In order to facilitate internal and external interactions , companies choose to adopt CRM software. These tools respond both to a concern for innovation and practicality.
Nearly 91% of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM!
Today, the use of CRMs is becoming more democratic, even in small businesses that have historically been little digitalized . It is explained by the massive digitization of all organizational and communication processes.
What is Hubspot CRM?
Hubspot’s CRM is a set of tools that brings together all marketing, sales, content management, customer service, and operations functionality.
It is therefore a much more complete tool than most competing CRMs! Most don’t have marketing features or CMS (content management), for example.
Hubspot’s CRM platform also has excellent integrations that allow the automation of your processes and offer an excellent view of your sales funnels.
But this is a particularly expensive software that is not suitable for small businesses.
Hubspot’s CRM has a 3.1 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot , making it a rather disappointing piece of software.
Despite its features, the reviews are not very positive because of its prices.
What is a CRM used for?
CRM software (or customer relationship management software) are tools used to manage your relationships with your customers .
CRMs typically come with features to observe customers through their buying journey .
They also make it possible to respond specifically to the needs of customers based on their profile recorded in the CRM database.
CRMs are also used to improve internal business communications .
For example, when a new customer comes into contact with the company (for example, he fills out a form), the profile of the new customer is saved in the CRM database. To facilitate the customer journey, all departments have direct access to this profile without the need to communicate with each other.
Hubspot: what is it?
In addition to its CRM platform, Hubspot offers a marketing and sales-focused feature set . These features are called “Hubs”.
The goal of Hubspot is therefore to help you generate as many leads as possible and increase your conversion rates.
The free version of Hubspot’s CRM highlights 5 major “Hubs”:
The Marketing Hub that takes care of lead generation
The Sales Hub for sales management
The CMS Hub for website and content management
The Services Hub to optimize customer support
The Operations Hub to link your different tools
Hubspot’s CRM features
As we have seen, Hubspot offers tools to help you manage your entire business . Let’s take a look at the most interesting features of the Hubspot CRM.
CRM & contact management
The primary use of a CRM is to maintain interactions with your employees and your customers . Like any good CRM software, Hubspot offers a space where you can store contacts, profiles, and all kinds of information related to your business .
You can sort your contacts according to your needs by filtering your contacts or putting custom fields .
When recording information, it is possible to associate a code or label with each customer. This makes searching and sorting easier.
Lead generation
HubSpot’s free prospecting software , natively integrated with the CRM, facilitates business development . It offers prospect research, follow-up, follow-up and conversion tools.
The latter facilitates business development through prospect research, follow-up, follow-up and conversion tools .
In order to prioritize the most engaged leads, Hubspot’s CRM is able to efficiently and automatically sort your contacts . Thanks to a sorting of information and interactions with these leads, it is easier to identify the profiles most interested in your offer.
We can take the example of a computer seller specializing in B2B. To be profitable, he filters his leads on companies with more than 50 employees and on the sectors that convert the best.
The sorting is then focused on the “technology”, “insurance”, “banking” and “business services” sectors. By doing this, the seller maximizes their conversion rate while reducing their customer acquisition cost.
Commercial prospecting
Hubspot’s CRM automates the repetitive tasks associated with sales prospecting. You will therefore no longer have to manually check reminders, commercial actions, monitoring of sales funnels or even that of generated leads.
You will receive notifications directly for these different tasks.
Marketing and communication
In order to attract, convert and retain your prospects , Hubspot provides you with several tools that will help you optimize your marketing and communication .
To increase your conversion rates , you will have at your disposal email marketing campaigns and customizable landing pages, not to mention the automation of all your marketing processes.
Once you have gathered your customer information, you can optimize all your future interactions to increase your revenue.
Statistics and reporting
Thanks to its dashboard , Hubspot allows you to track all your key data.
You can also assess the impact of your actions on your customers to assess the quality of your customer relationships.
To make it easier to read all this data and consolidate it into a single medium, Hubspot allows you to create custom reports .
Features | 8/10 |
To conclude, we can say that the functionalities offered by Hubspot CRM are rather complete. They meet the needs of the majority of companies.
Who is Hubspot CRM for?
Hubspot CRM is a CRM that is not suitable for small businesses . You must have a dedicated team capable of fully utilizing the software . It is more suitable for large companies with a number of employees.
(For small businesses, Hubspot offers a free version, with basic features.)
If you need more complete features, it is possible to customize the tool with the skills of a developer.
The advantage of a SaaS formula like Hubspot being that your developers can focus their energy on the look and user experience of your website, without worrying about servers or hosting.
Does Hubspot CRM keep its promises?
Hubspot CRM highlights its easy handling and quality customer service. But what about reality?
Customer Support
Although some users had a fairly quick response from Hubspot, the majority complained of a particularly inefficient service . Several users have reported particularly annoying slowness in handling customer requests.
Customer support works by ticket system, users can wait several days before being supported.
“Terrible customer service” – Customer Review on Trustpilot
Customer service | 4/10 |
Ease of handling
Although Hubspot offers fairly correct ergonomics, Hubspot’s interface is not very “user friendly”, a period of adaptation is necessary .
We observe an interface very focused on contacts (which seems normal as a CRM). But the handling of other features is not optimal. If you come from another CRM, it will be necessary to train well and get information from the various forums before being 100% operational.
If you’re looking for a much easier tool to learn, look to CRMs like Twilead . You will thus avoid spending large budgets on training your teams.
Getting started | 6/10 |
Its handling requires some experience in the use of CRM software. It is not dedicated to beginners.
Integration with other tools
It is difficult to find a tool that meets all your needs: you will always have some missing features.
To get them, you have to pay and connect an additional tool.
These tools can connect to Hubspot (for some).
To integrate them, all you have to do is go to the “integration” tab of your tool and search for Hubspot. Once you find it, just install it and link it to your Hubspot account.
If the integration is not possible, you can always use Zapier.
Integration | 7/10 |
Hubspot CRM can be linked to thousands of other tools. In addition, the integration is done quite easily.
Hubspot CRM subscriptions
To meet the needs of its customers, Hubspot CRM offers different formulas for each of its Hubs. However, we are interested here in the CRM suite , which includes Hubspot’s 5 hubs :
Hubspot CRM’s free plan
Hubspot’s free plan isn’t completely free. However, it allows you to enjoy the basic functionalities of a CRM. If you need more advanced tools or features, you’re going to have to pay.
Still, it’s a particularly good plan if you only need basic features like contact management, customer journey tracking, Gmail and Outlook integrations, lead tracking, and email marketing .
We advise you to go through this formula to test the tool and then see if it suits you or not.
The Hubspot Starter plan
If you want to upgrade to a paid plan, Hubspot’s CRM Suite Starter plan is our recommended choice. As with all paid plans, you’ll have access to all of Hubspot’s hubs .
This package includes:
1000 contacts
2 paid Sales Hub Starter users
2 paying users at Service Hub Starter
Access to CMS Hub and Operations Hub
Essential marketing, sales, and customer service software are showcased here.
This package is suitable for companies with a small client portfolio and with much more modest finances . This package is available from €41/month .
The Hubspot Professional Plan
If the Starter plan seems insufficient to you, you can upgrade to Hubspot’s Professional plan. You will benefit from the same features as the previous plans, but with higher limitations.
The package offers advanced marketing, sales, and customer service software .
Indeed, the professional package includes:
2000 marketing contacts
5 paying users for the Sales Hub Starter
5 paying users for Service Hub Starter
Access to CMS Hub and Operations Hub
This package is available from €1,474/month . We recommend this formula if and only if your activity requires the lifting of limitations and if your cash allows it.
Hubspot’s Enterprise Plan
Hubspot’s Enterprise plan is a particularly expensive plan, available from €4,600/month .
The Enterprise plan has much higher limitations for using its various hubs. The offer includes:
10,000 marketing contacts
10 Paid Sales Hub Starter Users
10 paid Service Hub Starter users and access to CMS Hub and Operations Hub.
Prices | 6/10 |
Hubspot CRM offers a free plan and paid plans to meet the needs of different businesses. But the prices are very high!
What alternatives to Hubspot CRM?
Hubspot CRM is not the only CRM software on the market. We present some examples below.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a particularly effective CRM for managing sales funnels. It is a tool offering a very intuitive interface whose customization is child’s play.
Pipedrive also allows you to observe the customer at all stages of the sales funnel. Its ease of use is particularly suitable for SMEs .
Pipedrive offers 4 plans, each with a 14-day free trial period . Its Essential formula available at €12.5/month is particularly interesting for SMEs or startups with only 2 or 3 people in their Sales team.
Zoho CRM
Zoho is a little or poorly known CRM in France, but it is one of the leaders in CRM software for SMEs and VSEs in the United States. It offers many features that are particularly effective in:
Email management
Modules for centralizing exchanges with customers
Basic CRM features
Website creation thanks to an integrated CMS
Its only real flaw is in its interface, which is not the easiest to use.
Zoho CRM offers a 15-day free trial period , and the first plan is available from €12/user/month .
Twilead
More than a CRM, Twilead is an all-in-one marketing tool that gives you all the features you need to manage and grow your business .
The solutions offered by Twilead are suitable for companies of all sizes and in all sectors. You will no longer need to use multiple tools to manage your business.
In effect, Twilead integrates tools for marketing management, sales management and customer relations. All in one platform.
In B2B, Twilead even offers targeted lead generation .
For your interactions with your customers and your collaborators, you do not need to go through a third-party tool like on Hubspot (the Calendly software for example). Twilead offers you an appointment calendar .
Twilead does not offer a free plan but a 14-day free trial is available for you to form your own opinion.
Our first rates start at €25 per month !
Should you choose Hubspot CRM?
Hubspot CRM is not a bad CRM and offers some particularly great features , especially for managing your entire business .
However, these rates are far too high for what they actually offer. Several CRMs such as Twilead offer better value for money .
Our opinion in summary :
FEATURES | 8/10 |
CUSTOMER SERVICE | 4/10 |
GETTING STARTED | 6/10 |
INTEGRATIONS | 7/10 |
PRICES | 6/10 |
GENERAL NOTE | 6.2/10 |
Hubspot is a CRM suitable for large companies with a team trained and dedicated to setting up the tool. Its handling remains difficult for novices .
If you want to be accompanied to set up Hubspot, you can hire a freelancer.
If you have a lot of settings and features to develop, a freelancer will not be enough: you have to call on an agency or a group of freelancers (cheaper).
The Collective platform makes it easy to find them: there are, for example, the Iytro and 2 Scale collectives (each with a Hubspot CRM expert).
We advise you to use the free version of the CRM , if you need to upgrade to the paid version, choose only the first offer.
If the latter is not enough for you or you find it too expensive, you can try Twilead for free for 14 days!
These articles should also interest you:
- Zoho CRM: test and full review
- Salesforce: does the CRM leader meet your needs?
- Comparison of the 9 best CRMs on the market
