If you're a business owner, you don't need to be told that nothing is more important than the relationships you nurture with customers and/or clients. So you need a tool to help you identify the best opportunities to nudge leads toward making the coveted purchase, so no lead goes cold.
For this, Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
software is critical to scaling sales teams. So it's no wonder that as many as
65% of companies use a CRM tool within the first five years of its launch.
But with so many CRM systems on the market, which one
is right for your business?
Today we look at Stäng CRM, an all-in-one solution for
managing your customer relationships. We will examine its features, pricing,
customer support and what makes it unique.
There's a lot to discuss, so grab a cup of joe and
let's get started!
Close CRM Review - About Close.io CRM
Close CRM calls itself a CRM software built for and by
remote salespeople. It was founded in 2013 by a 100% remote team. Fast forward
to today, where more and more people are working from home at least part of the
time, and it's clear that this really works to their advantage! In fact, 24% of
workers in May enjoyed hybrid work arrangements.
With your sales team scattered across different
locations, perhaps even across different states or continents, you need a
solution to keep everyone on the same page. This is where Close comes into his
own.
Close is ideal for teams of under 100 people. It aims
to double their productivity by providing access to all the tools salespeople
need to do their jobs justice.
For example:
- A CRM
- E-mail address
- Global phone calls
- SMS messages
- Video conferences
The platform promises lightning-fast onboarding, a
free trial, incredible support and free migration. You can also request a demo
on their website.
Close CRM Review - Close's Key Features
Close CRM's functions can be easily divided into two categories:
- Features relevant to the average remote seller
- Features important to sales leaders managing sales teams
Below we'll look at each, starting with the former:
Call features
- Power Dialer: You can make over 300 calls a day! This feature alone usually requires a third-party app. A Power Dialer dials the numbers on your line list and moves on automatically if a line does not answer. This gives your representatives the ability to contact more numbers in a day and instantly move from one successful call to another. The caller will only initiate communication with your representative when there is a person on the other end of the line. Reps can see who is calling in real time and can access the customer's complete history with your company. Overall, it's a huge time saver! Of course, you can also pause and resume Power Dialer without losing your location.
- Customize: You can use local phone numbers in your chosen country (there are over 200 countries to choose from). Pricing for global calls is simple and transparent, charged per minute.
- Track and review: Close makes it easy to track, record and review conversations, to help you monitor progress and train new employees.
- Voice messages: Leave pre-recorded voice messages with easy automation, then move on to the next call. Leaving a voice message on a failed call takes just one click.
- Crystal Clear Sound: Close promises high quality sound and their technicians are available to troubleshoot any issues immediately.
Email functions
- Sync emails: Import your existing business email accounts into Close with just one click. Users can switch between multiple email accounts as needed. As a result, you can always respond from the account that your customer is familiar with.
- Timeline Tracking: When it comes to lead management, Close organizes your emails so you can chronologically review the timeline of your prospects' interactions with you. This works wonders for giving your sales team a clear context about each prospect.
- Email Automation: You can send powerful email sequences to register contacts or companies to your CRM database in bulk. You can also automatically follow up with prospects you haven't heard from in a while. Plus, automations are multi-channel, so you can reach out via email and schedule calls and SMS to improve your sales reach.
- Personalization: Close helps you track dynamic lead data in your CRM. This data can automatically populate templates to tailor your content to specific customers – such as their name, company, geographic area, and more. You can customize tags for contacts, save and share winning email templates, and use the mass messaging feature to segment your email list. In addition, you can customize your broadcast time and flexible design a your emails with HTML.
- Undo Send - Made a mistake? Call back emails after you've sent them and reattach the file you missed.
SMS functions
- Everything in your inbox: All SMS are synchronized to your Close CRM inbox so you can reply and read texts from there. There is no reason to switch apps!
- Automate mass sending of text using Close CRM's API.
- Use your existing number.
Video conferencing capabilities
- Remote Selling with Zoom: Close integrates with the Zoom video conferencing app so you can host video meetings with customers.
- Record and store video meetings: Previous cloud recordings can be automatically imported into CRM. You can access recordings immediately after a call to see what went well and could be improved.
- Get instant reminders before your next Zoom call to ensure you're always on time.
- Close continues to run while you are in your Zoom Call so you can fill in customer records as you go.
Close
CRM Review - Features for Sales Leaders
Now let's turn our attention to the core features that Close offers sales leaders:
- Built-in conversational coaching: Close comes with in-app listen, whisper, and barge features to help mentors train new reps. For the uninitiated, this means that sales managers can listen to the conversation, offer advice that only the salesperson will hear, and step in and take over the conversation when needed. You can also replay the conversation afterwards to walk the sellers through what they can improve and where they did well.
- Instant insight: Review your entire team's performance at a glance. See which emails are opened, how many SMS are sent, how many calls are made each day and track conversion statistics. The "Activity" view comes with a leaderboard showing which group members are most active. Alternatively, you can use the "Opportunities" view to make accurate sales forecasts to help you identify the deals most likely to occur. In addition to that, you can export your data.
- Custom fields and activities: You can customize your sales process with custom fields. More specifically, custom fields allow your team to record details that are important to your unique business. For example, saving your prospects' social profiles, tracking lead communication preferences and more.
- Business Pipelines: Easily create sales pipelines for different lead types. Visualize where they are in the sales funnel and set up automatic reminders about when to contact you. You'll also gain actionable revenue insights along the way. For example, sales rate, number of opportunities, win frequency, average time to win, average value per win and more. Additionally, you can add multiple pipelines for greater precision. With this information at hand, you are better positioned to adjust your funnel to maximize expected profit. Finally, offers can be updated with just one click, so reps can easily advance leads to the next step.
Close
CRM Review - Integrations
Close CRM is designed to work with your technology
stack. There are 42 integrations, including various email providers, sales
analytics tools, communication software, data and backup services, and many
more.
Some notable examples include:
- Shopify
- Zendesk
- HelpScout
- Integrated
- Link
- MailChimp
- Marketing
- Slack
- Trello
- gmail
- Hubspot
- Zapier
- Calendly
- DocuSign
…to mention a few!
Close
CRM review - Close pricing
Like most CRMs, Close CRM is a SaaS that operates on a
pay-per-month or pay-per-year model, with different pricing plans available to
suit different organization sizes. You can save money by choosing annual
billing (which is what we have quoted below)
If you want to take Close CRM for a spin first, you
can do so with its 14-day free trial. Or sign up for a quick 10-minute demo to
get a feel for its interface and key features.
Each plan also defines how many leads and contacts you
can store. Leads are companies or organizations that you can do business with.
Contacts are individuals within these organizations. All contacts in Close are
connected to an electrode.
Starter: $25 per month, per user, when billed annually
- You can register up to three users
- You can store 2,500 leads and 4,000 contacts
- Smart Views: Save custom lead list views to fit your workflow and keep track of outreach.
- View and reply to emails you send and receive both in Close and your external email provider,
- Assign tasks to yourself and others and tick them in Close.
- Built-in global call
- Built-in SMS
- Pipeline, activity and opportunity reporting
- Email support and access to their self-help center
- $3 monthly call credit
Basic: $59 per month, per user, when billed annually
- You can register up to 30 users
- You can store an unlimited number of leads and contacts
- You can transfer calls to the next available agent automatically.
- Mask outgoing caller ID with an external phone number.
- Access to a team leaderboard and user performance reporting
- Compare the activity and results of multiple team members using comparison reports
- $10 monthly call credit
Professional: $89 per month, per user, when billed annually
- You can register up to 100 users.
- Exclude specific email addresses and domains from syncing with Close for privacy.
- Mass mailing of e-mails
- You can create email sequences to reach out to contacts at appropriate times, such as after a period of silence, after a deal has closed, to follow up on communications, etc.
- Call recording
- Access to Power Dialer
Business: $129 per month, per user, when billed annually
- You can register an unlimited number of users.
- Allow your team to call multiple numbers at once and automatically connect when someone calls.
- You can assign custom roles and permissions.
- Access to built-in conversation coaching features
- Click to leave a pre-recorded voice message when you press the dial tone (also known as voicemail).
- Calls are transferred to another team member mid-conversation.
- Group Number: This is a number that, when dialed, rings a group of phones at the same time. This ensures that all team members can pick up and get to your customer faster.
- Visualize your data in graphs and control exactly which metrics to display.
- Access to a dedicated account manager and screen sharing support
- Custom onboarding for 6+ users
As you can see, Close CRM's pricing might give you
pause to consider whether it's worth the price. While the platform is robust,
many more sophisticated features are locked behind its higher price points.
This may not be financially viable for many small businesses. The user cap also
quickly forces small teams to upgrade to more expensive plans.
Close CRM Review - Customer Support
As mentioned in the pricing section, Close CRM
provides email support for all plans. But business users can also get access to
screen sharing support, a dedicated account manager and faster support.
Additionally, on any plan, you have access to Close's
self-help documentation, which includes articles spanning best practices,
frequently asked questions, feature explorations, and so on.
Close also has various useful resources on its
website, including a free resource library for sales operators. This includes a
sales consultant directory, webinars, a short sales newsletter and more.
You can also book a call to get a tour of the Close.
Finally, Close CRM offers premium support as an add-on
service. For a quote, contact their team. This will unlock personalized
onboarding, a data cleansing service, custom data and migration services.
Close
CRM Review – Close.com Pros and Cons
Last but not least, before we wrap up, let's take a
quick look at Close CRM's top pros and cons:
Benefits
- Close reviews are quite impressive. It averages 4.7 on Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice.
- Close's dashboard is intuitive, making it easy for salespeople to quickly review their data, leads and performance.
- The Power Dialer feature goes a long way to ensure salespeople get through more daily calls. But many similar tools require a third-party app for calling and global calling, which is often an additional purchase.
- You get access to advanced team management features like coach calls, where the coach can communicate with and support the new rep while remaining "invisible" to the customer.
- You can download Close CRM to your desktop to use it as a desktop app.
- It's a multi-channel CRM with SMS synced to your dashboard.
- You get access to powerful analyses.
- Email marketing is built in.
- Pricing is comprehensive and transparent.
- Global calls are built-in.
- Video calls are supported.
Cons
- Many of Close's more advanced features require higher price plans, and the user limit may force you to upgrade early. This can get expensive, as the price per user really increases for growing teams.
- Neither live chat nor phone support is offered, and only users with a business plan can access screen sharing support.
- Close is not suitable if you need features such as proposal generators, document storage, product and inventory management or internal chat.
- Not designed for outside sales teams who don't work directly with your company.
Close
CRM Review - Our Final Verdict
Stänga does not live up to its promise of being an
all-in-one CRM solution. Unlike many competitors, the platform is not only
feature-rich, but also includes built-in global calling. In addition to this,
you get powerful coaching and email features. You usually have to install and
pay for a third-party app.
All that said, for us this makes Close one of the best
value for money CRM apps – especially if you're looking for all this
functionality in one tool. If not, the platform will likely be a bit too
expensive for startups. So consider whether you will fully utilize the many
integrated features that Close has to offer before handing over your
hard-earned cash.
With its many intuitive features, we see Close as a
powerful solution worth checking out. Consider the platform's free trial to
better understand what it can do for you, or schedule a call with a sales
representative for a tour. Or are you considering a competing sales CRM, such
as Salesforce or Pipedrive? Anyway, don't forget to let us know how you get on
in the comments section below!