Also read: Sales Gamification Software Guide
LevelEleven is a complete sales performance management solution that boosts sales team productivity and engagement. Gamification creates a competitive but collaborative environment to motivate teams to meet goals. Personalized scorecards track sales performance, real-time TV broadcasts celebrate successes and create a competitive atmosphere, and data-driven coaching tools offer actionable feedback for sales improvement.
LevelEleven is updated to maximize user benefits. Recent updates have improved user experience and feature functionality. The platform now has better data visualization and integration tools to help sales teams track progress and managers find coaching insights.
LevelEleven promotes sales habits through contests, leaderboards, and Channel11 broadcasts, encouraging friendly competition and celebrating success. Its engagement tools help teams focus on key metrics, and its coaching features help every team member succeed. Goal Engine allows goal adjustments and provides realistic target-setting insights.
Also read: Sales Gamification Software Guide
MindTickle: Best sales training software
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4.4/5
Gamification: Uses competitive elements like points and badges to engage and motivate users.
Personalized learning paths: Tailors learning experiences to individual user needs and performance levels.
Interactive content: Offers interactive training materials, including videos and quizzes, to enhance learning engagement.
Analytics and reporting: Provides insights into user performance and progress through detailed analytics and role-based dashboards.
Mobile learning: Accessible on mobile devices, allowing users to learn anytime, anywhere.
Sales readiness and coaching tools: Includes role-play scenarios and feedback mechanisms to prepare users for real-world sales situations.
- Annual cost for 30 licenses at $360 per year: $10,800*
- Annual cost for 30 licenses at $600 per year: $18,000
- Minimum contract term: Generally 3 years
- One-time implementation fee: $3,000 to $5,000
Contract term: Annual basis, with an average contract duration of 36 months. Shorter contract terms are negotiable but result in a higher price per person.
Average price per person: Between $30 and $50 per month, or $360 to $600 per year.
One-time implementation fee: Between $3,000 and $5,000, covering the setup of the software for a company.
Implementation duration: Approximately 6 to 8 weeks.
*Pricing retrieved from a third-party source. Contact MindTickle for specific pricing information.
MindTickle’s ability to boost user engagement through gamification and personalized learning paths sets it apart from its competitors. MindTickle customizes its training to each sales rep’s needs and performance level, addressing their gaps and strengths. This personalized approach is crucial in a dynamic and varied field like sales, where training effectiveness can greatly impact business success.
MindTickle’s powerful analytics and reporting tools give sales reps actionable insights into their progress, strengths, and weaknesses. It allows managers to make informed decisions about future training initiatives and individual coaching needs, which many competitors lack or offer in limited capacity. Sales reps can access training materials on their phones, which is essential in today’s fast-paced workplaces.
Its focus on sales readiness through role-play scenarios and real-time feedback prepares sales reps for real-world interactions better than competitors that focus on theory. MindTickle’s blend of practical readiness, personalized learning, and actionable analytics makes it a top choice for companies looking to improve sales training to create a more engaged, informed, and prepared sales force.
Pricing: 4/5
Training content quality: 4.2/5
UX and engagement: 4/5
Customization and integration: 5/5
Analytics and performance tracking: 4.3/5
A comprehensive platform for sales training and readiness, MindTickle aims to improve the abilities and productivity of sales teams. It promises to improve performance through dynamic, tailored training experiences and acts as a link between traditional learning management systems and the specific needs of sales organizations. In order to motivate and engage users, MindTickle uses gamification, which incorporates competitive elements like points, badges, and leaderboards into the learning process. In order to guarantee that training is pertinent and focused, the platform also provides customized learning paths based on the unique requirements and performance levels of each sales representative.
Important characteristics include the ability to create interactive training materials, tests, and role-play scenarios. Managers can identify areas where learners excel or need improvement by using analytics and reporting tools, which give them insights into team performance. Sales representatives can interact with training materials anytime, anywhere thanks to mobile accessibility, which helps them fit learning into their hectic schedules.
With recent updates, MindTickle’s user experience has been improved, and it can now integrate with more sales and productivity tools, giving sales teams easy access to training within their current workflows.
Zoominfo Sales OS: Best sales intelligence software
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4.3/5
Segmentation: Offers detailed insights on demographics, firmographics, technographics, and psychographics.
Intent data: Prioritizes outbound prospecting efficiently.
Targeted go-to-market strategies: Uses various filters.
Unique data sets: Information on employee roles and advanced search functionalities that are particularly useful in SMB and mid-market segments.
Professional plan: $8,000+ per year
Advanced plan: $12,000+ per year
Elite plan: $40,000+ per year
Sales intelligence software ZoomInfo SalesOS is unmatched in its ability to enrich sales strategies with deep insights. ZoomInfo SalesOS’s core feature is segmentation, which provides demographic, firmographic, technographic, and psychographic data. Intent data helps sales teams prioritize outreach by identifying prospects interested in relevant products or services. This level of targeting precision proves vital for sales process optimization and efficiency.
It provides accurate contact and company data, helping sales teams to conduct outreach. However, users have reported some contact information is outdated—a reality most sales intelligence solutions face.
Having said this, SMBs and mid-market companies looking to improve their go-to-market strategies will undoubtedly benefit from the platform’s advanced search and unique employee role data sets.
ZoomInfo SalesOS outperforms LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Apollo.io in data quality and insights. ZoomInfo’s large database and frequent updates give users the latest and most complete information, even though competitors offer similar features. ZoomInfo SalesOS’s rich workflow features and ability to identify lookalike companies make it a top choice for companies wanting to simplify sales intelligence and boost conversion rates.
Pricing: 3/5
Data quality and coverage: 4.6/5
Advanced features: 4.6/5
Usability and interface: 4.1/5
Support and training: 4.2/5
Security and innovation: 4.6/5
ZoomInfo SalesOS, a sales intelligence platform, gives sales and marketing professionals powerful insights and tools to boost lead generation and engagement. It offers a wide contact database allowing sales teams to search for potential clients directly. In the 2023 release notes, ZoomInfo SalesOS included some essential features to improve its B2B functionality.
Advanced targeting and segmentation features, database advancements, and sales automation and workflow tools are among the updates. Upgrades provide users more insights into possible leads and industry trends, enabling more targeted and effective outreach methods.
ZoomInfo SalesOS’s interface upgrades and easier navigation demonstrate its creativity. These improvements allow users to easily access insights to develop sales strategies and make educated decisions.
Also read: Sales Intelligence Software Guide
LeadSquared: Best lead management software
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4/5
Lead capture automation: Centralizes leads from various sources like websites, social media, and referrals onto one platform.
Quality and engagement scoring: Automatically qualifies leads and assigns scores based on their engagement.
Lead distribution: Tracks and allocates leads among teams based on dynamic criteria.
Sales and marketing automation: Streamlines communication across multiple channels, including WhatsApp, SMS, email, and phone.
Built-in dialer: Enables one-click calling to prospects and records conversations for compliance and productivity.
Real-time dashboards and reports: Provides over 135 reports for comprehensive analysis of campaign spending and sales closure rates.
For sales + mobile CRM:
- LITE: $25/user/month
- PRO: $50/user/month
- SUPER: $100/user/month
For marketing automation:
- ESSENTIAL: $150/month
- BASIC: $400/month
- STANDARD: $1,200/month
- ENTERPRISE: $2,500/month
Quality scoring, engagement scoring, and lead scoring make LeadSquared a popular lead scoring software as it evaluates leads in several dimensions. This method is essential for assessing a lead’s potential by considering activity frequency and recency, avoiding obsolete data. LeadSquared offers total customization of lead scores, automates funnel movement depending on score thresholds, and notifies sales teams of pertinent activity. These features aid in finding sales-ready leads, nurturing engagement-needed prospects, and recognizing upsell chances.
LeadSquared is simpler than HubSpot, especially for drip marketing campaigns. HubSpot’s email and landing page features come with restrictions that may limit options for openness on price and customization for experienced users. In contrast, customers praise LeadSquared for its effective lead management, extensive integration capabilities, and excellent customer service. The platform is popular for its versatility, customization, and affordability, making it ideal for startups and small enterprises.
Pricing: 3.3/5
General features and interface: 3.8/5
Core features: 4.6/5
Advanced features: 4.3/5
Integration and compatibility: 4.4/5
UX: 4/5
LeadSquared is a SaaS platform that automates sales, marketing, and onboarding for firms with large lead volumes across many sales channels and teams. As a lead management software, it captures, tracks, and nurtures prospects along the sales funnel, automates marketing, and provides thorough insights to enhance sales operations. Lead management, task management, automation, and organization settings have been improved in recent platform versions.
To improve security, attachments posted to activities and lead notes, for example, are automatically tagged private. Additionally, new features have been introduced to allow for more flexible task management and automation. LeadSquared features enhanced lead, user, activity, task, and platform settings, including new user fields, team creation possibilities, and task filtering options.
LeadSquared also caters to a wide range of industries, including education, healthcare, financial services, real estate, and more, showcasing its versatility and ability to meet diverse business needs. Its strong capabilities in lead management are reflected in its overall rating of 4.3 out of 5, with high marks for ease of use, customer support, and functionality.
Also read: Lead Management Software Guide
Pipedrive: Best pipeline management software
Pros
Cons
Our Rating: 4.2/5
Task automation: Offers task automation, one-click contact data collection, and an AI-powered sales assistant.
AI assistant: Analyzes sales pipelines and actions to suggest deal strategies
CRM included: Enhances workflows and sales productivity.
Broad customization: Allows customization of pipelines for specific business needs.
Email and communications: Centralizes communication efforts and advances leads through the sales funnel.
Insights and reports: Provides customizable sales reports for optimizing workflows.
Variety of native integrations integrations: Enables synchronization with various tools for enhanced functionality.
Pipedrive is great for sales process optimizers. The straightforward design, strong automation, and analytics make it perfect for sales teams to simplify operations.
Pipedrive’s visual sales pipeline simplifies transaction advancement in a consumable style. Users learn performance patterns with complete sales reporting. Email integration makes tracking and automating follow-ups easy. Pipedrive’s activity and goal-tracking features optimize funnel progress by aligning sales efforts. Pipedrive is a top CRM suggestion for firms wanting a clear perspective and management over their sales funnel.
Pipedrive’s balanced performance across categories earned it an 83.3 out of 100 score and 4.2 stars. Sales pipeline (100), task automation (100), email integration (100), and essential CRM tools are just a few of its many strengths.
Pipedrive is easier to use than Salesforce or HubSpot, making it perfect for small to medium-sized enterprises or teams that need a simple, effective sales process without substantial customization or complex connections.
Pricing: 3.5/5
General features and interface: 4.3/5
Core features: 4.6/5
Advanced features: 3.5/5
Integration and compatibility: 4.8/5
UX: 4/5
Pipedrive is known for being an easy-to-use CRM system with a pipeline management focus. The primary features that set it apart from the competition are its user-friendly design, customizable pipelines, extensive contact management, effective deal tracking, and strong interaction possibilities with several applications.
Pipedrive’s AI-powered Sales Assistant, launched in 2023, is the company’s first AI feature. It analyzes sales pipelines and actions to recommend the best course of action for deals. A new Power price category for bigger teams, email multi-sync for managing multiple email accounts, automated assignment for lead distribution, booster add-on packs for increasing feature restrictions, and the Projects add-on for project administration are among the other noteworthy improvements. The Insights feature also has upgrades for 2024, now including percentage breakdowns, increased segment size, and the option to filter out deactivated users on reports and dashboards.
Find your new sales software
Key components of sales software
Sales software, developed to expedite and improve the sales process, includes several tools for sales operations. From lead generation to completing transactions and post-sale customer management, sales software covers the complete sales lifecycle. These crucial elements are listed below:
CRM
CRM’s monitor all interactions and sales progress using lead and contact management, ensuring no opportunity is missed. Opportunity management in CRMs lets sales teams find, monitor, and evaluate sales possibilities for real-time strategic decision-making. A comprehensive perspective of client contacts and sales prospects lets firms customize sales tactics to consumer demands.
Automating sales
Automation of routine duties like email follow-ups, work assignments, and event alerts frees up salespeople to concentrate on more strategic responsibilities. Sales procedure management ensures consistency and efficiency by guiding sales teams through a standardized process. Automation improves efficiency and customer experience by assuring timely and appropriate interactions. Artificial intelligence tools have significantly improved automation within CRM systems.
Data analysis and reporting
This component predicts sales patterns using past data, improving strategic planning and decision-making. The detailed monitoring of sales activities, outcomes, and team performance against defined objectives reveals which techniques are succeeding and which require improvement.
Creating leads
Lead generation technologies help find and acquire leads via digital marketing, social media, and networking. These technologies rank leads by conversion probability, helping sales teams concentrate on the best prospects.
Sales aid
Content management systems (CMS) that make sales materials, presentations, and documents available are part of sales enablement. It includes sales team training and onboarding, giving resources and tools to help sales reps reach goals.
Tools for communicating
Email platforms and other communication solutions streamline client and sales team collaboration. Schedule, log, and occasionally record and transcribe calls/meetings using these tools to keep accurate records.
Sales analytics
Sales intelligence tools provide industry trends, customer behavior, and possibilities by analyzing rivals’ strategies. This information helps sales teams adjust their strategy to industry developments and remain ahead of the competition.
Manage quotes/proposals
Templates and pricing systems are used to create customized quotes and proposals. Simplified approval protocols speed up quote and proposal evaluation.
E-commerce
Integrating online sales channels with e-commerce platforms streamlines the process. Accepting many payment options simplifies the purchase experience.
Management and customer service
Post-sale support systems are essential for addressing queries, tickets, and continuing help, providing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Consumer input helps improve goods and services to meet consumer demands.
Productivity & teamwork
Shared calendars, document sharing, and communication tools boost team productivity. Mobile accessibility lets salespeople access information and accomplish work on the move, ensuring they have the tools they need when they need them.
What are some trends in sales software?
There are a number of trends currently shaping the sales software market. Factoring these trends into your buying decision will help you select products that offer the most long-term value. Here are a few of the most prominent:
Software-as-a-Service
Cloud technology has made strong inroads in almost every business IT vertical, and sales software is no exception. Cloud solutions are hosted on a remote server and accessed via web applications, which means they require very little IT maintenance. It also means they can save businesses thousands of dollars in upfront expenses through software-as-a-service (SaaS) pricing models. Unlike on-premise software, SaaS is licensed on a monthly subscription basis — typically based on the number of users. In 2013, cloud solutions accounted for 41% of all CRM purchases. That percentage will likely continue to rise as companies realize the advantages of virtual infrastructure and pay-as-you-go pricing.
Mobile
As the need for anytime access to software increases, vendors are increasingly directing their efforts to mobile development. Many modern sales solutions—whether CRM, business intelligence, or marketing automation—give users access to back-end systems, communication tools, and customer data from their mobile devices. That can mean a native application for a particular device platform (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) or a basic mobile web interface that optimizes for smaller displays and touch navigation. According to Forbes, 12.7% of full-time employees worked from home, while 28.2% worked a hybrid model in 2023. This means mobility in business software will soon shift from a luxury to a prerequisite.
Social integration
In recent years, social media has transformed the way businesses interact with their customers. Instead of waiting passively at the other end of a phone line or on the other side of a POS counter, brands can now court their target audiences online in a personally engaging way.
A recent Statista study shows 97% of internet customers utilize social media monthly. Thus, it is most customers’ main product information source. Additionally, 67% of customers expect brands and corporations to provide customer assistance on social media.Sales software that integrates with social media (such as Social CRM) lets businesses sell products, conduct marketing campaigns, deliver service solutions, and capture valuable data in a way that’s more personal than ever before.
Case study: Numeric.io
Solution: HubSpot CRM
Tierney Pretzer, growth leader at Numeric.io:
I’ve used a variety of sales tools (including SalesLoft, Outreach, Apollo, ZoomInfo, SalesForce, Seismic, and HubSpot).
Integrating HubSpot’s CRM into our daily operations has been a game-changer, especially for an early-stage company like ours. The platform’s seamless integration capabilities with the other tools in our techstack like WebFlow and Typeform allowed us to consolidate our tools into one cohesive system, reducing friction and streamlining our processes.
One tangible outcome was the significant improvement in our engagement rates for latent deals. With HubSpot’s sophisticated email marketing tools and list management features, we could re-engage with our latent pool pipeline effectively via webinars, content outreach, and through typical sales-led emails, which led to increased conversions to Closed Won from latent deals.
The ability to track and analyze customer interactions within a single platform enables us to tailor our strategies more effectively over time.
In summary, HubSpot CRM has empowered us at Numeric.io to enhance our sales processes through better integration, improved engagement, and insightful data analysis. It’s not just about having the right tools but using them effectively to connect with customers and drive growth.
Choosing the right sales software
In order to increase income, improve efficiency, and optimize sales operations, companies now find that sales software is an essential tool.
These systems provide the tools required to adjust to the changing sales environment, from configurable pipelines and extensive analytics to AI-powered sales help. Selecting sales software that is capable of growing alongside your business is even more crucial in light of recent upgrades that include the incorporation of AI and project management capabilities. Investing in a strong sales software solution is more important than ever for achieving sales success and being competitive as the sales environment changes.
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