Looking to replace your sales engagement customer relationship management tool? Close CRM, often referred to simply as Close.io, promises a comprehensive suite of tools tailored for sales teams looking for CRM software to streamline their operations and boost productivity. In this blog post, we review Close.io's key features, pros, and cons and ability in providing sales professionals with insights to help you determine if it's the right tool for your needs.
What is Close.io
Best for: Sales workflow, sales pipeline and sales automation
Close.io is a CRM tool designed for a sales team. It focuses on communication and workflow efficiency to help sales professionals close deals faster. There are integrated features available that can support different parts of the sales cycle including outbound, direct customer engagement and sales process automation.
Key features
- Built-in call assistant: Automatically transcribes and summarizes every phone call made by sales reps,
- Set tasks: Create tasks for yourself and other team members within leads,
- Workflow automation: Simplifies repetitive tasks with automation tools,
- Pipeline reporting: Keep an overview of your pipeline health and fix leaks with the Sales Funnel Report. Great for opportunity management and lead management,
- Quick KPI reports: Analyze your team's workflows and KPIs through real-time data.
Pros
- User friendly for sales teams: Includes features such as an intuitive dashboard, custom fields, and extensive sales automation tools like predictive dialers and automatic call transcriptions,
- Team collaboration: From user comparisons to note taking, your sales team.
Cons
- Sales focus: As a sales engagement CRM it's great, but for teams looking for a CRM that can accomodate multiple business functions Close.io is limtiting,
- Limited customization: While it offers many features for sales teams, there's limited room for customization compared to other CRMs.
Price point
Compared to other CRM options, Close.io can be on the pricier side, particularly for smaller teams or startups. A 14 day free trial is available.
Prices start from $59 per user, per month on the lowest tier called the startup plan. Their mid-tier plan is a professional plan that starts from $109 per user, per month. The enterprise subscription plans are from $149 per user, per month.
A closer look at close.io
Below we take a closer look at Close CRM's productivity tools, features and ability to support an entire team of sales professionals.
Mail Merge
Close.io's email functionality syncs across Gmail and Outlook. It allows users to send bulk emails to specific leads, customize the time sent and track engagement. You can also use email automation to streamline your outreach methods by setting triggers, using templates or tracking cadences.
It can also:
- Automatically sync all your email communications with a contact and connect to your Google calendar,
- Allow you to add email attachments when emailing a lead,
- Set up outbound email without inbound email tracking.
Cold calling
Close.io has a call feature that changes your outgoing caller ID number, reduces dial tones, busy signals and phone number search time which is useful for outreach methods such as cold calling.
The following cold calling functions are available:
- Predictive dialer,
- One-click voicemails through existing numbers,
- Global prospecting and,
- A way to track and record calls to help create reports.
Contact Management
You can manually add a contact to a lead in Close and filter them by attributes to find specific contacts with a particular job title, name email or contact number.
Custom fields
Custom fields are available and can be used to create attributes about potential leads and contacts by industry, company size or timezone.
Pipeline Management
Close.io calls this 'lead visibility' in their platform. They allow you to control which leads different users can see to help your team prioritize. Close CRM can also collect all of your communication history with a Lead within one view, as well as allow you to communicate with your Leads in a number of different ways in both B2B and B2C.
Under each lead, you can create separate:
- Tasks,
- Opportunities,
- Contacts,
- Custom fields.
You can also see each separate activity in a single lead's profile as seen below.
Sales automation features
Automation in Close.io supports multi-channel sales outreach methods through workflow setups.This includes predefined workflows that can trigger emails, call reminders, and task assignments, reducing the manual effort required in follow-ups.
There are features that can help you:
- Prospect a single lead at a time,
- Revive a cold lead,
- Create dynamic smart views by priority lead data.
Workflow Process
The workflow process in Close.io is streamlined to reduce clutter and focus on sales activities, enhancing productivity and reducing time spent on administrative tasks. You can also use third party applications such as Zapier to create more workflows that integrate with sales force automation.
Their workflow process supports cold outreach including:
- Email engagement,
- Calls,
- SMS steps,
- Email templates.
Marketing Automation Features
Close is primarily a sales-focused CRM, so it doesn't really have any basic marketing automation tools. You may need a separate tool that helps bridge the gap between sales and marketing teams.
Pricing Breakdown: Which CRM Offers Better Value?
Pricing plays a crucial role when choosing a CRM. Here’s how Close CRM and folk compare:
- Close CRM: Starts at $59 per user/month, with higher tiers required for full automation and reporting.
- folk: Starts at $20 per user/month. Offers a more flexible pricing model, making it a cost-effective solution for growing teams.
If your team needs a CRM that scales affordably while offering contact enrichment, smart automation, and multi-channel communication, folk provides better value.
Why do people choose folk over Close CRM?
While Close CRM is a solid choice for sales-driven teams, folk is more adaptable for diverse team structures. Here’s why teams prefer folk:
- One-click WhatsApp integration: Easily reach contacts without switching apps.
- Smarter automation: Set up workflows tailored to your sales and relationship management needs.
- Customizable contact management: Personalize data fields and tags to organize your network efficiently.
- Collaborative CRM: Designed for teams beyond just sales, ensuring flexible and seamless operations.
Conclusion
Close CRM is a great CRM for sales teams. There are a lot of useful sales focused features that can help your team streamline their workflow and collaborate closely. However, small or medium sized businesses may have to get separate CRM platforms for their marketing, recruitment, customer support team, and more. Which might be a steep investment especially for small businesses. As for the best CRM for that, we suggest folk. It has affordable pricing plans and can support sales processes, your customer support team, recruitment pipelines, fundraising needs and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who is Close CRM best for?
Close CRM is designed for sales teams that heavily rely on calling, emailing, and pipeline tracking. It’s ideal for businesses focused on outbound sales and structured workflows.
2. How does folk compare to Close CRM in terms of automation?
Folk offers advanced automation capabilities, including customizable workflows, while Close CRM primarily focuses on email sequences and reminders.
3. Does folk integrate with WhatsApp?
Yes! Folk allows one-click WhatsApp integration, making it easier to engage with contacts without switching platforms—something Close CRM does not offer.
4. Which CRM is more affordable?
Folk provides a more flexible and cost-effective pricing model compared to Close CRM, which starts at $59 per user/month.
5. Can folk be used beyond sales teams?
Yes, folk is designed for diverse teams, including recruiters, agencies, and consultants, offering a more adaptable CRM experience beyond traditional sales processes.
More resources
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