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What is CRM?

Traditional CRM software primarily functions as a repository for storing customer details such as names, emails, phone numbers, and addresses. Modern CRM systems support businesses across marketing, sales, and customer service, by enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of these departments. Learn how recent developments in artificial intelligence has led to Smart CRMs that unify customer data, teams, and software to enable customer experience personalization at scale.

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  • Import your existing contacts from spreadsheet to CRM

  • Streamline existing workflows and automate repetitive tasks with the help of AI Agents

  • Level up to creating personalized experiences at scale using a Smart CRM

  1. What is customer relationship management?

    CRM stands for customer relationship management. CRM software is a system for managing customer relationships.

    For many businesses, their most valuable and important asset is their customers. In the past, companies kept their contact information scattered across business cards, email records, and spreadsheets. But as businesses expand and change, having a central database for customer information becomes essential.

    Your prospects and customers will feel the pain when your team isn’t on the same page. From their perspective, they have a relationship with one company, not a collection of different people and departments. Everyone on your team needs context about every customer’s needs, wants, and current state so they can pick up the conversation where it left off.

    Having one central place to organize all lead and customer details makes it easy for your entire team to gain insight into your business and customer relationships.

  1. Who should use a CRM?

    Do you need better visibility into your sales team's process and productivity? Do you require a centralized database for lead and customer information? Do your customers often interact with multiple individuals or channels?

    If you answered yes to one or more of the questions above, your business could likely benefit from a CRM system.

  2. When is the right time to adopt a CRM?

    In short, the answer for most companies is pretty simple. While you may be able to get by for a while without a CRM system, adopting one sooner is often better than waiting until you feel the pain of an ad hoc solution you’ve outgrown.

    Jumping between the different places your data lives becomes cumbersome and slows your team down.

    Adopting a CRM has never been easier, thanks to HubSpot's free edition of its Smart CRM. It allows teams like yours to give a CRM a test run without the need for long-term commitments or upfront investments. You can explore if a CRM is beneficial for your needs without any financial obligations or expiration dates.

  3. The evolution of CRM

    What driving forces will define CRM’s future? Well, that depends on who you ask. Many experts agree that businesses will adopt CRM systems or alternatives that deliver tangible business results.

    At HubSpot, the future of CRM is something we think about a lot. From interacting with our customers, we've noticed common challenges they face with their CRM systems. Many CRMs are complex, demanding significant effort from sales teams without offering equal value in return. Also, traditional CRM platforms struggle to capture customer interactions across websites, social media, and other channels. As a result, it becomes difficult for businesses to create a seamless customer experience.

    With these realities in mind, in 2014, HubSpot launched our CRM. Designed to work seamlessly with the entirety of HubSpot’s other products and features, we went a step further to make it 100% free for anyone to try and use. No storage limits or expiration dates.

    Since then, we've expanded our customer platform by adding free features like live chat and meeting scheduling. Today, HubSpot's Smart CRM offers intuitive AI tools to boost team productivity and innovation.

  4. How CRM fits into growth

    With companies growing faster than ever and an abundance of new opportunities to engage with potential customers, it can be challenging to effectively track and monitor interactions with prospects. This problem is compounded when marketing and sales teams are overloaded with information and using different sales processes. As a result, leads can fall through the cracks and prospects may receive inconsistent or irrelevant information.

    Having a CRM helps solve these “growing pains” by organizing contact, company, and sales opportunity information, as well as capturing and organizing interactions across various communication channels. Marketing and sales teams in scaling organizations can improve efficiency and eliminate unnecessary tasks.

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Related Resources

If you’re interested in more about HubSpot's Smart CRM, these related resources may help.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps businesses track customer information and interactions. 

    More than just a digital address book, a good CRM software provides a single source of truth that can help any business:

    • Track and nurture relationships with customers and prospects
    • Automate repetitive tasks and streamline workflows
    • Generate actionable insights from customer data
    • Enable seamless collaboration across departments
    • Create personalized experiences at scale

    At its core, CRM software helps organizations build stronger customer relationships by centralizing customer data, communications, and insights in one accessible platform.

  • The price of CRMs varies and there's no one-size-fits-all answer. Here are a couple of important things to keep in mind:

    • Many CRMs have per-user fees. For example, one user costs $50, two users cost $100, and so on.
    • Additional data charges can come in different forms. Some CRMs charge per record, where you pay for each additional set of 1,000 (or 10,000, etc.) individuals in your database. Others charge based on the size of data storage. For instance, you might get 5 gigabytes of free storage and then pay for each additional gigabyte.
    • Certain CRMs also charge for specific functionality. You could pay $50 per user per month for contact, company, and deal management, and an extra $50 for the "Enterprise" product that includes lead scoring and reporting.
    • Custom features, automations, and integrations may incur significant development fees anywhere from $10,000-$50,000 depending on the CRM

  • Beginners use their CRM systems to store and track customer data and interactions. Some data might be entered manually, like when a customer gives you their email address.

    A savvy business integrates customer interactions to their CRM and vice versa. A sales person may reach out to a prospect with a calendar invite and the CRM would record how the meeting went. A marketer could run targeted social media marketing campaigns and the CRM would reflect the return on ad spend.

    Some of the most innovative businesses are using HubSpot's Smart CRM to identify and merge duplicate records, answer website chat inquiries, prospect leads, and generate content that aligns to a brand voice with AI.




  • Customers are increasingly expecting personalized experiences and seamless interactions across all touchpoints and business teams are often hybrid or remote. A modern CRM helps companies navigate these challenges by providing:

    1. A Single Source of Truth: End scattered customer information and siloed data
    2. Automation at Scale: Eliminate manual tasks that slow teams down
    3. AI-Powered Insights: Turn customer data into actionable intelligence
    4. Cross-Team Alignment: Enable marketing, sales, and service to work as one