Top CRM Features and Functionality List

Working with customers can be a challenging task. Keeping up with contacts, correctly diagnosing problems and ensuring satisfaction as well as positive interactions can feel like the weight of the world on the shoulders of your customer relations team. CRM software can carry a lot of that workload for business and sales processes.

Using a platform with the best CRM features is an essential part of that strategy, so we compiled a CRM functionality list to help you get started.

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A CRM solution opens up amazing opportunities for small businesses and large enterprises alike to thrive. Now more than ever, businesses need to expertly manage prospects and existing customers with great care.

Having analyzed dozens of different CRMs — and interviewed over 500 companies about their CRM needs — we know firsthand that there are many CRM functions and features you must consider before buying and implementing a CRM system. We’ll cover that and a lot more:

Key Features

The top CRM tools include these 38 key features:

1. Contact Management

Contact management, an element of CRM that sometimes goes by customer management software, is one of the most important CRM functions. It allows users to segment their contacts into groups to organize and better cater to them.

With this CRM capability, you’ll be able to gather crucial customer data and bolster your marketing strategies when introducing new products. It also improves the personalization of all contacts with customers, making them feel important and catered to. This is a key factor in customer satisfaction!

2. Sales Team and Customer Opportunity Management

Quantifying the opportunities that your sales team has with customers is a relatively basic feature of CRM. Referred to as lead scoring, it allows users to identify the customers that are most likely to convert. This helps streamline sales/marketing teams, improve efficiency and optimize your sales process.

3. Lead Management

No CRM feature list would be complete without mentioning lead management. This technology allows a business to determine the best customers to follow up with based on demographic and psychographic factors. Like lead scoring, it improves the efficiency and productivity of your sales team by helping them focus on the right leads at the right time.

4. Reports and Dashboards

Once relegated to business intelligence tools, BI, reporting and dashboards have become some of the top CRM functions. Users can view statistics in a highly visual, engaging perspective using customized reports and dashboards.

They offer real-time data updates and a platform that can be accessed from various portals, improving ease of access for a variety of personnel. Management can use these reports to make data-driven decisions — an investment in CRM BI is an investment in the future of your business.

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5. Sales Analytics

On the subject of reporting, sales analytics is one of the most valuable features of CRMs. Users can create better sales campaigns in the future by analyzing the hard data of past campaigns. CRM helps you collect data from social media, polls and website traffic, and then analyze it — all with the same software.

6. Mobile CRM

Everyone has a smartphone these days, so it makes sense to utilize the amazing technology inside them to benefit your business. Take customer relationship management remotely mobile CRM programs and apps. Staff can view data and receive valuable alerts about campaigns on a mobile device.

7. Sales Force Automation

Another of the many features of CRM is the ability to automate certain aspects of your sales process. This includes outgoing calls and follow-up campaigns, as well as data organization for more effective future campaigns. Automating these repetitive tasks allows your employees to devote their time and focus to more complex tasks.

8. Sales Forecasting

A large part of customer relationship management is determining a metric for success. Forecasting lets you create a benchmark by which you can determine whether your results are actually on par with your efforts. You can also use this data to determine where you need to direct future efforts.

9. Email Client Integration

You can now gain all of the automation and the organization of a dedicated email client inside of your CRM user interface. Don’t depend on Outlook or IBM notes — find a CRM that will do double duty for you. Then when a customer calls needing support, your reps can easily pull up their previous interactions and information to give them the best care possible.

10. Workflow and Approvals

One of the ways in which your company will instantly increase its efficiency is by optimizing workflows. CRMs can facilitate optimization by automating processes like data collection, data analysis, marketing campaigns and other tasks that were previously done manually. This CRM function offers reporting and analytics to help users identify problem areas in order to improve them.

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11. Sales Data

One of the best features of CRM is its ability to organize your sales and customer data into manageable chunks. Once raw data is stratified, it can be developed into visualizations you need to make decisions. Users are able to quantify KPIs, identify pain points and make data-driven decisions.

12. CRM Data/File Storage

In order to maximize the usefulness of data, it must be properly stored. One of the key CRM functions is a proprietary method of data storage so users can pull up the data in an efficient manner. CRM stores and manages all your sales-related files like proposals and quotes. It also offers safeguards to protect and back up this important data to prevent losses and security breaches.

13. Files Sync and Share

CRM functions as the synchronization platform for many of your outside programs. Upload emails from Outlook, sync with Google Drive, import spreadsheets and more. Because of the sharing features of CRM, you can view all of your feature sets from one platform.

14. Inside Sales Console

The platform for increasing sales performance through a more efficient UI is known as the inside sales console. CRM systems offer optimized UI and data analytics to further streamline and improve the customer experience.

15. Sales Performance Management

Among other CRM features, sales performance management offers a range of benefits to sales teams. Managers can easily see what aspects of the sales team are performing well and which need improvement. You can organize data by sales rep or by other quantifiers.

Manage sales partner performance from the platform to ensure your team is performing at its best. By identifying problem areas with concrete data, they can be more efficiently addressed.

16. Marketing Automation Integration

Marketing automation allows you to more efficiently and strategically target audiences that are likely to be interested in what you’re selling. A good CRM platform will allow you to control the terms of automating parts of your marketing program selectively.

17. Chat Integration

The chat feature is priceless to a modern user. By integrating a chat program like Olark or LivePerson directly from your CRM, you can chat with employees and partners, and provide customer support, all from the same UI.

18. Call Center Automation and Integration

One of the key features of CRM is the ability to control your call center from your CRM UI and integrate any third-party program into a single platform. The fewer different systems you use, the less likely you’ll be to get confused and lose information via translation or transfer.

19. Web Analytics Integration

Integrating web analytics doesn’t just allow you to collect data on who is visiting your website. It analyzes raw data, identifies problem areas, suggests ways to improve and provides insights into the way your user base interacts with your website. This CRM feature provides intuitive ways to collect and access these statistics from your UI.

20. Support Automation

Customer support features like FAQ pages, chatbots and email correspondence are becoming increasingly automated as AI capabilities improve. Users can control the output of your customer support features from your UI.

21. Cloud-Based or On-Premise CRM

CRMs come in several different formats — web-based, also known as SaaS or online CRM, or on-premise. On-premise CRM systems use a network of highly customizable onsite hardware and software systems that require software licenses to store customer data.

Cloud CRM solutions exist on remote servers where software updates, security measures, hardware upgrades, backups and more are managed by the CRM service provider. Both come with unique pros and cons to consider before choosing.

22. Product Level Quotes

A CRM functions as an inventory database for your products. Keep up with quotes for the products that you sell individually. Find out which products are doing well with customers and where sales are lost. Access this information from handheld devices, desktops and more.

23. Role-based Views

For added security, you can restrict your employees’ access based on their role in the organization. Control what different users see within your CRM to prevent data leaks and security breaches. This CRM function allows you to manage your employees’ activity based on level and keeps your customers’ data safe.

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24. Testing Environment

This feature of CRM refers to users’ ability to assess new capabilities through tests like multivariate and A/B before rolling them out. Your employees can get used to handling the changes, customers can explore and give feedback and you collect data on every interaction. This helps prevent customer frustration, improves conversion rates and enables you to make educated decisions and actions.

25. Third-Party Integrations

No CRM software features list would be complete without mentioning integrations. If you use any other kind of software — ERP, BI, HR — you’ll want to be able to integrate it with your CRM. Integrating other programs to your CRM allows for added functionality and streamlined operation.

26. Campaign Management

This CRM function allows you to manage your entire sales campaign from a single UI. This includes campaign ROI, scheduling, analytics and more. A CRM combines analytics tools with data collection software and gives you and your employees numerous access points.

27. Customization Options

Customization is one of the more basic CRM features, but it has far-reaching implications. The more customization, the more flexible the CRM. It’s crucial to know your needs when it comes to customization before making a purchase.

Will the software grow with your business? Does it have the capability to adapt to and integrate with existing software used by your organization? Can it incorporate desktop productivity tools? Can it change when you need it to? If you answered no to any of these questions, you may need to find more flexible software.

28. Email Marketing Integration

Some businesses will be content with the email marketing features of CRM, but others may find they need the more robust power of a separate email marketer. If you already utilize an email marketing system like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, you may prefer to integrate it rather than import that information to your CRM. Most of the CRM products on the market will offer this kind of integration, but it’s important to double check.

29. Social Media Management Integration

One of the most helpful features of CRM, dedicated SMM efforts can be managed from the CRM UI. Integrate management platforms like Oktopost and Hootsuite to streamline your social media management and allow multiple team members to work together from different access points.

30. Case Management

Another popular CRM function, online case management allows you to manage confidential information in a secure environment. You can keep the sensitive information of your customers and leads away from prying eyes that might use their data for identity theft or other harmful activities. This is essential to avoid cybersecurity issues and data leaks. The last thing any business needs is to get in trouble due to data security issues!

31. Customer Service Automation

As the name states, CRM software is about managing relationships with your customers. Users can manage each customer case individually to improve customer satisfaction levels and track, close and reopen existing cases. It delivers automated services to personalize client communications. You can create a consolidated knowledge base of support information for quick access.

32. Tracking

This CRM feature helps you keep track of customer journeys from the first point of contact to purchase and after-sales interactions. You can also monitor business-specific metrics like lead source, win rate and customer lifetime value.

33. Project Management

Missing meetings is such a bummer, right? Instead of jotting down important dates in an Excel spreadsheet, CRM’s project management capabilities make it easy to manage client meetings.

With real-time alerts, you stay in the loop for upcoming events as well as any changes made to sales documents by your team members. This CRM function lets you quickly overview your pending projects, so you don’t miss any deadlines.

34. Territory Management

You can route leads and accounts according to the customer’s location. CRMs let you segment accounts based on “territories” — geographical location, product type or even industry. This CRM software feature helps create hierarchies based on countries, states, cities and zip codes.

Organizing accounts in territories lets you easily view which sales reps are assigned to which region. It makes tracking easier and enables you to compare performance based on different locations.

35. Pipeline Management

One of the most important CRM functions, pipeline management provides complete visibility into your sales funnel, allowing you to instantly see what stage of the cycle a customer is currently at. You can leverage this information to plan your next move, identify weak spots, forecast revenue and analyze sales reps’ performance.

36. Quote and Order Management

There’s no sale unless you send a quote to your potential customer. Use this CRM function to streamline the quotation process by providing pre-designed templates. All you need to do is input relevant customer data and send it their way!

You can also manage order generation, history and segmentation with ease. Some advanced solutions provide capabilities to automate order creation as well.

37. Document Management

Manage documents and keep everything organized in the same place with this CRM function. Some solutions offer advanced search capabilities, making it easier to find the documents you need. You can convert offline documents into online ones and share them using email or chat. Attach files to leads, accounts, contacts and deals for better access.

38. Task Management

Another robust feature of CRM, this capability lets you break down large tasks into smaller, manageable ones and prioritize them according to importance. You can plan, track and monitor tasks and see how effectively your team completes them. This feature is beneficial in keeping track deadlines and goals and fostering collaboration.

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Questions To Ask Vendors

After finalizing features of CRMs, it’s good to prepare a list of feature-centric questions to ask vendors to narrow down your search. This also helps clear your questions or confusion, enabling you to make the right choice.

• How many leads can the system store? Is it possible to analyze and visualize leads?
• What analytics and reporting features are available in the free version? Do the reports offer drill-down options?
• What’s the contact storage limit? Are there any additional charges for increasing that limit?
• Are the quote templates customizable? Is it possible to auto-populate quote templates and add digital signatures?
• Do marketing features come with the basic version or available via integrations? Does the platform integrate with other marketing tools?
• Does it offer customizable email templates? Does the software integrate with Gmail or Outlook?
• Is it okay to use custom color codes for the pipeline? What interactive elements and drill-down options does this function offer?
• What’s the data retention policy? Does the platform integrate with other document storage applications?
• Is it possible to build custom forecasting models? Is it powered by machine learning or AI capabilities?
• Does it offer a multi-user login?
• Which metrics can we track with the solution?
• Will it provide cross-team visibility into sales documents and customer data?
• Does the system come with a native mobile app? How many functions does it support on mobile?

Evaluating Market Demands

We wanted to know more about which CRM features and functions users really want, so we asked over 500 companies in the market what features they wanted in their CRM platforms.

Key Insights

• Buyers need to be more educated about what functionality they should expect from CRMs.
• Buyers are looking for features that improve the communicative and collaborative capabilities of their organization both internally and with their customers.
• Most buyers expect some automation included in their CRM capabilities.
• They want integrated, automated, comprehensive CRMs with features tailored to their individual needs.

Findings

We asked our survey participants what customer relationship management features they want from CRM products, and these were the most frequently requested:

SelectHub interviewed 529 companies from small businesses to enterprises, from different industries, with different CRM needs. But the same answers came up again and again.

Buyers Need Education

Intriguingly, many buyers asked for specific elements of marketing automation without asking for marketing automation specifically. For example, eight percent of respondents asked for campaign management or tracking capabilities.

Of that group, 48 percent asked for only campaign management with no mention of marketing automation. Marketing automation functionality including campaign features was important to 26 percent. Then, 23 percent asked for campaigns and marketing automation as distinctly separate features.

This suggests buyers are fundamentally confused about what is typically included within the standard sales force and marketing automation functionality and how to communicate what they need.

Additionally, while 14 percent of respondents requested basic sales force automation, others requested only specific elements of sales force automation functionality, or requested sales force automation and a feature that would be included in any sales force automation package.

Here’s an example: of the 13 companies that said they wanted forecasting, 76 percent didn’t mention sales force automation. They just listed forecasting and other typical sales force automation features of CRM as areas of interest. Then, 24 percent said they wanted forecasting and also wanted sales force automation, suggesting some buyers don’t know the difference.

Looking at the buyers who requested reporting capabilities reveals a similar dilemma. The fact that reporting was requested by 22 percent of users and analytics by eight percent goes back to the root of buyers’ desire for a better understanding of their business. But many respondents used reporting and analytics interchangeably, which isn’t exactly correct. They’re similar but have some key differences.

People want to be more educated about what’s happening in their business and want to know how to make it better. However, there is still some basic education that needs to happen among business owners and operators to accurately determine what CRM functions they need.

Hopefully, next year there will be fewer buyers shopping for a new CRM because their previous solution didn’t suit their needs.

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Buyers Value Communication

Communication makes and breaks relationships in our personal lives, and it should be no surprise that the same is true of business relationships. Buyers want to improve their relationships with their customers, and having better communication (both internally and externally) is one way to accomplish this.

A contact management system gives colleagues access to the same database, promoting collaboration and communication between marketing and sales teams. Communication and collaboration were cited as significant needs by 36 percent and 38 percent of users, respectively, which helps explain the popularity of the contact management feature of CRMs.

Keeping track of contact information can also help streamline otherwise complex processes. Contact management functionality focuses on storing and organizing customer data like phone numbers, emails, addresses and communications with those contacts. It helps sales teams contact leads at the right stage of the sales process, and only contact them the appropriate number of times.

Buyers want it to be easy for their users to collaborate: 10 percent listed a user-friendly interface as a top requirement. If their teams are struggling to properly implement the tool, then what’s the point of having the tool, right? This also ties back into the need for education. Two percent of users reported that their previous CRM was improperly implemented or too confusing to use, which is a pretty significant number.

Users want a tool able to communicate and integrate with other tools they use. Whether those tools were email, an ERP, other CRM systems or a website, interoperability was a big bonus for most respondents. Integration removes steps in the pipeline process, prevents data duplication, and consolidates customer data and sales processes.

Buyers value centralized management, communication and ease of use, and it seems like they aren’t finding it in the CRM they’ve been using.

Getting everyone on the same page and fostering collaboration between marketing teams, sales teams and customers was one of the main concerns for most categories.

Buyers Need Automation

We’re well into the 21st century — buyers don’t want to be doing tasks by hand that have been successfully automated. Remember how buyers were confused about what marketing and sales automation would give them? They still asked for these features and the functions related to them in huge numbers. 40 percent of respondents asked for marketing automation by name, and 14 percent wanted general sales force automation features.

In fact, the top two through six CRM functions — marketing automation, contact management, reporting, pipeline management and sales force automation — were all automation-related.

Automation is valuable for more than just convenience, and buyers know it. It saves businesses time and money by taking over repetitive tasks and freeing up employee time. It makes them more efficient by optimizing workflows (requested by 12 percent of respondents). And automation promotes brand consistency and outreach standardization.

A consistent brand and stable outreach are important to success. Buyers are realizing that one of the best (and easiest) ways to ensure streamlined and consistent outreach to leads is to utilize marketing automation. Marketing automation is an especially popular CRM feature with growing businesses because it standardizes elements of the sales process.

Standardized email templates (requested by two percent of buyers), customizable fields (requested by three percent) and campaign management (requested by four percent) are all marketing automation features that focus on standardizing customer interactions.

In the next few years, any business that isn’t doing sales force and marketing tasks with assistance from some kind of automation tool will be behind the pack — and the same goes for any CRM program that doesn’t offer them.

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Demographics

Here’s a breakdown of the companies we surveyed.

CRM Status

Every company was either purchasing their first CRM tool, updating to a new CRM application or downsizing from a current CRM system:

Most of the companies purchasing their first CRM system mentioned issues with organization, efficiency and communication as the driving factors behind their decision to make the switch. They are growing, changing or just ready to bring their organization into the 21st century.

The companies looking to update were currently working with outdated, clunky platforms or had their data spread out across too many systems. These buyers wanted to consolidate disparate systems, organize their data and get everyone on the same page.

For the companies downsizing, they felt their CRM was bloated with too many features. Most of these users also cited affordability as a major concern — they felt they were overcharged for services and features they didn’t use.

Desired Price Range

A CRM typically falls into several price categories ranging from $50/user/month to $250/user/month. The companies we surveyed are divided into the following categories for their desired price range:

The overwhelming majority weren’t particularly concerned with the price point. They wanted to consider all their options and make a decision based on what would work best for their organization.

The realistic consumers in the $50-$200/user/month category have a huge variety of options to choose from. Twelve percent of these buyers wanted to stay between $50 and $100/user/month, and 16 percent were comfortable with the $100-$200/user/month range. These companies value a balance between features and affordability.

The user base hoping to keep their costs under $50/user/month were cost-conscious, typically smaller businesses or nonprofit organizations. Many users we surveyed in this category described their needs for CRM technology as basic, valuing practicality over versatility.

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Deployment Preference

CRM platforms come in three forms of deployment: on-premise, cloud-based and hybrid.

As you can see, most users prefer cloud-based systems. These platforms are accessible from multiple locations, tend to be cheaper and offer full IT support. Users who choose a web-based CRM can save money (and space!) by avoiding the IT-heavy physical servers required for an on-premise system.

However, cloud-based programs can get pricey if you realize you need more features or if the third-party host decides to increase the subscription fee.

About a third of respondents said they’d be open to either on-premise or cloud-based CRM options. These people want to keep their options open and learn more about what specific CRM functions vendors have to offer.

The three percent who prefer on-premise options unanimously cited their security concerns as a main motivation. On-premise CRM solutions provide greater control over security measures. However, it’s a common misconception that the cloud is less secure than a system hosted locally. Both have advantages and drawbacks, depending on the company’s situation.

A few users were curious about hybrid systems. They cited their reasoning as wanting the best of both worlds and who can blame them?

Despite their differences in size, budget and situation, these companies largely agreed on what features were must-haves in a CRM. The analyst team at SelectHub thanks them for their participation.

What Is a CRM?

Before we delve deeper into the process of selecting a CRM platform, let’s take a closer look at its definition. CRM refers to any strategy, tool, technique or technology that enterprises use for retaining, acquiring and developing customers. Sales and marketing reps can manage and automate the customer life cycle using them.

These solutions aid critical CRM functions by consolidating customer information in a central repository, which enables automated business processes, organized relationships, closely monitored performance and improved productivity.

Who Uses a CRM?

A CRM system caters to almost every business segment. Right from customer service, sales and recruiting to business development, marketing and any other line of business — CRM functions help you manage external interactions and relationships to drive success. You can create a contact database using customer and prospect information, identify promising sales opportunities, manage marketing campaigns and record service issues.

You can make customer interactions available to anyone at the company who might need it. With enough visibility and easy access to data, sales reps can collaborate smoothly, increasing productivity and boosting business growth.

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Primary Benefits

The CRM market size was valued at $58.82 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 13.9% from 2023 to 2030. This is because CRM solutions are considered to be one of the most effective tools to acquire and retain customers.

If you’re interested in your target audiences’ location, preference, spending habits, demographics, feedback, engagement with your brand and other such vital information, investing in a smart CRM is a wise decision.

Using a CRM system will also help you:

• Streamline and Automate Processes: You can standardize workflows and processes associated with marketing, customer support and sales, and thus improve coordination.
• Make Smarter Offers: Recognize promising leads, concentrate on those and increase the chances of conversion. Being in close touch with your prospects enables you to understand their needs better so your offers are more relevant.
• Improve Customer Service: Happy customers are more likely to be loyal customers and come back more often. So, it’s of utmost importance to know if all of your customers are satisfied. If not, figure out the reasons and fix them. A CRM platform is instrumental in terms of collecting data on customer satisfaction. Some products also incorporate customer service capabilities to further support customers.
• Increase Sales: CRM software features let you know important customer data such as birthdays, locations, age and industry, which you can use to personalize communication as well as offerings. With the right offers made to the right customers at the optimal time, you can make better deals, resulting in improved ROI.
• Work Remotely: Keep all users on the same page through a cloud-based CRM system. Remote access enables sales reps to check and update data on the go and work from anywhere.
• Reduce Costs: You can quickly implement a cloud-based CRM platform without any special installation and hardware requirements, minimizing IT costs and eliminating the need for version control and scheduled updates. CRM pricing is based on the number of users and features needed, making it a cost-effective solution.
• Maximize Customer Lifetime Value: Understand your customers better and identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities to grow long-lasting and profitable relationships.

Software Selection Strategy

Choosing the right CRM for your organization is crucial to customer success. At its most basic, it comes down to two key points. To select the right CRM, you need to: 1) get familiar with the features of a CRM in order to choose from them and 2) know what specific CRM capabilities your team needs.

To cover the first issue, below is a comprehensive CRM functions list for your perusal. We’ve also built a convenient CRM list to help you determine your requirements. Keep in mind that not all platforms are going to have this full list of CRM software features so you need to define your requirements and do some research.

Note: This CRM features list is in no particular order. It’s a compilation of the basic CRM functionality available across dozens of the top CRM platforms.

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Next Steps

Buyers want a CRM to manage their relationship with customers. The most desired CRM functions all came back to improving those relationships and making the process more streamlined.

Buyers need CRM features to manage client information, interactions and movement through the lifecycle with contact management, interaction tracking and pipeline management. They want to implement higher rates of automation into their sales process by automating workflows, sales force activity and marketing functions. And they want an integrated, all-in-one system that their users and customers can navigate easily.

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Here are some key takeaways:

• CRM vendors should consider focusing on buyer outreach and education in their sales process in order to reduce buyer confusion and make sure they’re giving customers exactly what they need. Buyers need to be proactive about gathering information on exactly what CRM software features they want so they can be correctly matched with the right CRM system for them.
• There is an obvious, significant market trend of buyers needing a comprehensive single software solution. While certain industry-specific software may be great for solving problems, buyers want to handle everything — marketing automation, contact management, email campaigns, reporting, analytics — on one platform. Integration and centralization were both in the top 11 most-requested CRM functions, so vendors should be aware of this as they develop their products for the forthcoming year.
• Automation is in. From consistency in branding to more efficient workflows, buyers know they can be running better and smoother businesses. Automating marketing and other sales force tasks is becoming an expectation rather than a luxury, and within a few years, any CRM system that doesn’t offer at least some basic marketing automation and sales force automation functionalities are going to be left in the dust. So will any business that doesn’t implement a CRM with these features.

Our free requirements template is an easy way to make sure you get what you’re looking for in a new system. You can customize your key requirements from a list of more than 100 core CRM features.

A CRM should help you make your business better, and that’s really all buyers want.

What CRM features are most important to your company? Did we miss any on our list? Drop a comment below to let us know!