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It can be difficult to choose the best CRM for your distribution business. CRMs are designed to make your life easier while helping your business run more smoothly. They allow you to create complex hierarchies, enter additional information and automate different steps in your sales process. As a distributor, it’s essential that you have the right tools and software to run your business.

Upfront Conclusion

The best crm for distributors right now is Salesforce and Freshsales

Top 10 Best CRMs for Distributors

  1. Salesforce – Best CRM for getting rid of departmental silos
  2. Freshsales – Best CRM for small distributors looking to work smarter
  3. Agile CRM – Best CRM for distributors that are committed to customer service
  4. HubSpot CRM – Best CRM software for large distributors
  5. Pipedrive – Best CRM for distributors focusing on sales
  6. SalesFlare – Best CRM for B2B Distributors
  7. SugarCRM – Best CRM for distribution companies in the technology sector
  8. Kintone – Best CRM for distribution businesses of all sizes
  9. Zoho CRM – Best CRM for expanding distribution companies
  10. Insightly – Best CRM for distributors improving their marketing efforts

1. Salesforce Essentials – Best CRM for getting rid of departmental silos

PRICING: 1 plan option

  • Billed monthly, per user – $35.00
  • Billed annually, per user – $25.00

For help developing and maintaining customer relationships, Salesforce Essentials can offer a CRM solution. It’s packed with customer service, sales, and marketing resources to help keep customer satisfaction and retention high. Salesforce also utilizes messaging tools and chatbots, so your team can quickly reach your customers and address issues before they become major.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Easy-to-use, secure platform to keep customer data and interactions
  • Share information between devices easily with this cloud-based software
  • Einstein, an AI tool, makes it easier for support agents to handle customer enquiries

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Dashboards and reports gives performance data to compare results to goals
  • Can integrate with many other systems, including DocuSign and DropBox
  • Provides email marketing capability

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • Pricey compared to other CRM programs on this list

2. Freshsales – Best CRM for small distributors looking to work smarter

PRICING: 4 plan options, per user, billed monthly

  • Free
  • Growth – $15.00
  • Pro – $39.00
  • Enterprise – $69.00

Freshsales is a CRM tool designed to keep you on top of your sales leads. It integrates with your existing business workflow so that your team stays on the same page with tracking leads, handling sales calls, and staying informed.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Easily find, capture and distribute leads
  • Focus on thorough reporting capabilities
  • Track and make calls from within the software

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Solution for inbound ticketing
  • Task automation options
  • Connect other software through numerous integrations

REASONS TO AVOID:

3. Agile CRM – Best CRM for distributors that are committed to customer service

PRICING: 4 plan options, per user, per month, billed annually

  • Free
  • Starter – $8.99
  • Regular – $29.99
  • Enterprise – $47.99

Agile CRM can help you create a personal, helpful customer experience by streamlining how you communicate with your customers. Features like Helpdesk, chat pop-ups, telephony, and support automation can help you build lasting relationships.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Features that cross customer service, sales, and marketing
  • User-friendly dashboards and workflow automation
  • Ideal for teams who’d like to help customers by phone

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Built-in third party integration features
  • Automate key service processes
  • Measure customer support activity through reporting and analytics

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • Large businesses are difficult to accommodate with this CRM

4. HubSpot CRM – Best CRM software for large distributors

PRICING: 4 plan options, billed monthly

  • Free
  • Starter – $45.00
  • Professional – $450.00
  • Enterprise – $1,200.00

HubSpot is perfect for efficiently keeping up with an expanding customer base and workforce. It offers plenty of marketing automation options, as well as customer support features, including HubSpot’s ticketing system. You can prioritize tickets, assign them to a specific rep, and track their progress and streamline your sales and marketing processes.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Chat widgets let you respond to visitors instantly
  • Automate repetitive interactions
  • Report sales activity and campaign data

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Keep content consistent with templates
  • Manage your customer list and data
  • Target your marketing efforts with customer reports and information

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • Costs can be very high based on how many users and customers you have

5. Pipedrive – Best CRM for distributors focusing on sales

PRICING: 4 plan options, per user

  • Billed Monthly
    • Essential – $18.00
    • Advanced – $33.00
    • Professional – $59.00
    • Enterprise – $119.00
  • Billed Annually
    • Essential – $12.50
    • Advanced – $24.90
    • Professional – $49.90
    • Enterprise – $99.00

Pipedrive is a CRM tool that makes it easy to track your sales. Its simple design lets you manage leads and customers efficiently. The sales-focused workflow helps you keep track of prospects at every stage of the sales process.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Create and send automated follow-up interactions and campaigns
  • Segment and prioritize contacts into groups
  • Focus on leads and completing transactions

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Use AI to communicate with contacts
  • Set follow-up reminders and assign tasks
  • Design pipeline filters

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • These tools are not a good choice for large corporations that want to focus on more than sales touchpoints

6. SalesFlare – Best CRM for B2B Distributors

PRICING: 3 plan options, per user, billed monthly

  • Growth – $29.00
  • Pro – $49.00
  • Enterprise – $99.00

SalesFlare is a great tool for managing a business’s client relationships. It automatically pulls data from multiple sources, including social media and email, so that your sales team can follow up on leads more quickly than ever before in order to close deals faster and more reliably.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Supervise your customer interactions to your sales pipeline
  • Review sales performance reports
  • Access anywhere through mobile

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Manage lead tracking and sales activity through reporting capabilities
  • Add automations for customer interactions and sales processes
  • Software integration options

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • Because the program accesses so many websites, it can seem like it’s tracking your employees

7. SugarCRM – Best CRM for distribution companies in the technology sector

PRICING: 4 plan options, billed annually

  • Market – Starting at $1,000.00
  • Sell – Starting at $49.00
  • Serve – Starting at $80.00
  • Enterprise – Starting at $85.00

SugarCRM has a more efficient way of keeping track of customer support cases. With Sugar, your team can route cases to the first available rep or assign specific cases to the most appropriate match based on skills and experience. This CRM helps you develop a deeper relationship with your customers by being accessible to them.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Sales dashboard offers detailed insights
  • Field and layout customizations
  • Access, search, and print your sales data

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Fast and easy set-up
  • Integrates with other software and also offers phone sync
  • Record calls to listen again or share with others

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • It’s not the best fit for general customer interactions, but it is better for dealing with technical questions

8. Kintone – Best CRM for distribution businesses of all sizes

PRICING: 1 plan option, per user, billed monthly

  • $24.00

The Kintone CRM helps collect customer data and follow up with potential clients. It lets you build custom apps that collect and manage details related to your clients and potential buyers. This is a helpful software program to streamline your customer information and interactions.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Build apps, forms, and reports that fit your needs
  • Supply chain management report solutions
  • Develop customer databases to keep track of customers, activities, and more

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Real-time sales funnel and lead response
  • Show information your team needs by customizing user dashboards
  • Reporting on your top deals, revenue streams, and lead response patterns

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • Some of the functions of Kintone Mobile app can be hard to use

9. Zoho CRM – Best CRM for expanding distribution companies

PRICING: 4 plan options, per user, billed monthly

  • Standard – $14.00
  • Professional – $23.00
  • Enterprise – $40.00
  • Ultimate – $52.00

Zoho offers software that helps you build better relationships with your customers. It can also support almost every department of your distribution business. Zoho CRM is designed for sales, but it also has tools that make it easy to manage customers’ requests.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Create, track and resolve support tickets as they happen
  • Integrated lead management tools to help you work with leads throughout the sales pipeline
  • See forecasts of your sales numbers

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Integrate social media with your other marketing channels to reach more customers and prospects
  • Multiple-channel marketing
  • Automated workflows

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • Customization may be needed to help make the software work for your organization

10. Insightly – Best CRM for distributors improving their marketing efforts

PRICING: 3 plan options, per user, billed monthly

  • Plus – $29.00
  • Professional – $49.00
  • Enterprise – $99.00

Insightly is the CRM that gives you marketing automation, the tools that pair your sales processes with marketing, and project delivery in one seamless platform. It has a solid foundation of customer management tools that offer a wide range of features to fit the needs of both small and large businesses.

KEY FEATURES:

  • Contact and project management
  • Tools for task and project management
  • Sales pipeline tracking/reporting

REASONS TO BUY:

  • Software integrations to help the CRM function the way your business needs
  • Develop custom apps with APIs
  • Lead routing and automation functions

REASONS TO AVOID:

  • Call tracking isn’t a supported feature through this CRM

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best CRM option for small distribution businesses?

ZohoSales and Freshsales are two CRM options for growing wholesale businesses. Both can help you support your customers as your company grows.

What is the best free CRM for distributors?

There are many free CRM options to choose from. Agile CRM provides helpdesk, chat pop-ups, telephony, and automation features. HubSpot CRM focuses on ticketing. Freshsales is a better choice for teams focusing on phone-based customer service.

References/Sources