Shopify is a popular e-commerce platform that helps businesses create stores and sell online. It provides many useful features that give flexible and scalable advantages for businesses. CRM (customer relations management) systems aren’t an exception. Partnering with a Shopify expert who can provide the best Shopify CRM apps gives companies powerful tools for e-commerce combining sales, marketing, and customer service capabilities in one platform.
Have you ever wondered how you can benefit from integrating Shopify with a CRM? When you start growing, it gets burdensome to support requests, order data, contact information, and more. That is time to think about another way to manage all your customer data. Let’s dive deeper into the discussion of how to collect data on people who bought from your online store in its initial days up until now.
What is a CRM?
A CRM tool combines features for handling contacts, providing technical support, automating marketing, and many other processes to increase sales.
CRM systems use different channels or points of communication, detailed information on customers' personal information, purchase history, buying preferences, and concerns, which could include the company's website, telephone, live chat, direct mail, marketing materials, and social networks.
But what's the difference between Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Content Management Systems (CMS)? Which does your business need? They serve different purposes in the business software landscape. Let’s look more closely by sketching out the main differences between CMS and CRM:
Both CMS and CRM help e-commerce businesses manage their online stores more effectively. Find more tips about choosing a CMS system for e-commerce development in our guide “Best Headless CMSs for E-Commerce Development”.
Let's look at why it is worth considering a CRM system for e-commerce.
Why it is worth considering a CRM system for your e-commerce business
Using a CRM is an effective way to reach a range of opportunities, such as:
There are a variety of Shopify integrations you can add to your store to supercharge your e-commerce business. Below, we have collected the ten best CRM to use with Shopify.
HubSpot
All HubSpot apps, including the HubSpot CRM, are introduced in the Shopify store. They offer additional tools and features to empower every unique product workflow pipeline corresponding to your Shopify online store orders. HubSpot’s engine will automatically import the details of every new Shopify customer and save them as contacts with their corresponding orders and sales details. Furthermore, it systematically auto-populates the contact profiles with additional intel, including their social specifics and associated companies. Hubspot is one of the best Shopify CRM that can also track customer behavior, identify potential leads, and improve customer engagement.
With the Hubspot intuitive interface, you will enable contact management, sales automation, and effective email marketing.
The main benefits and drawbacks of the HubSpot CRM are:
Pros:
- One software to manage all sales and marketing activities
- Efficient lead tracking to analyze sales data
- Sales and marketing campaigns
- SEO optimization tools like customizable page titles and meta descriptions, SEO-friendly URLs, XML sitemaps, image ALT text, creating 301 redirects, breadcrumb navigation, etc.
- Nurturing customer relationships
Cons:
- High cost for small businesses
- Lack of early termination for annual contractors
- Unavailable A/B testing on lower plans
- Necessity to pay for additional technical support, and the pricey mandatory onboarding service
Pricing: you may choose a free CRM tool with limited features. The advanced featured plans start at $45 per month and can increase based on the number of users.
Bottomline: Hubspot is worth considering and can help you improve your sales and marketing processes. There are a lot of HubSpot alternatives with similar features but better pricing, which may be a better choice for small businesses.
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM is another solution for a Shopify website that may automate your workflows, processes, campaigns, customer journeys, and more. With great use of artificial intelligence (AI) Zoho CRM strongly emphasizes increasing leads, accelerating sales, and measuring performance.
The AI-powered assistant Zia provides lead and deal predictions to identify potential customers, making the sales process more efficient and intelligent. You can integrate the platform with various apps and software, making it easy to customize the CRM for any business needs, including HIPAA compliance for the healthcare industry.
The main advantages and disadvantages of using the Zoho app
Pros:
- All-in-one software that allows you to conduct team meetings and client presentations
- Notifications about new lead interactions to alert remote workers
- Easy-to-use interface with a low barrier to entry
But there are some disadvantages and limitations that challenge users of Zoho.
Cons:
- Limited set of features in the free plan
- Available standard support only on weekdays. Premium or Enterprise support will cost you extra money
- Most valuable features rely on Zia AI and are only available on the upper-tier Enterprise and Ultimate plans
- Many essential features, including email notifications and webhooks, are limited per day
There are different pricing options available:
- The Standard plan will cost $14 per user per month on annual billing and includes basic features like email hosting, document management, and basic reporting.
- The Professional plan will be paid $23 per user per month when billed annually and provides additional features like CRM, advanced analytics, and sales automation.
- The Enterprise plan will be charged $40 per user per month when billed annually and includes features like inventory management, project management, and advanced customization options.
- The Ultimate plan will cost $52 per user per month when billed annually and encompasses all the features that are available in the lower-priced plans, along with priority customer support and extra storage capacity.
Bottomline: Zoho will be the best fit for small businesses looking for the first CRM experience and midsize companies that are eager to streamline sales.
Salesforce
Salesforce is one of the most intelligent and proactive AI-powered platforms that help companies put the client at the center and make the best decisions. There are a few options how you can integrate Salesforce CRM into your Shopify store. You will centralize all customer information, from contact details to preferences, behaviors, or communication channels.
Businesses may integrate many solutions in their Shopify app store with the Salesforce system. These assist the functionality integrity and add extra options to your store. For example, Zendesk Live Chat app (formerly Zopim) connects with Salesforce to chat with visitors in real-time on their websites. Furthermore, you may integrate the TradeGecko app for inventory management, which enables tracking inventory by item or in bulk and getting better visibility and control over your business. It reduces the administration time and double-handling errors. The “Zap” tool provides one of the best CRM integrations with Shopify that streamline and automate certain tasks. All these tools help improve tracking products without jumping between Salesforce and Shopify.
Enumerating the pros and cons of the Salesforce CRM:
Pros
- Comprehensive customization options where you can add/delete features to suit your business needs
- Rich reporting tools
- Variety of integrations with more than 1000+ platforms
Cons
- High price
- Complex and time-consuming configuration and setup
- Poor customer support
Pricing: Salesforce has a lot of flexibility in its pricing policy. A business may start from $25 a month for its out-of-the-box package and grow the opportunities to manage more leads at $300 a month. The Lightni