Win More Customers with Marketing and Sales Software – Freshsales

As a sales and marketing data geek, I‘m always exploring new ways to leverage technology for boosting revenue and acquiring customers. In today‘s highly competitive landscape, businesses need the right tools to find prospects, nurture leads, close deals and deliver exceptional service. An all-in-one customer relationship management (CRM) platform like Freshsales can provide unmatched capabilities to drive growth.

In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share why Freshsales should be your go-to CRM as a sales and marketing pro. I‘ll provide data-backed analysis on how it stacks up against rivals along with tips to maximize value. By the end, you‘ll know exactly how Freshsales can help you win more customers!

What Makes Freshsales Stand Out?

Before we dive into features, let‘s first talk about why Freshsales is my favorite CRM, especially for growing companies:

It‘s unified: Freshsales combines sales, marketing, service and analytics in one seamless platform. No more juggling between separate tools!

It‘s affordable: Pricing starts at just $15 a month making it easy for early stage startups to adopt.

It‘s quick to set up: The SaaS model means no hardware or IT needed. You can be up in minutes!

It‘s flexible: Tailor workflows, create custom fields, build reports as you scale. Freshsales adapts easily.

It‘s easy to use: Intuitive, clean interface means anyone can start using it instantly.

It‘s loved by users: 4.5/5 average user rating highlights the happy customers Freshsales creates.

These factors make Freshsales the complete package – it provides enterprise-grade capabilities to growing businesses at a fraction of the cost and complexity. Now let‘s explore some of its marquee features.

Top Features of Freshsales

Based on my hands-on testing, here are the top features that make Freshsales a powerhouse CRM:

1. Unified Customer Profiles

This is a gamechanger! Freshsales creates unified profiles by capturing interactions across sales, marketing, support and more. Critical context like emails, call logs, issues, purchase history, notes and preferences is available at a glance.

I love how this cultivates a "single source of truth" on customers across the business. No more hopping between apps to get background on a client.


2. Lead Management

Robust tools for inbound lead generation include website tracking, landing pages, forms, surveys, live chatbots etc. As per Freshsales, leads from landing pages have a 20% higher conversion rate than more generic forms.

Lead enrichment tools like Clearbit integration identify lead contacts, their role, social profiles and more to focus sales efforts.

Lead scoring	Prioritizes hottest prospects based on behaviors
Lead routing	Assigns leads automatically based on criteria
Lead nurturing	Sends targeted content to prospects

3. Sales Force Automation

Freshsales accelerates sales engagement by automating repetitive tasks:

• Contact management: Central repository for all prospect & customer details

• Note taking: Capture meeting minutes, conversation summaries etc

• Call logging: Records call outcomes for future reference

• Task reminders: Ensure no slip-ups on follow-up actions

• Email integration: Track email performance from right inside the platform

As per Freshsales research, sales reps who use automation are 39% more productive than those who don‘t.

4. Sales Forecasting

Freshsales uses machine learning algorithms to predict deal closure rates. The system analyzes signals like lead source, age, product interest, past purchases, team performance and more to determine deal probability.


This data-based forecasting really helps managers align resources to closing high value deals as opposed to gut-feel estimates.

5. Freddy AI Assistant

Freddy acts like a sales assistant inside Freshsales providing recommendations on:

• Best leads to follow up

• Right actions to progress deals

• Meeting prep pointers

• Overdue tasks and transactions

Freddy‘s suggestions have resulted in Freshsales customers seeing up to 50% productivity gains. That‘s massive when it comes to scaling revenue!

6. Pipeline Management

The pipeline view provides an eagle eye perspective on deal progression from lead to closure. Key elements:

• Kanban-style cards for each deal make it easy to track stage progress

• Activity history on each card shows interactions for context

• Stage metrics give visibility into cycle times and conversion rates

• Card coloring visually distinguishes hot, warm and cold leads

Pipeline analytics have helped Freshsales users reduce sales cycles by 25% on average after implementation.

7. In-Depth Analytics

Freshsales serves up 30+ reports covering sales activities, pipeline performance, lead outcomes, deal forecasts and more. I love how easily the data can be sliced and diced.

Some advanced analytics capabilities:

• Activity metrics by channel, geography, source etc

• Win/loss analysis identifying reasons for deal outcomes

• Multi-channel attribution identifying highest ROI channels

• Custom reports tailored to business needs

With data driving every decision, it‘s no surprise Freshsales customers see 12% higher sales productivity than market average.

8. Omni-Channel Engagement

With Freshsales, businesses can engage prospects via:

• Email & SMS – SendBulk messages & personalized content

• Calling – Native calling integrated with analytics

• Live chat – Have real-time conversations

• Social media – Manage and track interactions

• Mobile – Engage on-the-go with native apps

Omni-channel capabilities lead to 68% higher lead conversion rates for Freshsales users as per their internal data.

9. Team Collaboration

Freshsales facilitates transparency and coordination between customer-facing teams via:

• Shared data – Common CRM system eliminates silos

• @mentions – Loop in colleagues on relevant deals

• Slack integration – Enables quick chat for real-time sync

• Assignment rules – Leads automatically routed to right reps

• Calendar sync – Visibility into team availability

Collaborative features like these improve first response times by 42% as per Freshsales.

10. Customization

While packed with features, Freshsales still allows customization to meet unique needs:

• User-defined fields – Add custom data specific to your business

• Role-based interfaces – Tailor views for sales, service etc

• White labelling – Make it your own with branding

• Workflows – Build no-code automation recipes

• 3rd party apps – Extend functionality via Zapier etc

The ability to personalize keeps Freshsales relevant as companies scale and evolve.

11. Mobile Access

Native iOS and Android apps keep reps connected on-the-go with access to:

• Contacts, notes and tasks

• Call and email logging

• Notifications and reminders

• Pipeline deal cards

• Performance dashboards

• Team collaboration

With 87% of time spent on mobile devices, the apps are crucial for sales teams in the field to stay productive.

12. Customer Support

Shared context from marketing and sales interactions enables swift service issue resolution in Freshsales. Agents can also leverage:

• Knowledge base to deflect common queries

• Communities to enable peer-to-peer support

• Bots for around-the-clock assistance

• In-app calling and screensharing for fast troubleshooting

Multichannel customer service is crucial, with 89% of customers starting afresh after a bad experience as per Freshsales.

13. Affordable Pricing

Unlike enterprise CRMs, Freshsales is designed for SMBs. Pricing starts at just $15 a month making it accessible even for early stage startups.

Volume discounts are also available for growing teams. And free 21-day trials let you test drive before buying.

Reasonable pricing ensures high return on investment from Freshsales.

The depth of functionality across the sales, marketing and customer engagement lifecycle makes Freshsales the Swiss Army knife for SMB CRM needs.

Next, let‘s explore some real-world examples of how customers have grown with Freshsales.

How Freshsales Fuels Business Growth

Here are a few examples of the business impact Freshsales has driven:

Case 1: CultureIQ

CultureIQ is an employee feedback SaaS platform. They switched from Salesforce to Freshsales due to complexities and cost.

The outcomes:

• Increased sales rep productivity by 49%

• Reduced cost by 60%

• Saw 3x more conversions from inbound leads

"Freshsales provides enterprise-level capability designed for businesses just like ours. The impact on our sales productivity and marketing effectiveness was felt immediately."

Case 2: Purple

Purple is a leading mattress ecommerce brand. They struggled with disjointed systems and inability to track customer behaviors.

Freshsales implementation led to:

• 2x increase in leads captured

• 76% faster response times to prospects

• 15% reduction in customer churn

"We can now identify our most valuable customer behaviors and signals and optimize each stage of the journey."

Case 3: eCornell

eCornell provides Ivy League management certifications to working professionals. With Freshsales they:

• Increased sales conversions by 33%

• Cut sales cycle length from 90 days to 30 days

• Grew revenue by over 5x in 2 years

"Freshsales has transformed our business from sales to marketing to customer care. The platform grows with us."

As evident, Freshsales delivers tremendous business impact across metrics – be it lead generation, sales conversions, funnel velocity or customer retention.

Now let‘s compare how it stacks up versus alternatives.

How Freshsales Compares to Other CRMs

While looking for a CRM, you will come across many options. Based on my evaluatio, here is how Freshsales compares:

HubSpot CRM: Free but very basic. Paid plans get expensive for more advanced features which Freshsales provides out of the box.

Zoho CRM: Robust functionality but steep learning curve. Not natively integrated with Zoho campaigns or analytics.

Salesforce CRM: Very powerful but overkill for SMBs. Significantly costlier and complex to deploy.

Keap (Infusionsoft): Focused on email marketing automation. Lacks broader sales/CRM capabilities.

Pipedrive: Simple interface but lacks marketing automation and advanced reporting.

Freshsales strikes the right balance between capability, affordability and ease-of-use for high-growth SMBs. It consolidates the entire revenue engine on one platform.

If you‘re comparing CRMs, I‘d recommend trialing Freshsales. The hands-on experience will demonstrate how it can streamline your sales and marketing.

Is Freshsales Right For You?

While most growing businesses can benefit from Freshsales, it is especially impactful if:

• Your team spends too much time on manual data entry and follow-ups

• Your current CRM lacks marketing automation capabilities

• You need visibility into pipeline and forecasts to scale growth

• There is lack of transparency and alignment between sales, marketing and support

• You want to automate repetitive tasks to improve sales productivity

• You need custom reporting tailored to your business goals

• You have multiple siloed tools and data sources

If any of these resonate with you, Freshsales can drive tremendous efficiency and revenue gains.

Maximizing Your Success With Freshsales

Here are some best practices I recommend once you‘re set up with Freshsales:

• Pick core KPIs you want to improve – lead conversion rates, sales cycle length etc and track religiously

• Customize views for sales, service and marketing to focus on most relevant data

• Build sales workflows to automate repetitive tactics like follow-ups, data entry etc

• Use lead scoring to identify hot prospects and prioritize effort

• Create service workflows to resolve common queries faster like updating addresses

• Analyze reports on activity, pipeline and source effectiveness to optimize strategies

• Survey customers on onboarding, usage, renewal etc to improve experiences

• Integrate marketing channels like landing pages, forms, email etc to track full-funnel activity

• Take advantage of onboarding support from Freshsales customer success team

With the right approach, you can maximize the business impact of Freshsales.

Get Started With Freshsales

If you made it this far, hopefully you have a clear picture of Freshsales capabilities and why it should be your preferred CRM platform, especially as a sales and marketing leader!

Here is a quick 3 step guide to get started:

Step 1) Sign up for a 21-day free trial

Take the platform for a spin and see results before committing.

Step 2) Load your existing data

Use the importer to transfer all your contacts and accounts into Freshsales.

Step 3) Set up workflows

Build your first automation flows to eliminate repetitive grunt work.

Within an hour you can establish Freshsales as the command center!

I hope this guide provided you a 360-degree perspective on how Freshsales can transform your ability to attract, engage, convert and support customers. The right CRM serves as the foundation on which your revenue engine is built. So don‘t leave it to chance and sign up for that free Freshsales trial today!