In this Freshsales review, we take a deep dive into the CRM platform and see what it has to offer for small to medium-sized businesses.
CRM platforms are often split into different categories for specific businesses. One such example is a sales-based CRM. This type of platform concentrates on customer management, finding new leads, and brokering new deals. Freshsales is one such platform that specialises in sales CRM.
In this Freshsales review…
Freshsales Overview
Compared to some other CRM platforms, Freshsales is relatively simple and lightweight. It does have some excellent advanced features and utility, but it is great for businesses that want to start managing their sales quickly. For small businesses who may lack technical knowledge of resources, Freshsales is a great starting place and generally simplifies the often complicated CRM process.
Using Freshsales, businesses can effectively manage their customers and easily communicate with them. This is achieved using a variety of methods including live chat, and a cloud telephony system. You can also manage your contacts, generate new business leads, try to finalize deals, and have access to a great array of reporting data.
While this is a great platform for small businesses, as you progress, you could find the lack of third-party integrations limiting. Also, the lead generation tools are currently only available in the enterprise package.
Freshsales Pros and Cons
Pros
- Offers a relatively simple CRM process.
- The Freddy AI assistant is quite useful.
- Has some excellent customization options.
- Great communication options.
- Strong tools for contact management.
Cons
- Does not feature as many integrations as other platforms.
- Lead generation tools are not accessible in the Free, Growth, or Pro plans.
- Customer support is only available 24/5.
Features
- Extensive contact management tools.
- Permission management and rules for different user access.
- Cloud telephony system and live chat options.
- Email integration.
- Custom dashboards and workflows.
Freshsales Review: Features and Usability
To give you a complete overview of the Freshsales platform, we have broken this review into smaller sections. First, we look at its pricing and feature. Second, we then delve into individual aspects of this CRM platform like communication, and customer management.
Pricing
Freshsales has a simple pricing structure with just four tiers of products – free, growth, pro, and enterprise. This makes it easy to find a package that suits your current level of business and sales. The following are the current packages available:
- Free: £0.00.
- Growth: £12.00 per month.
- Pro: £29.00 per month.
- Enterprise: £55.00 per month.
Please note that these are discounted prices based on an annual subscription (still paid monthly). If you want to pay month by month, the prices for the paid subscriptions increase to £15.00, £35.00, and £66.00 per month respectively.
As you progress through the tiers you get access to more advanced features. Also, some of the data-driven aspects increase in terms of usage or limits. For example, the growth package allows for 20 workflows, and 2GB of file storage per user. In contrast, the pro package allows for 50 workflows, and 5GB of storage per user.
The pricing is reasonable and it is one of the cheaper sales CRM solutions available. However, as you will see below, this may come at the expense of some advanced functionality.
Features
So what is actually included in the Freshsales platform? Depending on the package you choose, you get access to the following:
- Advanced contact management including activity timeline.
- A cloud telephone system with features like caller ID.
- Email integration and the ability to make email campaigns.
- Workflows to reduce the time needed for repetitive tasks.
- Pipeline management to close deals.
- Freddy AI helps enhance your decision making.
- A wealth of sales and customer reports and data.
- Advanced permissions and rules for different user access.
As you can see, Freshsales has a host of features aimed at contact management and effectively interacting with your contacts to generate sales and improve your business.
The communication features are particularly strong as you will see below. Also, we like that there is a range of workflow tools that allow you to automate simple, repetitive tasks.
Usability
A main benefit of Freshsales is that it is relatively easy to set up and use. If you or your team does not have advanced knowledge of CRM platforms, you should still be able to get the most out of Freshsales and use it without issue.
The different tools are easy to understand and there is a great deal of customization. You can easily set different filters for your contacts, for example, or rank them by different parameters.
Admins will also appreciate the availability of permissions. This means you can grant access to only the data and tools that each team within your business needs.
The Freddy AI tool is also useful and can help your decision making. It will provide useful hints and suggestions, but it can also complete sales deals and flag different activities.
Freshsales Free Package
For smaller businesses who still want to grow their sales, the Freshsales free subscription could be a good option. It is limited, but it still gives you great utility and you can easily use it to manage contacts, find leads, and access a host of sales data.
The free subscription includes:
- Contact management.
- Account management.
- Task, appointments, and notes.
- Sales data management.
- Import and export of data.
- Built-in phone system.
- Website integration.
As you can see, you essentially get a lite version of the CRM software that includes all the basics. What it lacks, is advanced customisation, data management, and reporting features.
Contact management
One of the main features of Freshsales is contact management. This set of tools allows you to build relationships, and effectively create a set of contacts from which your sales team can hopefully benefit.
At its core, you can add individual business contacts and relating information such as their contact details. However, contact management goes far beyond this. For example, you can rank your contacts in lists based on different parameters such as their open sales amount, overall score. This allows you to easily see your best-performing customers, and those who may require some additional work.
Not only does Freshsales give great contact management, but it can improve your team’s productivity. For example, you can create appointments, assign tasks, and create notes and files. All of this can be done collaboratively. You can also easily create different teams and set permission for those teams. This can make sure that your staff only have access to the information they need.
For more detailed customer contact management, Freshsales allows you to track customer behaviour. For example, you can get notifications if they perform actions like making a purchase, or sending a support ticket. Overall, this platform allows you to get the most out of your business contacts in a simple, user-friendly manner.
Contact communication
In this Freshsales review, we looked at the platform’s communication tools. This is one of the strongest points of the platform and you can effectively communicate with your contacts in a variety of methods including:
- Cloud telephone.
- Email.
- Whatsapp.
- Live chat.
The email and telephone systems are particularly strong. For example, businesses can integrate their email inbox with the CRM platform. Also, you can create specialized email marketing campaigns, and create automated response emails such as simple acknowledgements.
We also like the cloud telephony system. Here you can record calls for training purposes, create call masks for contact personalization, and schedule regular phone calls for things like meetings or after-sales follow-ups.
Aside from the basic functionality of the call system, you can also gain access to call logs and utilize a wealth of analytical data relating to your calls.
Customer Support
As with many online platforms like this, the customer support availability varies depending on which package you purchase.
If you opt for the free Freshsales platform, you have customer support available 24/5 via phone, email, or live chat. This is the same level of service for the Growth and Pro plans too. The only improvement is the Enterprise package which also offers a dedicated account manager.
The lack of 24/7 support is not ideal – especially if you have a business that can operate at any time or works only online. However, the level and responsiveness of customer support are good. The live chat is advanced compared to most and it shows a host of potential questions, but also shows an FAQ section with common sections like contacts, and imports.
Freshsales Review Summary
We hope you have found this Freshsales review beneficial. Small businesses wanting to drive their sales and improve customer relationships would certainly benefit from Freshsales. It is one of the easier to use CRM platforms but still offers great functionality.
The platform is great for building relationships with customers, tracking your sales data, and trying to build on your established client base. It is also useful for improving your sales team efficiency, and their inter collaboration.
We would like to see 24/7 customer support, and there could be a greater variety of third-party integrations. However, overall, this platform is a solid choice.
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