Tag: CRM

  • Top CRM Tools & Customer Relationship Management Tools for Startups and Businesses in 2025

    Customers are an important aspect of any business, and it’s a crucial task to maintain a good customer relationship. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system or software that helps businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. The goal of CRM is to improve business relationships with customers, help in customer retention, and drive sales growth.

    CRM tools are used to store and manage customer data, track customer interactions and interactions, and provide actionable insights to help businesses improve their customer relationships. This can include information about customers’ past purchases, their preferences and behaviors, and any interactions with customer service representatives.

    CRM tools can also include tools for automating and streamlining business processes, such as sales forecasting, marketing campaigns, and lead management. By using a CRM system, businesses can more effectively target and personalize their marketing efforts, as well as improve their customer service and support. As CRM is an essential part of any business, here are the top Customer Relationship Management tools for businesses.

    5 Best CRM software

    The Best Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools for Businesses:

    Here is the list of top CRM software tools to fulfill various business needs in 2025:

    S.No CRM Software Key Features Pricing
    1 Zoho CRM Software Lead management, workflow automation, AI-driven insights Starts at ₹800/user/month
    2 Hubspot CRM Free CRM, marketing automation, email tracking Free plan; Paid starts at $20/user/month
    3 Salesforce CRM Highly customizable, AI (Einstein), sales forecasting Starts at $25/user/month
    4 Pipedrive Sales pipeline visualization, automation, reporting Starts at $14.90/user/month
    5 Creatio CRM Low-code customization, sales + marketing + service automation Custom pricing (on request)
    6 Freshsales Built-in phone & email, AI insights, workflow automation Free plan; Paid starts at ₹999/user/month
    7 vCITA Appointment scheduling, invoicing, client management Starts at $29/month
    8 EngageBay All-in-one CRM, email marketing, helpdesk Free plan; Paid starts at $12.74/user/month
    9 Zendesk Customer support, ticketing, omnichannel engagement Starts at $19/agent/month
    10 Apptivo IT financial management, cost transparency, budgeting Custom pricing (enterprise)

    Zoho CRM Software

    Rating 4/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 30 Days
    Zoho Customer Relationship Management Tools
    Zoho Customer Relationship Management Tools

    Zoho CRM is a cloud-based Customer Relationship Management tool, known for empowering organizations with a complete customer relationship lifecycle management solution. It is workable for both small and large businesses. It also comes with a free trial version. This CRM tool is extremely customizable, and smoothly runs with all other apps. The other app features include lead generation and qualification, pipeline analysis, competitive analysis, a single database, offers parent-child relationships between customer accounts and their subsidiaries, creating forms with no coding, uploading forms live instantly, etc.

    Pricing Details of Zoho CRM:

    There is a free edition and four paid plans, i.e, Standard, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

    Standard Rs.800/month, billed annually
    Professional Rs.1,400/month, billed annually
    Enterprise Rs.2,400/month, billed annually
    Ultimate Rs.2,600/month, billed annually

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    Hubspot CRM

    Rating 4.4/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 14 Days
    Zoho CRM Tool
    Hubspot CRM Tool

    Hubspot CRM was the winner of the Expert Choice award in 2018, due to its top-class CRM services. It is built as a platform that allows the sales team to get started quickly without making much of changes in their existing workflow.

    It is very helpful in creating beautiful contact and company profiles, by keeping a neat organization of every detail from the customer’s communication that has a connection with the company. The features include customizing views, website integration, social media, CRM details, email connections, phone integration, deal and task board, etc.

    Pricing Details of HubSpot CRM:

    There is a free edition and four paid plans, i.e, Starter, Basic, Professional, and Enterprise.

    Starter $50/month
    Basic $200/month
    Professional $800/month
    Enterprise $2400/month

    Salesforce CRM

    Rating 4.3/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 14-30 days
    Salesforce CRM Tool
    Salesforce Customer Relationship Tools

    Salesforce CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management software platform that helps businesses manage and track customer interactions, sales, and marketing efforts.

    The features include account and contact management, lead management, sales forecasting, contact manager, file sharing, campaign influence, calendar, case management, lightning speed solutions, and much more.

    The platform also offers a range of customizable tools for customer service, analytics, and collaboration. Salesforce CRM can be used by businesses of all sizes and industries, and it is available in various subscription plans to meet the needs of different organizations.

    Pricing Details of Salesforce CRM:

    The CRM tool has a Free trial and four paid packages i.e, Lightning Essentials($25/user/month), Lightning Professional ($75/user/month), Lightning Enterprise($150/user/month), and Lightning Unlimited ($300 /user/month).

    Lightning Essentials $25/month
    Lightning Professional $75/month
    Lightning Enterprise $150/month
    Lightning Unlimited $300/month

    What are the different types of CRM?
    What is a Customer Relationship Management System?
    What does a CRM System do?
    Why have a CRM System?
    Do I need a CRM System?
    Types of CRM:
    Operational CRM
    Analytical CRM
    Collaborative CRM What is a Customer Relationship Management System?
    A customer relationship management (CRM) system is an IT te…


    Pipedrive

    Rating 4.2/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 30 days
    Pipedrive CRM Software
    Pipedrive CRM Software and Tools

    Pipedrive is the winner of the Expert’s Choice Award 2018. It is listed under the top customer relationship management (CRM) tools designed to help businesses manage and track their sales and customer interactions.

    The website is built for salespeople and hardcore web app developers. It is a very friendly CRM platform and can be fully mobile-optimized, and can easily integrates its Google Calendar, Google Contacts, and other Google apps.

    It offers a range of features such as lead and opportunity management, pipeline visualization, task and calendar management, goal setting, contact history, and integration with other tools such as email and social media.

    With Pipedrive, users can create and manage deals, track customer interactions, set reminders and deadlines, and analyze sales performance. It also allows users to customize the CRM system to fit their specific business needs and workflow.

    Pricing Details of the Pipedrive CRM Tool:

    This tool offers a 14-day free trial and has three best packages, i.e, Essential($9.90/user/month), Advanced ($19.90/user/month), and Professional ($39.90/user/month) when billed annually.

    Essential $9.90/month
    Advanced $19.90/month
    Professional $39.90/month

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    Top 5 Alternatives for Pipedrive CRM

    Creatio CRM

    Rating 4.6/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 14 days
    Creatio CRM Software Tool
    Creatio CRM Tools for Business Development

    The Creatio CRM tool is known for being an out-of-the-box customer relationship management (CRM) tool that helps streamline company processes, boost employee productivity, and also to organize CRM data. There are several modules available: Marketing Creatio, Sales Creatio, and Service Creatio, where each module has specialized tools for specific departments.

    The features include customer data management, system integration, lead management, time management, sales management tools, communication tools, sales management features, document management compatible with MS Word, knowledge management offline, etc.

    Pricing Details of Creatio CRM Software:

    The tool offers 14 14-day free trial. And, its pricing plan is divided into three sections: Sales (an end-to-end platform to automate sales processes of any type with no-code), Marketing (a ready-to-use platform to automate marketing campaigns and lead management workflows with no-code), and Service Module (an omnichannel platform to automate customer service workflows of any complexity with no-code). Pricing details for each module are given below:

    Sales Module Pricing:

    Team $30/month
    Commerce $35/month
    Enterprise $60/month

    Service Module Pricing:

    Customer Center $45/month
    Service Enterprise $60/month

    Marketing Pricing Module: Custom Plan


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    Freshsales

    Rating 4.6/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 21 days
    Freshsales - CRM software tool
    Freshsales – CRM Management Tools

    Freshsales is the winner of the Great User Experience Award 2017. It is listed as a high-quality CRM software tool that is designed for high-velocity teams to keep track of contacts and also solve their inquiries.

    It offers a wide range of features, including contact details, communication history, and notes about interactions with customers. It also includes a range of sales and marketing tools, such as lead capture forms, email campaigns, and automated workflows to help businesses manage their sales pipelines and nurture leads.

    In addition to its sales and marketing capabilities, Freshsales also offers a range of customer support tools, including a ticketing system and a live chat feature, to help businesses provide timely and efficient support to their customers.

    Overall, Freshsales is a comprehensive CRM platform that can help businesses manage and grow their customer relationships by providing a central hub for storing and organizing customer data and communication, as well as a range of tools to support sales, marketing, and customer support efforts.

    Pricing Details of Freshsales CRM Software:

    The tool offers a free trial for 21 days. Other pricing plans include Growth, Pro, and Enterprise.

    Growth Rs 999/month, billed annually
    Pro Rs 2,799/month, billed annually
    Enterprise Rs 4,999/month, billed annually

    vCITA

    Rating 4.4/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 14 days
    vCITA - top customer relationship management) software
    vCITA – top customer relationship management) software

    vCITA is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool that helps small businesses and freelancers manage their customer interactions and schedule appointments. It is used by professionals such as lawyers, accountants, fitness trainers, photographers, and more. It provides a range of features designed to streamline and automate various aspects of customer management, including appointment scheduling, invoicing, client communication, and task management.

    Overall, vCITA is a comprehensive CRM software that can help small businesses automate their customer management processes.

    Pricing Details of vCITA CRM Software:

    The tool offers a 14-day free trial and has three pricing tools: Essentials ($19/month), Business ($45/month), and Platinum ($75/month).

    Essentials $19/month, billed annually
    Business $45/month, billed annually
    Platinum $75/month, billed annually

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    EngageBay

    Rating 4.6/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial For 15 Users
    EngageBay- CRM platform
    EngageBay- Best CRM for Startups

    EngageBay is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps businesses manage and organize their customer interactions and data by integrating sales, marketing, and service activities in one place. Its primary purpose is to generate leads and get loyal supporters. The features include sales and marketing automation. contact management, Facebook Ads, analytics, ticket management, email marketing, social media management, live chats, lead generation and nurturing, customer service and support, and analytics and reporting.

    Introduction to EngageBay CRM platform

    Pricing Details of EngageBay CRM Software:

    EngageBay offers a free trial and three paid plans: a basic, growth, and a Pro plan.

    Basic $11.95/month, billed annually
    Growth $45.99/month, billed annually
    Pro $73.59/month, billed annually

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    Zendesk

    Rating 4.3/5
    Mobile Access Android and iOS
    Free Trial 14 Days
    Zendesk - CRM platform
    Zendesk – CRM platform

    Zendesk is a customer service-focused CRM designed to make customer support simple and efficient. It offers an advanced ticketing system with automated routing and SLAs, self-service portals where customers can find answers on their own, and AI-powered bots that handle routine queries. Businesses can also use their analytics and customizable dashboards to track performance and gain insights. Plus, Zendesk integrates easily with popular tools like Salesforce, Shopify, and Slack, making it a complete solution for customer support and sales automation.

    Pricing of Zendesk CRM Software:

    Suite Team $19/agent/month, billed annually
    Suite Growth $55/agent/month, billed annually
    Suite Pro $115/agent/month, billed annually

    Apptivo

    Rating 4.4/5
    Mobile Access Web-based (Cloud)
    Free Trial Not Available
    Apptio - CRM platform
    Apptio – CRM platform

    Apptio may not be as well-known as Zoho or Salesforce, but it works just as well and offers users plenty of flexibility at a lower price. It brought together useful apps like Office 365, G Suite, Dropbox, and PayPal in one place, making it easier to manage everything. A free version was available for up to 3 users, while paid plans started from just $8 a month. People could use Apptivo on Mac, Windows, mobile phones, or directly on the web, and 24/7 online support was also provided to help whenever needed.

    Pricing of Apptivo CRM Software

    Plan Pricing
    Costing Essentials ~$80,040/year for managing up to $25M in IT spend
    Costing Standard ~$110,040/year for managing up to $25M in IT spend

    Conclusion

    Choosing the right CRM software can make a huge difference in how efficiently your business manages customer relationships, sales, and support. Each tool has its strengths; some excel in automation, others in customization or affordability. By understanding your business needs, team size, and budget, you can pick a CRM that not only organizes your customer data but also drives growth, improves customer satisfaction, and saves time. Investing in the right CRM is a strategic move that invests in the long-term success of your business.

    FAQs

    What is CRM?

    CRM stands for “Customer Relationship Management” and refers to all strategies, techniques, tools, and technologies used by enterprises for developing, retaining, and acquiring customers.

    What are the best customer relationship management (CRM) software platform in 2025?

    The Top-Rated CRM software product for 2025 includes:

    • Zoho CRM
    • Hubspot CRM
    • Salesforce CRM
    • Pipedrive
    • Creatio CRM
    • Freshsales
    • vCITA
    • EngageBay

    How much does a CRM system cost?

    Most CRM tools range from $10 up to hundreds of dollars per user per month. The more expensive plans usually have much more advanced features and increased access to customer support.

    What are the 4 pillars of CRM?

    Workforce, Strategy, Processes and Technology constitute the four pillars of CRM.

    What is a CRM framework?

    The customer relationship management framework is the way in which companies manage their customers.

    Should I consider a free CRM tool?

    If you have a small business with basic customer relationship management needs, a free CRM may be sufficient. However, if you have a larger business with more complex customer relationship management requirements, a paid CRM with more advanced features and support may be a better choice.

    What other tools integrate with CRM software?

    There are a wide variety of tools that can integrate with CRM software to enhance its functionality and enable businesses to more effectively manage their customer relationships. Some examples of tools that commonly integrate with CRM software include marketing automation, project management, social media, email marketing, financial tools, customer service, and support tools.

  • Best Chatbot Builders of 2024

    We all want to ace at customer support, experience and productivity – and there is no doubt about that. If you are someone on the same boat, we have some good news! Chatbot builders might just be the game-changer you need. These innovative tools are transforming the way businesses interact with their customers, providing round-the-clock support and personalised experiences. With the right chatbot builder, you can automate routine tasks, free up your team’s time, and create memorable interactions that keep your customers coming back for more. You’ll get to know how these tools can help you build chatbots that not only answer questions but also guide customers through complex processes, gather valuable insights, and even close sales. 

    HubSpot
    Manychat
    IBM Watsonx Assistant
    Wit.ai
    Amazon Lex

    HubSpot

    Website www.hubspot.com
    Rating 4.4
    Free Trial Yes
    Platforms Supported Web, IOS/Android
    HubSpot - Best Chatbot Builders
    HubSpot – Best Chatbot Builders

    HubSpot‘s chatbot builder is a powerful tool that can revolutionise your customer interactions. It allows you to create automated chat services that integrate seamlessly with your current CRM systems. You can set up chatbots to qualify leads, book meetings, and create support tickets, all without human intervention. One of the standout features is the ability to create task-specific bots that guide visitors through a predefined sequence of questions. This helps you gather essential information about your visitors before your team takes over the conversation. For those with more advanced needs, HubSpot offers conversational AI that can provide human-like responses using a knowledge base.

    The chatbot builder is incredibly user-friendly, with a visual interface that makes it easy to design your bot’s conversation flow. You can customise your bot’s welcome message, add various actions like asking questions or setting property values, and even create if/then branches to determine the flow of the conversation.

    HubSpot Pros and Cons

    Pros:

    • Free forever plan with essential features
    • User-friendly interface
    • Seamless integration with HubSpot’s CRM and other tools
    • Extensive range of features for marketing, sales, and customer service
    • Simple integrations with over 1,500 apps and web services

    Cons:

    • The interface can be restrictive for complex chatbot flows
    • Better suited for businesses already using the HubSpot ecosystem
    • Limited customisation options in the free plan
    • Advanced features only available in higher-tier plans

    HubSpot’s chatbot builder is an excellent choice for businesses looking to automate customer interactions and streamline their support processes. Its integration with HubSpot’s wider suite of tools makes it particularly valuable for companies already using or planning to use HubSpot’s CRM and marketing automation features. While it may have some limitations, the free plan offers a great starting point for businesses to explore the benefits of chatbots without any financial pressure.

    Plan Pricing
    Professional $800/Month
    Enterprise $3600/Month

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    Manychat

    Website www.manychat.com
    Rating 4.6
    Free Trial Yes
    Platforms Supported Web, IOS/Android
    Manychat - Best Chatbot Builders
    Manychat – Best Chatbot Builders

    Manychat is a powerful chatbot builder that can revolutionise your business by automating conversations across multiple platforms. This tool allows you to create engaging chatbots for Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, helping you boost sales and conversions.

    One of Manychat’s standout features is its ability to handle Instagram Direct Messages. Your chatbot can automatically respond to questions, comments, and story replies 24/7, attracting more leads and driving higher conversions. Similarly, on WhatsApp, you can set up automation to help customers discover products, retrieve order information, and get customer support – all without your constant attention. The Facebook Messenger integration is equally impressive. You can automate conversations to generate leads, answer FAQs, and run marketing campaigns effortlessly. This multi-channel approach ensures you’re always available to your customers, no matter where they prefer to interact.

    Manychat’s lead generation capabilities are particularly noteworthy. The platform allows you to capture email addresses and phone numbers for up to 80% of your leads, automatically adding them to your database. This feature can significantly boost your conversion rates, potentially increasing them by up to 90%.

    Manychat Pros and Cons

    Pros:

    • User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
    • Multi-channel support (Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger)
    • Powerful lead generation and conversion tools
    • AI Assistant and pre-built templates for easy setup
    • Integrations with over 2,000 business tools

    Cons:

    • The free plan has limited functionality
    • Pricing can become expensive for businesses with large contact lists
    • Some users report occasional instability in the visual bot builder
    • Limited language support compared to some competitors

    Manychat stands out as an excellent chatbot builder for businesses looking to automate their customer interactions across multiple platforms. Its user-friendly interface and pre-built templates make it accessible even for those without technical experience. The AI Assistant can help you create your first automation quickly, and you can easily edit any template with just a few clicks. However, it’s worth noting that while the free plan is a great starting point, you’ll likely need to upgrade to the Pro plan to access the most powerful features. The pricing structure, which scales based on your number of contacts, means that costs can add up quickly for businesses with large audiences.

    Plan Pricing
    Free $0/Month
    Pro $15/Month
    Elite Custom

    IBM Watsonx Assistant

    Website www.ibm.com
    Rating 4.4
    Free Trial Yes
    Platforms Supported Web, IOS/Android
    IBM Watsonx - Best Chatbot Builders
    IBM Watsonx – Best Chatbot Builders

    IBM Watsonx Assistant is a powerful chatbot builder that can revolutionise your customer interactions. It uses artificial intelligence to help businesses handle queries and tasks efficiently. This tool is designed to boost productivity and streamline operations across various sectors.

    One of the standout features is its user-friendly interface. You don’t need coding skills to build generative AI assistants, thanks to the intuitive drag-and-drop conversation builder and pre-built templates. This makes it easy for anyone in your organisation to create effective chatbots. The assistant leverages advanced Large Language Models (LLMs) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to understand the context of each conversation. This means your chatbot can grasp the nuances of human language, leading to more accurate and helpful responses.

    Another key feature is the Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). This allows your chatbot to provide accurate, contextual, and up-to-date answers around the clock, grounded in your company’s knowledge base. It’s like having a tireless customer service rep who always has the right information at their fingertips.

    Watsonx Pros and Cons

    Pros:

    • User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
    • Advanced AI capabilities for natural language understanding
    • Seamless integration with various channels and business systems
    • Robust analytics dashboard for tracking conversation performance
    • Ability to handle complex customer interactions

    Cons:

    • Pricing can be steep for smaller businesses
    • Some advanced features may require technical expertise
    • The free plan has limited capabilities

    IBM Watsonx Assistant is an excellent choice for businesses looking to enhance their customer service and automate routine tasks. Its AI-powered features can help you create engaging, personalised interactions that boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. Whether you’re a small business just starting with chatbots or a large enterprise looking for a scalable solution, IBM Watsonx Assistant offers a range of options to meet your needs.

    Plan Pricing
    Lite $0/Month
    Plus $140/Month
    Enterprise Custom

    How AI Chatbot Increases Sales/ Sales Boost by AI Chatbot
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    Wit.ai

    Website www.wit.ai
    Rating 3.8
    Free Trial Yes
    Platforms Supported Web
    Wit.ai - Best Chatbot Builders
    Wit.ai – Best Chatbot Builders

    Wit.ai is a powerful chatbot builder that can revamp your business by enhancing your app’s ability to understand and respond to user input. This natural language processing platform, developed by Facebook, offers a range of features to help you create intelligent chatbots. Wit’s user-friendly interface is its USP. You don’t need to be a coding expert to get started. The platform allows you to train your chatbot through examples, or “utterances”. By providing a few examples of how users might interact with your chatbot, Wit.ai can infer and understand similar requests.

    The Understanding section is where you teach Wit how to comprehend your users’ intentions. As you validate more utterances, Wit’s understanding improves, leading to more accurate responses. This learning process is continuous, with every new utterance hitting the API showing up for review and improvement. Wit.ai also uses entities to extract meaningful information from user input. For instance, it can automatically detect and highlight specific data like temperatures or dates, making it easier for your chatbot to provide relevant responses.

    Wit.ai Pros and Cons

    Pros:

    • Free for both private and commercial use
    • User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
    • Continuous learning and improvement through user interactions
    • Automatic entity detection for more accurate responses
    • Open-source community benefits

    Cons:

    • May require manual review for quality control
    • Limited customisation options compared to some paid platforms
    • Potential privacy concerns with data storage

    Wit.ai is an excellent chatbot builder for businesses looking to upscale their customer interactions without significant financial investment. Its ability to understand natural language and continuously improve makes it an amazing tool for creating responsive and intelligent chatbots.

    Plan Pricing
    Free $0/Month

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    Amazon Lex

    Website aws.amazon.com
    Rating 4.2
    Free Trial Yes
    Platforms Supported Web, IOS/Android
    Amazon Lex - Best Chatbot Builders
    Amazon Lex – Best Chatbot Builders

    Amazon Lex is a powerful chatbot builder that can revolutionise your business by enabling you to create conversational interfaces for your applications using voice and text. It’s powered by the same technology that drives Amazon Alexa, making it a robust choice for developers looking to build sophisticated, natural language chatbots. The standout element in Amazon Lex is its simplicity. You don’t need deep learning expertise to create a bot. The Amazon Lex console guides you through the process, allowing you to specify the basic conversation flow quickly. This user-friendly approach makes it accessible for businesses of all sizes.

    Amazon Lex uses advanced natural language processing (NLP) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) technologies. These features allow your chatbot to understand the context of conversations, leading to more accurate and helpful responses. The bot can handle multi-turn conversations, managing context across interactions without the need for custom code. Integration is another key strength of Amazon Lex. It seamlessly connects with other AWS services, including Lambda, Cognito, CloudWatch, and DynamoDB. This integration allows you to extend your bot’s capabilities, from accessing databases to executing complex business logic.

    Amazon Lex Pros and Cons

    Pros:

    • User-friendly interface suitable for non-technical users
    • Advanced NLP and ASR capabilities for natural conversations
    • Seamless integration with other AWS services
    • Pay-as-you-go pricing model
    • Free tier available for new users
    • Supports multi-turn conversations
    • Easy deployment across multiple platforms

    Cons:

    • Limited language support (currently supports English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, and Portuguese)
    • Restricted customisation options compared to some other chatbot builders
    • Integration complexity may require programming knowledge
    • Lacks built-in sentiment analysis

    Amazon Lex is an excellent choice for businesses looking to build conversational interfaces quickly and cost-effectively. Its integration with the AWS ecosystem and advanced AI capabilities make it a powerful tool for creating engaging chatbots.

    Plan Pricing
    Request and response interaction pricing
    Speech request $32/ for 8000 speech requests
    Text request $1.50/ for 2000 text requests
    Streaming conversation pricing
    Speech intervals $52/ for 8000 speech intervals
    Text requests $4/ for 2000 text requests
    Automated chatbot designer pricing
    Training time $150/ for 300 minutes

    Conclusive Thoughts

    Chatbot builders are causing a revolution in the way businesses interact with their customers, offering round-the-clock support and personalised experiences. These tools cater to a wide range of needs and skill levels. As the chatbot arena continues to evolve, businesses have more options than ever to enhance their customer service and automate routine tasks. Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, there’s a chatbot builder out there that can help take your business to the next level. However, in order to stay in the loop with the latest trends and tools in the startup world, why not sign up for StartupTalky’s legacy newsletter ‘Smell The Coffee’? It offers exclusive sneak peeks into the startup scene and early access to some of the most exciting tools out there. Remember, in business circles, staying informed and getting hold of new technologies can make all the difference.

    FAQ

    Which chatbot builder is best?

    The best chatbot builders currently are:

    • HubSpot
    • Manychat
    • IBM Watsonx Assistant
    • Wit.ai
    • Amazon Lex

    Can I create an AI chatbot for free?

    Yes, you can create an AI chatbot for free using various platforms, though advanced features may require paid upgrades.

    Can I build my own chatbot?

    Yes, you can build your own chatbot using various tools or by coding it from scratch. Depending on your technical skills, you can either use a chatbot builder platform or develop it using programming languages and AI frameworks.

  • Understanding Consumer Behavior: Data-Driven Marketing for Startups

    This article has been contributed by Vitasta Kaul, Chief Marketing Officer of Hoopr.ai.

    In today’s competitive marketplace, startups face a significant challenge: how to effectively market to a dynamic and ever-evolving consumer base. For early-stage companies, it is crucial to understand consumer behavior to drive growth, build brand loyalty, and maintain a competitive edge. Startups that fail to adopt a data-driven marketing approach often struggle to connect with their audience, making it difficult to scale.

    To truly capitalize on opportunities, startups must move beyond assumptions and embrace data-driven strategies. Consumer behavior encompasses the study of how individuals make decisions regarding the purchase, use, and disposal of goods and services. For startups, understanding these behaviors can inform every stage of product development and marketing strategy.

    A startup’s limited resources make it critical to hit the mark early, and data can ensure that you’re targeting the right demographic, with the right message, at the right time. Recognizing patterns in consumer behavior helps shape marketing efforts, turning reactive strategies into proactive ones that predict consumer needs before they arise.

    One of the biggest challenges for startups is knowing what data to collect and how to use it effectively. In the early stages, the focus should be on gathering key consumer insights that will influence your marketing strategies, including demographic data, purchasing patterns, online behavior, and feedback.

    Demographic Data:

    Knowing who your customers are — age, gender, location, occupation, and education level — is fundamental. Demographic data allows you to segment your audience and personalize your marketing approach.

    Purchasing Patterns:

    How often does a consumer buy your product? What influences their purchasing decisions? Understanding this behavior allows startups to optimize their pricing, promotional offers, and inventory management.

    Online Behavior:

    Monitoring how consumers interact with your website, app, or social media channels can provide valuable insight into their needs and preferences. Data such as click-through rates, time spent on pages, and engagement metrics help you refine your online presence to align with consumer expectations.

    Feedback and Reviews:

    Collecting qualitative data through customer reviews, surveys, and direct feedback enables startups to understand consumer satisfaction and identify areas for improvement.

    Leveraging Data to Create a Consumer-Centric Strategy

    Startups need to transform raw data into actionable insights to ensure their marketing strategies align with consumer expectations. Here’s how data can be used to develop a more consumer-centric approach:

    Personalization:

    Consumers today expect personalized experiences. By leveraging data, startups can segment their audience into niche groups and deliver customized content that resonates with specific consumer segments. For example, email campaigns that address customers by name, offer product suggestions based on past purchases, or provide location-based offers are far more likely to drive engagement.

    Predictive Analytics:

    Predictive analytics tools allow startups to anticipate future consumer behavior based on historical data. This technology helps forecast trends, customer preferences, and potential market shifts, providing a significant advantage in making data-backed decisions for product development, promotions, and advertising campaigns.

    Customer Journey Mapping:

    Understanding the consumer’s path to purchase, from awareness to post-purchase, can help startups identify key touchpoints where they can influence decision-making. Data-driven insights allow companies to optimize each stage of the customer journey, ensuring that interactions are seamless, intuitive, and lead to higher conversions.


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    While the benefits of data-driven marketing are clear, startups may encounter several challenges when implementing it. Here are a few common hurdles and solutions:

    Data Overload:

    Startups can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data available. The key is to focus on quality over quantity, filtering out irrelevant information and concentrating on the metrics that directly impact your marketing objectives.

    Interpreting Data Correctly:

    Data alone doesn’t provide answers; it must be properly interpreted to derive actionable insights. Many startups fall into the trap of misinterpreting data, leading to misguided strategies. Investing in analytics tools or hiring experts in data analysis is critical to avoid missteps.

    Privacy Concerns:

    Consumers are becoming increasingly protective of their data, especially in a post-GDPR world. Startups must ensure they are transparent in how they collect, store, and use data, maintaining customer trust and compliance with legal regulations.

    Data-Driven Tools for Startups

    Incorporating the right tools can make or break a data-driven marketing strategy. For startups, investing in the following technologies can streamline data collection and analysis:

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems:

    CRMs provide a centralized platform to manage customer interactions, track behavior, and automate marketing efforts. Tools like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho CRM are particularly useful for startups looking to scale.

    Social Media Analytics Tools:

    Platforms such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer allow startups to monitor engagement on social media channels, giving valuable insights into what content resonates with their audience.

    Web Analytics:

    Google Analytics and similar tools help startups track website traffic, understand how users interact with their online presence, and optimize their digital marketing efforts.

    Marketing Automation Platforms:

    Tools like Marketo and Mailchimp enable startups to streamline their marketing processes, sending personalized messages and automating lead nurturing campaigns based on customer data.

    The Role of Agility in Data-Driven Marketing

    The startup environment is characterized by its rapid pace and constant evolution. Therefore, one of the key advantages of data-driven marketing is its ability to support agility. Startups that use data effectively can quickly pivot their strategies based on real-time insights, enabling them to respond to market changes, consumer behavior shifts, and emerging trends.

    For instance, if a new product isn’t performing as expected, data can help pinpoint whether the issue lies in the product itself, the messaging, or the target audience. This allows startups to make adjustments in real time, without wasting valuable resources on trial-and-error marketing approaches.

    Concluding Thought:

    Understanding consumer behavior is a cornerstone of effective marketing, particularly for startups that need to make every dollar count. By adopting a data-driven approach, startups can refine their strategies, anticipate customer needs, and deliver personalized experiences that resonate with their target audience. While the process may seem daunting, with the right tools, focus, and agility, startups can harness the power of data to drive sustainable growth and build lasting customer relationships. In today’s marketplace, it’s no longer enough to rely on intuition. Data-driven marketing provides the roadmap for startups to understand consumer behavior, predict future trends, and ultimately, create campaigns that succeed in a fast-changing world.


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  • Exploring the Role of AI Agents in CRM

    This article has been contributed by Praveer Kochhar, Co-Founder & CPO, Kogo Tech Labs.

    Gen Z is coming of age as consumers, and they are changing everything we know about customer service. Their influence on consumer behavior is massive with older generations now accepting AI. McKinsey found that 74% of Gen Z customers, 82% of millennials, and 81% of Gen X customers are more accepting of AI-powered customer service now than ever before. CRM leaders today are facing the greatest challenge in decades — preparing their organizations for an AI-ready future, while meeting tough revenue targets and rising customer expectations.

    Technology has surely enabled businesses to scale their operations significantly, and the traditional call centers are rapidly becoming a relic of the past. Yet, many leaders are faced with underperforming AI tools, leaving them to master entirely new approaches to performance improvement while retaining traditional tools. It’s Catch 22. But does it really have to be? 

    Let’s consider realities as they exist. Currently, 57% of CRM leaders expect ticket volumes to increase by as much as one-fifth over the next one or two years. At the same time, nearly 40% of them say that cost is still a key priority. The need to excel in service across multiple channels creates extra challenges for customer care leaders, especially when budgets are tight. This tension is driving companies to look for new ways to control the customer care costs with automation. Enter AI Agents. 

    Why AI Agents Mark a Monumental Change in CX as We Know It

    AI Agents are the next generation of AI-powered bots that are already helping CRM teams scale quickly, while delighting customers. Built on a large agentic framework, AI Agents are made to not just respond to customers with empathy, but perform real-world tasks. For example, most chatbots are limited to their conversational capabilities. AI Agents can go a step further. It can process refunds, track orders and so much more than conversational bots.

    It finally frees human agents to focus on more high-value work, which would be less monotonous. 

    High-value work taps into the strengths of human agents: empathy, building lasting customer relationships, and resolving issues in creative and innovative ways. And when the business is closed for the day, AI Agents can still be at work. They are highly customizable—and their personalities can be tailored to fit the company’s voice, making convincing small talk with customers, offering personalized responses that go a long way in building loyalty. 


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    What Can AI Agents Really Do for CRM?

    With customer interactions expected to continue skyrocketing, AI Agents are the best solution to manage this challenge. You don’t want to leave your customers waiting for someone to address their concerns. Because bad experiences will lead customers to your competitors. Fortunately, setting up AI Agents requires minimal effort. Advanced AI Agents built on small action models allow businesses to simply connect the AI agent to existing knowledge bases — be they structured or unstructured — and begin tackling your customers’ top requests on day one. It’s not rocket science. 

    AI Agents today are so advanced that it is easy to customize and control how the AI agent interacts with customers. They can also be configured to take on more advanced tasks autonomously, like returns or exchanges, by easily connecting them to backend systems. It ensures that the AI Agent can seamlessly resolve customer issues from start to finish.

    These advanced capabilities reduce costs significantly. AI agents can autonomously resolve most of the customer service requests, allowing businesses of all sizes to scale quickly, without adding headcount. 

    These agents can be programmed to be expert sellers. They can upsell, crosssell, and even offer personalized recommendations to customers, reducing support costs and turning the contact center into a revenue-generating operation. 

    It can be a great tool for presenting customers with relevant, and timely offers. By analyzing data like purchase history, browsing behavior and demographics, AI Agents can identify products or services customers are interested in. For instance, AI can recommend sale items that the customer previously viewed or similar products to their previous purchases. It can use data to trigger promotions. For instance, an abandoned cart might trigger an AI-powered bot to send a discount code to the customer. As they learn from every interaction, and are pre-trained to automatically detect what customer intent and sentiment are, AI agents can deliver the right response every time.

    AI is raising the bar for personalization, productivity, and performance in CRM. In the future, almost all customer interactions with brands will be powered by AI in one way or another. It’s time for businesses to relook and rethink their CX environment. There’s a great need to look at changing customer expectations and the role of AI within their organizations. The future of customer care is AI-driven. Leaders mustn’t hesitate. It’s time for a bold vision and bolder measures to make their organizations AI-ready. 


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  • Top 6 Marketing Automation Software and Tools in 2024

    Marketing is a very important aspect of any business. If your marketing efforts are in the right direction it can increase your brand awareness and conversion rate. Marketers do a lot of things from strategizing content, capturing and nurturing leads, managing customer information, creating advertising campaigns, scheduling tasks, and a lot more.

    All these tasks require a lot of time and energy. Although if you want to save time and boost your productivity and sales you can use top marketing automation softwares to put these tedious tasks on autopilot.

    In 2021, about 51% of companies were using the marketing automation tool and were able to boost their sales productivity by 14.5%.

    80% of marketers saw an increase in their leads and 77% saw an increase in their conversion rates.

    All these stats show us that you should use this best marketing automation tool in your business. Although finding out a perfect marketing automation tool that matches your business needs is a tough job. Don’t worry we are here to help.

    In this article, we will tell you the 6 best marketing automation tools.

    What is Marketing Automation

    HubSpot Marketing Hub

    Rating 4.4/5
    Categories Email Marketing, SEO and Social Media Advertising
    HubSpot Marketing Hub Software- Automation Marketing Tool
    HubSpot Marketing Hub Software

    When you think of the best marketing automation tool HubSpot comes first to mind. The tool has an immense reputation in the market. Using this tool you can streamline your entire business workflow in a single place. No need to switch between different software!

    Using its easy-to-use visual editor you can make targeted workflows for your email campaigns or multi-stage journeys. Its advanced segmentation allows you to decide which audience will get enrolled in which workflows and when.

    The tool provides you with customizable email templates that you can use to write personalized emails with no coding skills. Automate your email campaigns, generate more leads and move your prospects further down the funnel. To send emails to the right people at the right time HubSpot gives you numerous triggers, conditions, and action parameters.

    HubSpot Marketing Hub goes beyond traditional email or SMS automation and provides you with all the tools and utilities through which you can score leads, rotate leads to sales, set up webhooks, and automate data transfer from one team to another.

    Your team will automatically receive notifications if a user performs an important action like putting up a business query in your forum. This will help your team to quickly message the users and convert them into customers.

    HubSpot also provides you with a set of SEO and blog tools. You can set up a drip campaign, manage your social media, build Al-powered live chat, and create forms and landing pages all in one place. The tool integrates with other HubSpot solutions which makes it a killer deal.

    You will also get access to HubSpot Academy where you can learn how to use the tool efficiently and easily. As you can see HubSpot is a stellar marketing automation tool.

    Plan Pricing ($/month)
    Starter $45
    Professional $800
    Enterprise $3200

    Oracle Eloqua

    Rating 3.9/5
    Categories Email marketing campaigns and sales lead generation
    Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation Tool
    Oracle Eloqua Marketing Automation Tool

    Oracle Eloqua is an all-in-one marketing tool using which you can nurture your leads, get detailed analytics, automate workflows and manage cross-channel B2B marketing campaigns. Segment your users based on web visits, specific attributes, interests, and geography.

    You can easily create campaigns using its drag-and-drop editor. Get stats on what users are doing on your website in real time. Along with this, you can use SMS messaging to send event reminders, product updates, or to get feedback.

    Lead scores are updated in real-time across multiple campaigns based on customer profiles. For accurate lead scores, the tool analyzes the most recent activity of the user and adjusts the scores in real-time.

    Oracle Eloqua has built-in Al that suggests what action you should take for each contact. Find your best-performing products and content. Using Eloqua’s account engagement scoring, find the most engaged users.

    Automate your email campaigns, improve your subject lines using the Al suggestions and find the best time to send emails. Build responsive emails, landing pages, and forms without the need to learn HTML code. Save blocks of content that you often use so you can use them in future campaigns.

    Create dynamic content for your landing pages and emails that adapts and personalizes the messaging based on the user’s behavioral pattern and location. After launching the campaign analyze metrics such as email opens, clickthroughs, form submissions, and more.

    To help your brand in increasing sales, Eloqua will automatically identify and prioritize top-tier accounts that show high-buying opportunities. Get detailed statistics on your dashboard and analyze usage metrics like bulk API activity, native CRM activity, email sends, form submissions, page views, and much more. Monitor and compare all your campaigns.

    Plan Pricing ($/month)
    Basic $2,000
    Standard $4000

    Pardot

    Rating 3.9/5
    Categories Email automation and lead management
    Pardot by Salesforce – perfect marketing automation tool

    If you are in a B2B business then Pardot by Salesforce is a perfect marketing automation software to handle your business operation effectively. Using this automation tool, you can build relationships with your customers and boost your revenue. Pardot provides you with real-time sales alerts, prospect activity tracking, and sales campaign tracking.

    Using the drag-and-drop editor you can build landing pages and forms. Get highly profitable leads using Pardot’s automated lead-scoring functionality. Put your common marketing and sales tasks on autopilot.

    Market Automation Tool – Pardot by Salesforce

    Create dynamic campaigns that adapt to each customer’s activity and buying signals and move them further in the sales funnel. Using built-in sales alerts and assignment triggers your sales team can contact the prospects at the right time.

    Segment your audience based on their preferences and send the right email at the right time using Pardot’s intuitive email editor. The platform has an in-built SPAM analysis tool that will check your email copy against common spam filters.

    Personalize your email copy based on the prospect’s score, grade, title, industry, and job. You can also perform email A/B testing to understand which of your content is resonating more with your target audience.

    The visual reports help you analyze the ROI of your campaigns and empower you to maximize your marketing efforts. Using the engagement and lifecycle reports you can understand your sales performance and analyze where your prospects are getting stuck in the funnel.

    Plan Pricing ($/month)
    Growth $1,250
    Plus $2,500
    Advanced $4,000

    SendinBlue

    Rating 4.5/5
    Categories Email Campaigns, CRM
    SendinBlue Marketing Automation Tool
    SendinBlue – Best Marketing Automation Tool

    Using SendinBlue you can automate all of your tedious marketing efforts, capture leads, segment your audience and send the right message at the right time using email and SMS.

    You can set up a workflow and build a set of rules that triggers an action that you want to take for your prospects. This includes automatically sending emails and SMS, organizing contacts into different lists, and updating your database in real time. Automate lead scoring and perform A/B split testing.

    Set up a CRM in no time and upload all the information that you have about your contacts directly into the CRM contact profile. Create and assign tasks to your teammates and set up deadlines using the CRM.

    Create custom landing pages and forms without any coding skills. Choose from 40+ responsive email templates and easily edit your emails easily using the drag-and-drop editor. Personalize your email copy by adding your prospect’s name to the text.

    You can also use prospects database attributes to make your email more personalized. For example, if you know that a particular contact loves the color yellow you can show different product images with yellow color in the background.

    Segment your contacts list based on the prospect’s preferences, previous engagement or purchase history, and socio-economic or geographical characteristics. You can automatically update your contacts list based on actions your contacts take on your website and email.

    Get detailed email marketing stats and using the in-built Al find the best time to send emails to each recipient. Visually see how your recipients interact with your email using the email heat map functionality.

    Send bulk SMS marketing campaigns to your contacts directly from your database. You can also send transactional SMS order confirmations, shipping updates, password reset, and much more.

    Install a chatbox on your website and answer your user’s questions via Sendinblue Chat Inbox. You can even see on which page of the website the user is currently on directly from the chat box. You can directly use the Facebook ads tool inside SendinBlue.

    Plan Pricing ($/month)
    Lite $25
    Premium $65

    EngageBay

    Rating 4.6/5
    Categories Email Campaigns, Sales Automation, CRM
    Engagebay automation marketing software
    Engagebay automation marketing software

    Most of the tools on this list focus on automating marketing and sales efforts. But, EngageBay automates your support system as well. This allows you to provide top-notch after-sales service to your customers.

    You can set up live chat software on your website. Whenever users initiate a chat your sales team would be instantly notified. Find all the tickets raised by your customers on your dashboard. You can set up standard responses for the tickets. Create support groups based on department or skills and direct your support tickets to the right support groups.

    From the live chat itself you can find out customers’ locations, total pages visited and time spent on the website. Get powerful stats on support tickets and understand what common problems your customers are facing.

    Using EngageBay’s CRM you can send leads from marketing to the sales team, automate your workflow and data entry, schedule meetings, create follow-ups for each lead, and do much more.

    Every interaction with your customer like emails, calls, and meetings gets automatically recorded in the system and presented to you in a timeline format.

    Using the drag-and-drop visual builder you can create marketing and sales workflows. Automate lead scoring based on email opens, link clicks, website visits, etc.

    Create drip email campaigns and personalize emails with contacts’ names, companies, locations, interests, and more. Get notified when users open your email or click a specific link and engage with your customers at the right time to increase the conversion rate.

    Landing pages and forms can also be created easily. You can also send push notifications. Set up pop-ups on your website and show them to your customers when they are about to leave the website.

    Automatically segment your customer’s list based on what actions they take or do not take. Tag customers based on behavioral patterns and run smart personalized marketing campaigns.

    Plan Pricing ($/month)
    Basic $11.99
    Growth $33.99
    Pro $79.99

    ActiveCampaign

    Rating 4.6/5
    Categories Email Marketing, Automation, and CRM
    Active Campaign- Marketing Automation Tool
    ActiveCampaign- Marketing Automation Tool

    ActiveCampaign is a customer experience automation (CXA), which combines transactional email, email marketing, marketing automation, sales automation, and CRM categories.

    If you are specifically looking to automate your email marketing efforts then ActiveCampaign is for you. Most of the marketing automation softwares on this list will help you in automating your email campaigns but, Active Campaign takes email marketing to the next level.

    ActiveCampaign allows you to send a wide variety of emails to your customers: broadcast emails, triggered emails, targeted emails, transactional emails, scheduled emails, and email autoresponders.

    Using the drag-and-drop editor you can create beautiful email campaigns within a few minutes. Segment your audience based on their personal interests, job function, geographic location, website visits, email clicks, products purchased, quiz results, and time since the last purchase.

    You can automatically add tags to your list based on what pages or links they clicked on your website or email.

    Set up forms on your website and collect customers’ personal information, preferences, and more through standard and custom fields. Show forms at the right time based on the user’s behavioral pattern and interests. You can automate email sequences so that as soon as the form is filled the customers will get a series of emails that will nurture them to buy your products.

    Send personalized emails with customers’ personal information like name, city, preferences, purchase history, and a lot more. Active Campaign has 6 email deliverability best practices to ensure that your email lands in the subscriber’s inbox.

    To achieve the highest email deliverability the tool will automatically review and remove inactive email addresses. It has pre-built automation and re-engagement campaigns that help you in engaging with your customers constantly. The tool has an in-built spam checker as well.

    You can easily send double-opt-in emails to your customers to make sure only the interested ones get added to your email list. Notify your team to follow up with high-value leads.

    Plan Pricing ($/month)
    Lite $29
    Plus $49
    Professional $149

    Conclusion

    As you can see all of the tools will help you in automating your work but, you shouldn’t choose a software randomly. You need to understand your business needs, budget, and technical expertise to find out the right tool. Since most of the tools come with a free trial, you can use and test them first and once you are satisfied you can buy them.

    FAQs

    What is the difference between marketing automation and CRM?

    Marketing automation helps you to generate and score leads and automates your digital campaigns and email marketing efforts. On the other hand, CRM helps you to track leads and convert them into customers.

    What is the most common use of marketing automation?

    Marketing automation tools are majorly used for generating leads, automating email marketing, social media posting and ultimately increasing the conversion rate.

    What is marketing automation software?

    Marketing automation software streamlines the marketing processes used to support digital marketing campaigns.

    Are there any free marketing automation tools?

    Some market automation tools that offer a free trial or free plan include MailChimp, HubSpot, and Zoho.

  • Aircall: An Ultimate Integrated Phone System for Smarter Conversations

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Aircall.

    In this globalized corporate market, the significance of effective communication has increased to a great extent. Businesses need to communicate internally with employees and management and externally with clients, suppliers, and customers.

    Telecommunication platforms have emerged as an ultimate solution for modern businesses. Annually, around $145 trillion is spent on telecommunications globally. Telecommunication technology enables companies to communicate directly with customers, access real-time information, create relationships, and stay competitive.

    Aircall is a 100% cloud-based telecommunication platform enabling companies to make national and international calls. Let’s uncover everything from Aircall’s startup story, founders, funding, and growth to partners, investors, and competitors.

    Aircall – Company Highlights

    Company Name Aircall
    Headquarters New York, United States
    Industry Telecommunications
    Founders Olivier Pailhes, Jonathan Anguelov, Pierre-Baptiste Bechu, Xavier Durand
    Founded In 2014
    Valuation $1B (2022)
    Website Aircall.io

    Aircall – About
    Aircall – Founders and Team
    Aircall – Startup Story
    Aircall – Mission and Vision
    Aircall – Business Model
    Aircall – Revenue Model
    Aircall – Products and Services
    Aircall – Challenges Faced
    Aircall – Funding and Investors
    Aircall – Growth
    Aircall – Partners
    Aircall – Awards and Achievements
    Aircall – Competitors

    Aircall – About

    A cloud-based call center and phone system, Aircall meets modern businesses’ communication needs. This voice platform can seamlessly integrate with popular productivity and helpdesk tools for sales and support teams. The call center makes phone systems easy to manage, transparent, accessible, and collaborative.

    Founded in 2014, Aircall is based in New York and has multiple branches in Paris, Madrid, Sydney, London, Singapore, and Berlin. The platform integrates with 80+ major CRMs, marketing software, help desks, chatbots, eCommerce platforms, and more.

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    Aircall – Founders and Team

    Olivier Pailhes, Jonathan Anguelov, Pierre-Baptiste Bechu, and Xavier Durand founded Aircall in 2014.

    Olivier Pailhes

    Graduated from HEC Paris with a Master of Business Administration (MBA), Economics, Management; Olivier Pailhes is an Angel Investor in Entocycle, Regroop, and Nelson. In addition to co-founding Aircall, he is a board member of French Tech Madrid and an Advisor at Metomic.

    Aircall, Co-founder - Olivier Pailhes
    Aircall, Co-founder – Olivier Pailhes

    Jonathan Anguelov

    Jonathan Anguelov graduated from ESCP Business School with a Master’s in Finance, General. He co-founded Aircall and is working as its CSO. Moreover, he is the co-founder of Aguesseau Capital and Hotel Maison Barbes.

    Aircall, Co-founder, and CSO - Jonathan Anguelov
    Aircall, Co-founder, and CSO – Jonathan Anguelov

    Pierre-Baptiste Bechu

    Pierre-Baptiste Bechu has completed his Masters from Ecole centrale de Lyon in Computer Engineering and is the co-founder and VP of Aircall. He also worked as the co-founder and CTO of ClickJob.fr till 2014. In addition, he is a Partner(Digital IV) in 50Partners and a self-employed Angel Investor.

    Aircall, Co-founder, and VP - Pierre-Baptiste Bechu
    Aircall, Co-founder, and VP – Pierre-Baptiste Bechu

    Xavier Durand

    Xavier Durand was the technical co-founder of Aircall and worked with the company until 2020. At present, he is the co-founder of Regroop company.

    Aircall is currently working with more than 800 employees.

    Aircall – Startup Story

    The idea of setting up Aircall was born at the eFounders studio in Paris in 2014. Founders- Olivier Pailhes, Jonathan Anguelov, Xavier Durand, and Pierre-Baptiste Bechu recognized that a telephone system is complex and costly enough to set up. It is when the co-founders took the challenge of revolutionizing corporate telephony.

    After the first few weeks, they developed an MVP: an easy-to-use phone system named Aircall to get numbers worldwide and share calls across the team. With this product, the company got a handful of customers.

    On June 1, 2014, the company charged firm time for the service for $19 per month. Davy Kestens was Aircall’s first angel investor, who invested $5,000. In 2016, the company’s growth accelerated, hitting $210K MRR. And in 2022, it raised funding of $132 million.

    Aircall – Mission and Vision

    According to Aircall, conversation is the most powerful way to communicate with colleagues, customers, prospects, and candidates. Therefore, the phone system enables delightful moments of human connection.

    Aircall – Business Model

    Aircall uses VoIP technology to integrate with the company’s CRM systems and Helpdesk solutions to sync information. By setting up Aircall, companies can make calls using computers or mobile phones and monitor individual and team metrics in real-time. In addition, the platform allows companies to enhance productivity by creating new numbers, teams, and workflows.

    The call center has many additional built-in features, like smart routing, sorting calls into call queues, live call monitoring, callback, warm transfers, call whispering, and more.

    Aircall – Revenue Model

    Aircall charges a subscription fee for its products and services. The company offers three subscription plans- Essentials for $30/user, Professional for $50/user, and a custom plan. Its pricing is estimated at $360 per year.

    Aircall – Products and Services

    The company offers several solutions, including Sales, IT & Operations, Customer Service & Support, and the whole company. Moreover, it provides the Aircall Phone app for Desktop, Aircall Phone App for Mobile (iOS and Android), and Aircall Browser Extensions.

    Aircall – The phone system for modern business 

    Aircall – Challenges Faced

    After 2017’s New Year’s Eve, it was a war-like situation for Aircall, named ‘The Quality War.’ The company’s product was broken as nothing was working as per plan. Calls may or may not come through, and Aircall couldn’t attract new customers. The management decided to stop the entire company. This crisis lasted for around three months.

    Furthermore, six months after building the first US team, Aircall faced a challenging situation again. The company was finding it difficult to achieve its goals, and it wasn’t working as a team. Aircall rebooted and restarted with a much smaller team.

    Aircall – Funding and Investors

    Aircall has undertaken 10 funding rounds and has successfully raised $225.6.5 million. Its latest funding round – Venture Series Unknown Round, was conducted on February 23, 2022, and raised $300 million. The company has over 27 investors with 6 lead investors- HubSpot Ventures, NextWorld Capital, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, DTCP, and others.

    Date Round Number of Investors Money Raised Lead Investor
    February 23, 2022 Venture Round 1 Hubspot Ventures
    June 23, 2021 Series D 8 $120 million Goldman Sachs Asset Management
    May 27, 2020 Series C 9 $65 million DTCP
    May 15, 2018 Series B 7 $29 million Molten Ventures, NextWorld Capital
    July 1, 2017 Venture Round 1
    September 15, 2016 Series A 7 $8 million Balderton Capital
    June 25, 2016 Seed Round 2 $2.8 million Balderton Capital
    December 24, 2015 Venture Round 1
    June 2, 2015 Seed Round 7 $800K
    June 1, 2014 Seed Round 1

    Aircall – Growth

    With the company’s annual revenue estimated at $161 million per year ($199,951 per employee) in 2022, its current valuation stands at $3 billion.

    Aircall’s employee figure increased by 18%. Moreover, the monthly website visit growth rate is 3.69%. The Aircall app has more than 9,130 monthly downloads.

    Aircall – Partners

    Aircall has collaborated with many partners, some of these are:

    • SnapCall
    • Klaus
    • Gorgias
    • noCRM.io
    • Re:amaze
    • Plecto
    • Segment
    • Aroma
    • Zendesk Sell
    • JobAdder

    Aircall – Awards and Achievements

    Aircall is recognized as one of the leading, tech-savvy call centers in the United States. And the company has garnered multiple prestigious awards in its lifetime. Some of these are:

    • RemoteTech Breakthrough Award for “Business Phone System Innovation of the Year”
    • Ranked no. 1 call center in GetApp Analysis
    • GetApp Analysis declared Aircall a Call Center Software Leader

    Aircall – Competitors

    Some of its main competitors are:

    • Dialpad
    • RingCentral
    • Twilio
    • Nextiva
    • Talkdesk
    • OpenPhone
    • CallRail
    • YodelTalk
    • Aloware

    FAQs

    What is Aircall and what does it do?

    Aircall is a cloud-based phone system that helps businesses manage their phone communication with features like call forwarding, call recording, and IVR. It integrates with other tools and improves customer service, sales performance, and collaboration.

    Can Aircall integrate with other tools and software?

    Yes, Aircall can integrate with a wide range of other tools and software, such as CRMs, helpdesk software, and team messaging apps.

    What pricing plans does Aircall offer?

    Aircall offers three pricing plans:

    1. Essential: starting at $30/user/month
    2. Professional: starting at $50/user/month
    3. Custom: tailored pricing for enterprise-level businesses

    What type of businesses can benefit from using Aircall?

    Businesses of all sizes and industries can benefit from using Aircall. It is particularly useful for businesses that rely heavily on phone communication such as customer support teams, sales teams, and call centers.

  • No-Code Development Platforms for CRM and Customer Support

    Customer Relationship Management and Customer Support, while often overlooked, are some of the most important and crucial assets of an online enterprise across SMEs of different scales and domains. While you still need a robust infrastructure and web framework for your business to garner customers and attract visitors, the fact is that you need a good CRM to retain them.

    Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and Customer Support tools are generally used by marketing professionals and sometimes by customer support teams to interact with customers. CRM tools help online enterprises build strong relations with customers and retain them, in turn expanding the business and ensuring customer loyalty.

    Although there are various CRM solutions available over the internet, a custom tool that caters to the specific needs of your business would be quite an asset. This is where no-code development tools for CRM and Customer Support come in. Such tools help you build custom CRM and Customer Support Solutions without using code, specifically designed to serve your business. In this article, we compare some of the best No Code Development Tools for CRM and Customer Support, so you can take your pick.

    Crisp
    Zendesk Sunshine
    DronaHQ
    Outseta
    Attio

    Crisp

    Pricing Starts from $25
    Rating 4.5/5

    Crisp No-Code CRM
    Crisp No-Code CRM

    Crisp is a no-code multichannel platform that helps connect companies to their customers and offers various integrations, and automation, as well as a chatbot for seamless customer support and interaction. Be it marketing with targeted emails or cross-channel customer support, Crisp encompasses various tasks and helps you convert leads and retain them coherently. You can also manage and organize your database centrally, and monitor contacts’ website activity regularly.

    Features

    • Enrich contact records with social media profiles and real-time notifications, so you are always prepared to communicate with customers.
    • Chatbots and live chats allow you to interact with and convert leads even when you’re asleep, hence optimizing your work.
    • With Crisp, you also get to track events and target and filter leads with high conversion chances for high work efficiency.
    • Centralize your database with a unique customer data platform to identify prospects and engage with them.
    • Moreover, Crisp also allows users to automatically engage with the website while also segmenting contacts into groups.

    Pricing

    Pro Plan Unlimited Plan
    $25 per month $95 per month
    4 seats included 20 seats included
    Unlimited history, Triggers,
    Canned Responses, Private Notes,
    Customization, and other features
    Knowledge Base, Status Page,
    Chat Reminders, Routing/Assign,
    Automate Campaigns, Analytics,
    and many useful features

    The Basic Plan offers the most basic features such as live chat, mobile apps, and team inbox. In contrast, the Pro and Unlimited plans offer several advanced features including triggers, audio messages, Slack replies, live translations, various integrations, and others.

    Zendesk Sunshine

    Pricing Starts from $19
    Rating 4.3/5

    Zendesk Sunshine No-Code CRM
    Zendesk Sunshine No-Code CRM

    An open and flexible CRM platform, Zendesk CRM allows organizations to manage and store all their customer data in one place and helps them build better customer experience. While the usual CRM platform adheres to the old ways of viewing the customers with a single dimension, Sunshine helps you look at the complete picture and also offers innovation and scalability.

    Features

    • Zendesk offers a customer-centric architecture along with the ability to identify and segment customers in your business.
    • With the primary components of Zendesk Sunshine being Unified Profiles, Events, Objects, and Conversations, it offers you a comprehensive insight into the customer experience.
    • Native to AWS, users can also link Sunshine to Amazon Events Calendar, and stream Zendesk events in real-time.
    • New data sources for products, orders, and customers can be stored as custom objects and used for insights.
    • Messages from different channels can be viewed in a unified manner to better interact with the customer and enhance conversion rates.

    Pricing

    Suite Team Suite Growth Suite Professional
    Includes all the basic
    features and costs $49
    per agent per month
    Offers features such as self-
    service and automation and
    costs $79 per agent per month
    Offers an advanced suite of
    collaborative and analytics
    features and costs $99 per
    agent per month
    Leading ticketing system
    along with cross-
    channel messaging
    All features included in the
    Suite Team along with a Self-
    service portal and AI-powered
    knowledge base
    All features included in the
    Suite Growth along with
    conversation routing and
    community forums
    Automated answers
    along with agent
    workspace with
    reporting and analytics
    Offers custom ticket layouts
    along with light access
    licenses
    Offers custom dashboards and
    private conversation threads
    Data storage with
    robust APIs
    SLA management along with
    multilingual support
    Offers voice capabilities along
    with AWS Events Connector

    DronaHQ

    Pricing Starts from $100
    Rating 4.4/5

    DronaHQ No-Code CRM Development Platform
    DronaHQ No-Code CRM Development Platform

    DronaHQ is a low code development platform that helps users build custom tools including CRM and customer support tools without using code. To say that the demands in an Ecommerce dominated industry are quite dynamic would be an understatement. However, with the suite of features that DronaHQ has to offer, users can find the perfect solution. A custom CRM would mean that the workflow from lead to billing would be seamlessly governed by the organization, making it the ultimate tool to look out for.

    Features

    • Custom design with drag-and-drop functionality, statistics, and a multilingual approach makes the tool all the more appealing.
    • Embed push notifications and screen navigation along with field validations while also integrating with external applications.
    • You can also connect to Google Sheets and even to your online database through Connectors and APIs.
    • Seamlessly manage business processes and workflows with instant sign-offs and real-time database updates.
    • DronaHQ also allows for routine automation with webhook triggers and integrated applications.

    Pricing

    Starter Plan Business Plan Enterprise Plan
    $100 per month billed
    annually
    $500 per month billed
    annually
    Custom pricing based
    on features
    Over 25K tasks per month
    along with 10 published
    applications
    Over 125K tasks per month
    along with 20 published
    applications
    Unlimited published
    apps and tasks
    5K records along with 20 GB
    of cloud storage
    5K records along with 40 GB
    of cloud storage
    Unlimited records with
    custom cloud storage
    2 admins with 5 connectors 10 admins with 25 connectors Unlimited admins and
    connectors

    Outseta

    Pricing Starts from $39
    Rating 4.8/5

    Outseta No-Code CRM
    Outseta No-Code CRM

    Outseta offers various SaaS services including billing, helpdesk, and authentication; CRM is one of them. With Outseta, you can manage all the tasks from lead conversion to billing and customer interaction in one place, and better interact with your leads. Be it managing sales pipelines or tracking customer engagement, Outseta offers a single unified platform for all operational needs of an early-stage startup.

    Features

    • Seamlessly create and manage records and add custom properties with email and customer support requests.
    • Manage your sales pipeline with efficient drag-and-drop tools and track your lead’s progress in real-time.
    • Outseta also allows you to create custom events that correlate with your product and enhance user engagement.
    • Product engagement insights can be used to track your most proactive leads by billing stage, cohort, and based on other factors.
    • Outseta also allows users to track their Gmail conversations so as to not lose context when engaging with a customer.

    Pricing

    Founder Plan Start-up Plan Growth Plan
    $39 per month $79 per month $119 per month
    Up to 1,000 contacts Up to 5,000 contacts Up to 10,000 contacts
    Unlimited members Unlimited members Unlimited members
    All features included All features included All features included

    Attio

    Pricing Custom Quote
    Rating 4.6/5

    Attio No-Code CRM
    Attio No-Code CRM

    Attio is one of the most comprehensive tools when it comes to building other relationship management platforms. With Attio, you can keep your network and team in sync by importing, sorting, and managing contacts, along with building and designing your own workflow. You can also collaborate seamlessly by sharing workflows and contacts in real-time to make the best out of your efforts.

    Features

    • Attio’s automated contact sync automatically imports contacts and updates them whenever there is a new connection.
    • Smart email sharing and sorting allow users to keep track of important conversations that your team members have.
    • You can also make use of various integrations effortlessly including Zapier and other tools with Attio’s efficient API.
    • Manage inbound deals with customizable pipelines and visual investment processes to analyze your portfolio.
    • Attio offers real-time updates along with iOS and Android applications allowing you to stay connected and deploy quick actions.

    Conclusion

    Customer Relationship Management and Support are one of the more important aspects of any business, and making use of custom tools to generate and nurture leads is one of its most underrated aspects. The above-listed tools allow you to embed and use custom tools without using code, in a CRM specific to your needs, and hence serve as the ultimate tools for the development of CRM and Customer Support.

    FAQs

    Code-free tools can be helpful for people with no coding knowledge or those who don’t want to learn coding to get their tasks done. Special skills are not required to use the tools. Users can make changes quickly and easily. Development and customization of the apps are convenient.

    Does no-code have a future?

    Yes, no-code has a future bright future. Code-free platforms are gaining popularity. They can help in cutting down the cost of software development. Users without coding knowledge can develop and customize their apps.

    Which are the best no-code tools?

    Crisp, Zendesk, DronaHQ, Outseta, and Attio are among the best no-code tools.

    What are no-code examples?

    DronaHQ, Zendesk, MailChimp, and WordPress are some examples of no-code.

    Which are the best no-code tools?

    Crisp, Zendesk, DronaHQ, Outseta, and Attio are among the best no-code tools.

    What are the disadvantages of no-code?

    • Limited functionality
    • Speed and Scalability
    • Limitations in customizing applications
    • Security concerns
  • Hunter.io – Is it a Perfect Tool for Outreach?

    When it comes to reaching out to new and potential customers, email marketing comes in very handy. However, the whole process of email marketing is time-consuming and endless. We’ll examine Hunter.io, a useful email-hunting tool to simplify your work. This tool allows you to search any domain for email addresses.

    So far, this tool has helped an uncountable number of marketers to find contacts related to various domains. In fact, for companies that channel customers through emails, Hunter.io is of great help. Today, the email hunter app is available as a Chrome extension and Google Sheets add-on.

    What is Hunter.io?
    How Hunter.io works
    Features of hunter.io
    Hunter.io Pros
    Hunter.io Cons
    Hunter.io Pricing

    What is Hunter.io?

    Homepage
    Hunter.io Homepage

    This email marketing tool is for bulk tasks and to verify emails. Recently, it has integrated campaigns that allow you to perform direct outreach rather than uploading contacts to another CRM. In terms of usability, the app is practical and convenient. Hence, more businesses are incorporating it into their arsenal. In this way, they are speeding up the whole process of contact-hunting.

    How Hunter.io works

    Hunter.io tours through the internet to search for your target emails. Not to worry, it is a legal tool, although you have to abide by the rules and regulations. Follow these steps to get started on Hunter.io.

    • Open the Hunter website and sign up using your Google account.
    • Complete the initiation process by entering your name and choosing a password.
    • To do your first search, enter your target website address on the search bar and click on the ‘Find email addresses’ button.
    • You will be required to provide your phone number to get a verification code.
    • After that, a list of available email addresses will appear for you.
    • You can verify these email addresses to discard the invalid ones.
    Find email addresses with hunter
    Find email addresses with hunter

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    Features of Hunter.io

    Hunter.io has a very easy-to-use interface that is quite appealing to the eyes. In this way, you can swiftly navigate through the email management tool. Other than that, some features make the app more comprehensive. More than features, these are essential tricks that will help you expand your business.

    1. Easy searching

    Hunter domain search
    Hunter domain search

    With Hunter’s domain search, you can search for any business and export the results to your spreadsheet. For instance, you want to find the VP of any company. In that case, just typing the domain name, you will get the person’s details like name, position, contact number, social media links, etc.

    2. Find every email

    Hunter email finder
    Hunter email finder 

    Similar to searching, this option of finding emails allows you to look up the email addresses of businesses and also of individuals. All you need to do is enter the website addresses with which they are associated.

    3. Accurate email verification

    Hunter email verifier
    Hunter email verifier

    Hunter.io is also an email verifier tool that allows you to verify a particular email address to avoid email bouncing. It helps you to make sure that the email address is a real one. All you need to do is enter the email and let the tool do its magic.

    4. Wide outreach

    Hunter email campaign
    Hunter email campaign

    To gather more leads for your business outreach, Hunter.io lets you connect your Gmail account with it. Further, you can enhance your campaigns by creating email templates. Importantly, you can deal with large amounts of data and verify lists of domains or addresses easily and in no time.

    Hunter.io Pros

    Positive Reviews for Hunter
    Positive Reviews for Hunter
    • Easy to use because it comes with a Chrome extension.
    • Seamless searching of email addresses using a domain name and contact information.
    • Has its own versatile CRM which is quite versatile.
    • Gives 50 free searches before finalizing a paid package.
    • Provides extremely reliable results.

    Hunter.io Cons

    Negative Reviews for Hunter
    Negative Reviews for Hunter
    • The prices of different packages could be expensive if you are looking for a cheap tool.
    • Does not allow personal email searching.
    • It is not a social media research tool. As a result, it no longer permits LinkedIn integration.

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    Hunter.io Pricing

    Monthly Plan Pricing Searches Verifications
    Starter $49 500 1,000
    Growth $99 2,500 5,000
    Pro $199 10,000 20,000
    Business $399 30,000 60,000

    Hunter.io Pricing
    Hunter.io Pricing

    Hunter.io is not a completely free app. Yes, you get a maximum of 25 free searches. However, to go further, you will need a paid plan.

    Conclusion

    If you are still thinking about whether to choose Hunter.io or not, then stop. Just take the free trial and decide for yourself. Hunter.io has been a suitable tool for many sales teams, companies, and freelancers. The bottom line is that this tool makes your searches simpler and quicker. Consequently, you are bound to trust Hunter.io.

    FAQs

    1. Who can use Hunter.io?

    Hunter.io is highly beneficial for businesses and individuals to improve their outreach. The tool is also helpful for sales and marketing teams to hunt down emails.

    Yes, absolutely. Hunter.io is a perfectly legal tool that scrapes the internet to find your target emails. However, you are responsible for how you use the search results.

    3. What can I search using Hunter.io?

    Using Hunter, you can search for individual and business email addresses by only providing the domain name.

    4. Which is the best email finder app?

    There are plenty of email finder apps. If you are looking for the best, then go for Hunter.io. With more than unique features and an easy-to-use interface, this tool will surely bring business growth.

  • Top 5 Alternatives for Pipedrive CRM and Their Features

    In any kind of business, customers are the key to its growth. Without the customers, a business is as good as dead. So for the survival of a business, customer relationship management tools are extremely important. With the rise of online tools and SaaS over the web, it has become a consumer hub of software and online services. This exponential rise in both parties online, the seller and the buyer, have to lead to the rise in demand for Customer relationship management (CRM) tools. One of the most used and popular CRM tools is Pipedrive.

    Pipedrive is a Customer Relationship Management Tool that helps users draw their attention to the right leads and sell better. It offers to fill up your sales pipeline with highly convertible leads, track communication and metrics to offer insights into the customer data, and also allows you to integrate with your sales boosting applications to give the best results.

    Although Pipedrive is one of the best in business available and has been considered the number 1 user-rated CRM tool, users often look for Pipedrive Alternatives to evaluate all the options. In this article, we will talk about the top 5 CRM tools, which you may deploy as an alternative to Pipedrive. So, let’s get right into it.

    Salesforce CRM
    HubSpot
    Zoho CRM
    Insightly CRM
    Copper CRM

    Salesforce CRM

    Salesforce Website
    Salesforce Website

    Salesforce is one of the most sought-after CRM which helps you with marketing, sales, commerce and services. Salesforce helps collect customer data in one place to make precise and more informed decisions. It also helps you by automating trivial and recurring tasks in a more personalized way by sending custom emails for marketing. Salesforce hence delivers an exception and rather personalized experience with excellent customer support 24/7.

    Features Offered by Salesforce

    • Salesforce offers you an all-around view of your customer’s activities, contacts, and communications to better know your customer.
    • With the help of Opportunity Management, monitor your competitors and products and tag along the information you need to enhance conversion.
    • Salesforce furnishes you with a mobile application that helps you work even without a desktop, such as log calls and respond to leads.
    • Track your leads till the deal is closed and make informed decisions based on insights from sales data.
    • Easily share files among your team members and enable real-time tracking of your content.

    Pricing for Salesforce CRM

    Essential plan Professional plan Enterprise plan Unlimited plan
    Costs $25 per user per month Costs $75 per user per month Costs $150 per user per month Costs $300 per user per month
    Offers you accounts and leads management Offers all features of Essential plan along with lead registration and scoring Offers all features of Professional plan along with collaborative forecasting and workflow approval automation Offers all features of Enterprise plan along with 24/7 support

    HubSpot

    HubSpot Website
    HubSpot Website

    HubSpot is a sales and marketing tool offering all round CRM, with tools and services for best in class marketing tactics. With services in every domain of sales and marketing, HubSpot offers the users free courses, eBooks and guides along with services such as Onboarding, Consulting and those of a Service Provider. Tools offered by HubSpot include Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Services Hub, and CMS Hub.

    Features offered by HubSpot

    • Offers sales automation, e-Signatures and lead scoring along with email sequences.
    • HubSpot also offers premium marketing features such as automation, SEO tools, and video hosting.
    • With HubSpot, users are furnished with an interactive and analytical dashboard, deal pipelines and customizable reports.
    • HubSpot also offers tools for blog and content creation with SEO, live chat and security monitoring.
    • Its Service Hub offers Customer Service Automation with multiple ticket pipelines and customer feedback.

    Pricing for HubSpot

    Software Starter Professional Enterprise
    Marketing Costs $45 per month, and offers tools such as landing pages, email marketing, and ad retargeting Costs $800 per month and offers marketing automation, SEO recommendations, and custom reports with campaign reporting Costs $3200 per month and offers services such as team management and advanced reporting with predictive leads
    CRM and Sales Costs $45 per month and comes with customizable sales properties, meeting scheduling, and other basic features Costs $450 per month and offers sales analytics, custom reporting, eSignature and some personalization features Costs $1200 per month and offers webhooks, custom objects, scalability, and reporting dashboard
    Customer Service Costs $45 per month and comes with live chats, conversational bots, and simple automation Costs $360 per month and comes with ticket status and routing, and offers a better customer service with custom reporting and insight dashboard Costs $1200 per month and helps user manage multiple teams slack integration along with webhooks

    Zoho CRM

    Zoho Website
    Zoho Website

    Zoho CRM is one of the first names that strikes when we talk about an all-round CRM tool. From remotely connecting to customers across different channels, to automating leads and actions required, Zoho has all the features of an effective CRM. With an interactive and insightful dashboard, it helps you monitor sales and business analytics and predicts future developments based on real-time trends and statistics while also furnishing you with a conversational AI. The AI offered by Zoho, named Zia, identifies convertible leads, so they can be more focused on, in turn, generating more revenue.

    Features offered by Zoho

    • Zoho offers Sales and workflow automation for better lead and account management, and avoid repetition.
    • Predictive sales and Zia voice assistant point out convertible leads and detect anomalies while also suggesting on assignments and workflows.
    • With Zoho, you get to customize your page layout, views and fields, and add components and subforms.
    • Reports, statistics, funnels and KPIs based on real-time analysis with Target meters to set and achieve milestones.
    • Zoho makes project management and team collaboration efficient with tags, chats and groups while also providing data security and compliance.

    Pricing for Zoho CRM

    Standard Zoho Plan Professional Zoho Plan Enterprise Zoho Plan Ultimate Zoho Plan
    Costs INR 720 per user per month, billed annually Costs INR 1200 per user per month, billed annually Costs INR 2100 per user per month, billed annually Costs INR 2300 per user per month, billed annually
    Offers all the utilities in the free version along with scoring rules and workflow management Offers all the utilities in the standard version along with SalesSignals and business blueprint Offers all the utilities in the professional version along with Zia AI, a command center and a canvas layout Offers all the utilities in the enterprise version along with advanced Business Intelligence and Zoho Analytics
    Offers to build and manage multiple pipelines, send mass emails and customize dashboards Helps build forms to collect user data, frame validation rules, and manage inventory Enterprise plan comes with advanced customization, portals for multiple users and, mobile SDK Advanced features with Zia recommendations on different niche

    Insightly CRM

    Insightly Website
    Insightly Website

    Insightly is a CRM tool that specializes in offering you a unified view of your customers including marketing, sales and project teams. Insightly allows you to connect with your customers on a personal scale, and helps convert your audience into regular consumers. Like most other CRM tools, Insightly assists users in creating customer journeys through marketing, sales, lead conversion, and integration with your email and other applications, with the primary focus on growing your pipeline.

    Features Offered by Insightly

    • Naturally, a CRM’s primary task is to collect and manage customer data. Insightly seamlessly manages data and has it stored in an organized manner.
    • Insightly helps you come up with campaign ideas to nurture existing leads and welcome new leads simultaneously.
    • Insightly offers flexibility to tailor the CRM to your specific business needs. Design your own sales processes, lead opportunity and management, and custom fields.
    • You can also create new fields using custom objects, applications, and fields, without any complications.
    • Insightly helps you turn deals into projects and set milestones, so you have the perfect opportunity to deliver what you promise and eventually build a brand and earn customers’ trust.

    Pricing for Insightly CRM

    Plus plan Professional plan Enterprise plan
    Costs $29 per user per month Costs $49 per user per month Costs $99 per user per month
    Helps you work from any device and deliver prjects Offers all features of the plus plan along with lead searching and management Offers all features of the professional plan along with strengthening customer relationships
    Insightly also helps you collaborate with your team with a unified platform for your team members to be on the same page Offers integrated phone dialer for call analysis and reporting with some extra cost Offers custom automation with validation rules, fields on objects, and permissions
    Offers over 250 business app integrations and web APIs Along with the integrations, Professional plan offes configurable webhooks Enterprise plan offers schedulable serverless lambda functions to create and run custom code

    Copper CRM

    Copper Website
    Copper Website

    Copper CRM is one that works with Google Workspace, and helps you manage contacts and communications, deals, and files all in one place, so you don’t have to juggle around in your work. Copper allows you to manage multiple tasks such as updating deals, searching for past transactions, and scheduling tasks with Google Calendar, all with the help of Gmail. Moreover, you get custom dashboards and pipelines to help you never miss an opportunity such as a strong lead.

    Features Offered by Copper CRM

    • Schedule your meetings and other tasks with integrated Google Calendar, and never miss them again.
    • Copper also allows you to customize your slide decks with advanced slide integrations to enrich it with important and useful data.
    • Leave all the task of finding and updating contact details of leads to Copper. Moreover, make data-driven decision with Data Studio to analyze and visualize data.
    • Copper also offers multiple resources to grow your business including books, product updates, blogs and others.
    • Along with other features, Copper offers complete security of your data, track deals through pipelines, and get custom reports and insights into your business.

    Pricing for Insightly

    Basic plan Professional plan Business plan
    Costs $25 per user per month when billed annually and $29 when billed monthly Costs $59 per user per month when billed annually Costs $119 per user per month when billed annually
    Offers a full Google Workspace integration with a limit of 3 users This plan is more suited for growing businesses needing basic CRM features This plan is built for scaling businesses and enterprises
    Contact enrichment and project management and multiple pipelines Contact enrichment and automation features such as workflow automation Contact enrichment and automation features such as workflow automation and unlimited templates and bulk email
    Basic reporting and sales forecasting Various integrations such as HubSpot, Slack, and Zendesk with account configuration All integrations in the Professional plan with custom embedded integrations along with leaderboard and goal tracking

    Conclusion

    CRM tools help you to strengthen your relationship with your customers and manage them. Not only that, they also help in identifying sales opportunities by drawing the attention of your customers to your business. Just like Pipedrive, all the alternatives of it are also functioned in a way to increase the sales of your business by dealing and managing the customers.

    FAQs

    What is a CRM tool?

    CRM is also known as customer relationship management is a tool, that helps businesses better organize and access customer data.

    What are the Benefits of CRM tools?

    • Better knowledge of customers
    • Better segmentation
    • Better customer retention
    • Better anticipation of needs
    • Better and speedier communication
    • Better protection of data privacy

    What are the alternatives to Pipedrive?

    Some of the popular alternatives to Pipedrive are:

    • Salesforce CRM
    • HubSpot
    • Zoho CRM
    • Insightly CRM
    • Copper CRM
  • Sprinklr – Enabling Businesses To Keep Their Customers Happy

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Sprinklr.

    Sprinklr must be certainly familiar to anybody with even a basic understanding of the marketing technology sector. It is an international behemoth that offers a plethora of services that competes with HubSpot.

    It’s a complicated, powerful technology that lets businesses control the customer experience from beginning to end. However, like with other technologies, there are numerous phrases surrounding it, let’s look into them.

    Consumer experience is the aggregate of a consumer’s logical, emotive, perceptual, and behavioural responses at all phases of the shopping experience, including pre-buy, purchasing, and consuming.

    Some firms divide the consumer experience between social and online contacts, whereas others describe the consumer experience as human engagement, such as face-to-face retail service or over-the-phone customer care.

    Sprinklr is a Software as a service customer experience management platform located in New York City. Sprinklr provides a business application that enables all the front consumer-facing departments, from marketing to customer care, to cooperate across different parts of the organization and engage through digital media. Advertising, modern marketing, modern care, modern research, developer portal, and core platform, are among some of the company’s products.

    Sprinklr – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Sprinklr
    Industry Customer experience management
    Headquarter New York, United States
    Founders Ragy Thomas
    Founded September 2009
    Key People Ragy Thomas, CEO & Founder
    Areas Served Worldwide
    Website www.sprinklr.com

    About Sprinklr, and How it Works?
    Sprinklr – Industry
    Sprinklr – Name, Logo, and Tagline
    Sprinklr – Founders
    Sprinklr – Startup Story
    Sprinklr – Vision, and Mission
    Sprinklr – Business Model, and Revenue Model
    Sprinklr – Funding, and Investors
    Sprinklr – Acquisitions
    Sprinklr – Competitors
    Sprinklr – Future Plans

    About Sprinklr, and How it Works?

    Sprinklr is a SaaS software company headquartered in New York, that provides a customer experience management platform. Sprinklr is the firm’s technology, which integrates apps for content management, social media marketing, customer service, collaboration, social advertising, social media monitoring, employee advocacy, and social media research.

    It is a widely used platform for marketing, advertising, research, and other purposes by many big corporations. The technology, which is categorised into 5 sections, is a SaaS software with variable dashboards:

    Modern Marketing: A content management system that enables organisations to provide the correct material to their consumers at the right time, as well as a variety of other features such as Digital Asset Management (DAM), Workflow Automation, Content Analysis, and more.

    Modern Engagement: A social media management system that incorporates Publishing and Engagement, Community Management, Distributed Engagement, and more, that helps organisations to manage social media across 35 channels.

    Modern Research: A research technology that lets firms assess brand equity measures such as brand recognition, user happiness in real time, product perception, and customer loyalty. Product Insights, Benchmarking, Visual Insights, and more features are included. This is where social listening may be done.

    Modern Care: It is a customer service solution that enables companies to use Artificial Intelligence technology to deliver high-volume customer assistance. Peer care, brand care, self-care, and other topics are covered.

    Modern Advertising: A customer engagement system that includes features including an ad manager and composer, a targeting audience manager, a creative library, campaign execution and optimization, paid/owned/earned analytics, and more. Sprinklr claims that it enables accurate and tailored advertising efforts as well as the highest return on investment.

    Sprinklr’s artificial intelligence deep machine learning algorithms are organised into eight tiers. These layers collect and convert all forms of unstructured data from over 30 channels into actionable structured insights, giving organisations a unified platform to manage customer experience at scale.

    The architecture of Sprinklr enforces consistent abstraction and allows users to construct reusable pipeline components for each stage of the machine learning lifecycle, including data collecting, data transformation, model training, model inferences, and machine learning operations.

    Sprinklr – Industry

    In 2021, the SaaS customer management market grew 14.14 percent year over year, and the industry is predicted to grow by $44.17 billion by the year 2025. The market is divided by end-users (retail, manufacturing, BFSI, telecom and IT, and others), as well as region (Europe, North America, APAC, South America, and MEA).

    During the projection timeframe, America will offer the most development potential in the Software as a service customer relationship management market. According to the study, the region will account for 52% of worldwide industry growth and will come to lead the industry by 2025.

    The expansion of the regional market may be ascribed to factors such as business adoption of public cloud services and the rising need for customer data analysis. Furthermore, the growing number of businesses in industries like BFSI, telecom and IT, healthcare, retail, and other end-users would enhance the market of the Software as a service customer service management market globally.

    The increased usage of cloud-based products is driving the Software as a service customer relationship management industry. Accessibility, dependability, and high-source availability are all advantages of cloud computing. These advantages are prompting businesses all around the world to adopt cloud-based applications.

    The usage of SaaS applications such as CRM, HRM, sales management, and financial management is predicted to rise throughout the projection period, thanks to increased expenditures on cloud-computing methods.


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    Sprinklr – Name, Logo, and Tagline

    The name of the firm was inspired by the concept of a brand gently watering its social media presence.

    Sprinklr Logo
    Sprinklr Logo

    Sprinklr’s tagline says, “The world’s leading digital-first, proactive customer experience solution.”

    Sprinklr – Founders

    Ragy Thomas, a technology marketing professional who formerly worked for email marketing firm Bigfoot International, established Sprinklr in September 2009. Thomas started the firm with his own money, running the server out of his own house’s basement.

    Ragy Thomas

    Ragy Thomas - Founder and CEO of Sprinklr
    Ragy Thomas – Founder and CEO of Sprinklr

    Ragy Thomas is an American entrepreneur and executive renowned for creating and leading the customer relationship management platform, Sprinklr. He formerly served as president of Epsilon Interactive, which is now owned by Publicis, and created the email marketing firm Bigfoot Interactive.

    Sprinklr – Startup Story

    Sprinklr was founded on September 24, 2009, in the guest bedroom of the founder and CEO Ragy Thomas’ home in New Jersey, and formally debuted with its first user on January 15, 2010. Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, and Nike were among the first to register for the groundbreaking new platform. They had all been enthralled by Sprinklr’s idea of a Unified Front Office (UFO), as well as the company’s enterprise-class security, privacy, and governance.

    Cut to twelve years later, all of those old consumers are still Sprinklr’s clients, and Ragy is still the CEO. Ragy has assembled an experienced management team over the past, including leaders from  BazaarVoice, Cisco, Salesforce, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, the White House, and BMC.

    Sprinklr is a speedily growing Software as a service company with five products that cover all front-office tasks (Advertising, Marketing, Research, Engagement, and Care) on a unified cloud with a single customer Id.

    Sprinklr has twenty-two locations in fifteen countries and works with more than a thousand global companies, including many top giants like McDonald’s, Allstate, Microsoft, NASA, Verizon, Philips, Nike, Samsung, Santander, Procter & Gamble, and Shell.

    Sprinklr – Vision, and Mission

    Sprinklr’s mission statement is “To enable every organization on the planet to make their customers happier.”

    Sprinklr’s vision statement, “To be the world’s most loved enterprise software company, ever.”

    Sprinklr – Business Model, and Revenue Model

    Sprinklr’s system is based on a single framework specifically for handling CXM data, allowing for a wide range of client use cases.

    Customer Segment

    Sprinklr operates on a mainstream market business model, with no major client segmentation. The company’s services are aimed at businesses of all sizes and areas.

    Value Proposition

    Risk reduction, convenience, and brand/status are the 3 important value propositions offered by Sprinklr.

    Customers benefit from the company’s convenience by making their lives easier. Its software platform is a full-featured end-to-end platform that integrates owned, paid, and earned media.

    By establishing strong security requirements, the organisation lowers risk. Because of its successes, the corporation has developed a strong reputation. It connects over 4 billion people and serves more than 150 countries. Over 1,200 companies are served, including:

    • Four of the top five banks in the United States.
    • Over half of the Fortune 50 companies.
    • Five of the top eight insurance firms in the United States.
    • Nine of the top fifteen global IT firms.
    • Four of the top seven hospitality corporations are located in the United States.

    Channels

    Sprinklr’s direct sales staff is their primary channel. The firm advertises its services on its social media sites, website,  and at seminars, webinars, and conferences.

    Cost Structure

    Sprinklr’s architecture is value-driven, to provide a premium position through extensive personal attention and regular service improvements.

    Cost of services, a variable item, is most likely the main cost driver. Other key cost drivers include customer support/operations, and sales/marketing both of which are fixed expenses.

    Sprinklr has a single income stream: revenue from the sale of its services and products to clients.


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    Sprinklr – Funding, and Investors

    Date Round Amount Lead Investors
    Sep 9, 2020 Private Equity Round $200M Hellman & Friedman
    Jun 23, 2017 Secondary Market
    Jul 20, 2016 Series F $105M Temasek Holdings
    Mar 31, 2015 Series E $46M Battery Ventures, ICONIQ Capital, Intel Capital
    Apr 29, 2014 Series D $40M ICONIQ Capital
    Nov 5, 2013 Series C $18M Battery Ventures, Intel Capital
    Feb 5, 2013 Series B $15M Battery Ventures
    Mar 7, 2012 Series A $5M Battery Ventures

    Sprinklr – Acquisitions

    Acquiree Name About Acquiree Date Amount
    Nanigans Nanigans provides advertising automation software that powers the in-house performance marketing teams. Dec 3, 2019
    Little Bird Little Bird analyzes social data to deliver insights for smarter enterprise marketing. Nov 17, 2016
    postano.com Postano is a real-time, visual marketing platform that finds and curates the best social fan content Feb 20, 2016
    Booshaka Bookshaka helps marketers leverage customer data to increase sales and engagement. Nov 2, 2015
    newBrandAnalytics newBrandAnalytics offers social BI solutions that deliver consumer intelligence and competitive insights for the hospitality sector. Jun 2, 2015
    Scup Scup is a social media monitoring platform that helps companies take consumer experience through products with multiple acting fronts. Apr 30, 2015
    Get Satisfaction Get Satisfaction is a community platform that fosters online conversations about a company’s products and services. Apr 8, 2015
    Pluck Pluck provides social media software for companies that create communities around their existing web properties. Mar 4, 2015
    Branderati BRANDERATI’s mission is to help brands identify the most passionate “advocate influencers” Sep 3, 2014
    TBG Digital TBG Digital, a Facebook ad optimization platform, enable social network advertisers to monitor and optimize global scale campaigns. Aug 14, 2014

    Sprinklr – Competitors

    Sprinklr’s main competitors are :

    • Hootsuite.
    • Brandwatch.
    • Salesforce.
    • Adobe.
    • Socialbakers.
    • Microsoft.
    • Khoros.
    • Oracle.

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    Sprinklr – Future Plans

    Sprinklr, a software firm located in the United States, plans to construct a development centre in Hyderabad with 200 IT workers. With Telangana IT and Industries Minister KT Rama Rao, the company addressed the idea of building a development centre in Hyderabad. The city’s current IT ecosystem was highlighted by the minister.

    The New York-based corporation’s leadership team told Telangana IT and industries minister KT Rama Rao that the business plans to hire 1,000 techies in the projected Hyderabad centre over the next 3 to 5 years.

    Rao recently visited a conference in New York, during which he emphasised Telangana’s existing IT sector. He also stated that the state government will back the venture completely.

    Sprinklr, which was launched in 2009 by tech executive Ragy Thomas, had its NYSE debut on June 23rd. The company’s platform, Sprinklr, incorporates a number of tools for social advertising, social media marketing, collaboration, content management, employee advocacy, social media research, customer service, and social media monitoring.

    The company employs around 3,700 people in 25 countries. South America, Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific are all represented by the firm.

    Sprinklr – FAQs

    What does Sprinklr do?

    Sprinklr is a Software as a service customer experience management platform located in New York City.

    Who founded Sprinklr?

    Ragy Thomas established Sprinklr in September 2009.

    How does Sprinklr make money?

    Sprinklr has a single income stream, the company generates revenue from the sale of its services and products to clients.

    Which companies do Sprinklr compete with?

    Sprinklr’s top competitors are Hootsuite, Brandwatch, Brandwatch, Salesforce, Adobe, Socialbakers, Microsoft, Khoros, and Oracle.