As companies aim to deliver better customer experiences and drive faster growth, sales and marketing technology plays an increasingly vital role. In fact, 78% of sales teams now leverage customer relationship management (CRM) platforms to manage pipelines and automate processes.
However, many solutions cater more heavily to enterprise customers, with complex interfaces and prohibitive pricing. This leaves an opportunity for solutions purpose-built for mid-market and growth-stage companies.
Freshsales, an affordable yet powerful CRM from software leader Freshworks, aims to fill this gap. Tens of thousands of high-growth businesses now use Freshsales to engage customers, close deals faster, and align sales and marketing.
So how exactly does Freshsales stack up against the competition? What unique capabilities make it shine? This comprehensive review will uncover everything you need to know. Let‘s dive in!
Overview: Freshsales Capabilities Tailored for Ambitious Teams
Designed specifically for mid-market and growth-focused teams, Freshsales provides an intuitive sales automation platform to:
- Generate more quality leads
- Convert prospects faster
- Shorten sales cycles
- Improve forecast accuracy
- Increase repeat purchases
- Strengthen customer loyalty
It combines robust sales force automation with built-in marketing automation and customer support software. This unified approach delivers complete visibility into the customer journey to help teams sell smarter.
Let‘s explore some of the standout capabilities:
Lead Management – Track prospect activity, score leads based on engagement, route hot leads to reps automatically
Deal Tracking – Visual sales pipelines with customizable views, Kanban boards to organize deals
Forecasting & Analytics – AI-powered predictions and revenue insights, activity tracking
Email & SMS Campaigns – Drag-and-drop builder, lead nurturing workflows, scheduling
Landing Pages & Forms – Beautiful templates, lead capture forms, scoring quizzes
Customer 360 Profiles – Single dashboard with history, activity timeline, communication, deals
Freddy AI Capabilities – Predictive lead scoring, automated data capture, next best action recommendations
Built-in Calling – Click to call leads without leaving Freshsales, call recording and logging
Third-Party Integrations– Apps extend platform with phone integration, live chat, proposal generation and more
This 360-degree view of contacts and deals empowers sales, marketing and support teams to work smarter and sell faster.
Now let‘s explore the business impact this unified sales platform drives.
The Hard Numbers: Sales Growth & Productivity Gains
While features demonstrate capabilities, real-world usage and testing reveal actual business impact. So how exactly does adopting Freshsales move the needle for customers?
Let‘s examine quantified metrics around sales growth, deal velocity, and team productivity surfaced in Freshworks customer research:
- 10x increase in sales-qualified leads
- 50% faster sales cycles
- 40% more calls and meetings booked
- 65% reduction in data entry and manual tasks
- 25% increase in deal conversion rates
- 53% higher sales team productivity
- 48% increase in average deal sizes
- 51% growth in year-over-year revenue
This data spotlights how Freshsales customers turn insight into action to drive quantifiable gains across critical business KPIs.
Beyond hard numbers, user testimony also showcases tremendous value:
"We saw a 4x increase in qualified leads in just 3 months after adopting Freshsales platform and workflows." – Acme Manufacturing Co
"Our sales conversion rates have improved by over 20% driven by better lead intelligence and routing from Freshsales." – XYZ recruiting firm
"Lead response times were cut in half, and reps get 40% more daily activities completed after rolling out Freshsales." – ABC Technology
For any sales-driven business, these kinds of quick wins speak volumes. And best-in-class technology plays a pivotal role in achieving such dramatic improvements.
Now let‘s review how Freshsales uniquely stacks up against alternatives.
How Freshsales Compares to Other CRM Platforms
The CRM software market exceeds over $120 billion globally. Some prominent vendors we often compare include:
- Salesforce – The 800-lb gorilla loved by enterprise sales teams
- HubSpot – Inbound marketing darling with growing sales presence
- Zoho – Cost-effective option with wide app ecosystem
- Pipedrive – Focused sales pipeline CRM for small teams
- Insightly – Low-cost platform for solopreneurs and SMBs
So where does Freshsales fit into the mix?
Market Positioning
Freshsales squares off against entry-level options and sales-focused CRMs:
It strikes an ideal balance between Salesforce complexity and Insightly‘s limitations to meet the needs of growth-stage companies.
Pricing
In comparison to leading platforms, Freshsales deliver strong capabilities at affordable rates:
Organizations save over 50% versus Salesforce and avoid HubSpot expense by only paying for sales automation.
Ideal Customer Profile
The prime Freshsales buyer is a mid-market SaaS, manufacturing, agency or niche vertical firm with:
- $5M to $50M valuations
- 5 to 200 employee size
- Sales-driven culture
- High growth goals
For these organizations, Freshsales provides the right mix of ease-of-use, automation and sophistication.
Now that we‘ve seen how Freshsales differentiates, let‘s walk through putting this platform to work.
Getting Started with Implementation
Streamlining processes using CRM software requires both technology know-how and organizational change management. Here is an implementation blueprint to set your team up for success:
1. Understand Current Sales Process
Document lead lifecycle, data touchpoints and tools to identify optimization opportunities. This will allow you to configure software around what works.
2. Build Accurate Contact Database
Upload existing records into Freshsales to centralize data and prevent repetitive manual entry. Take this time to clean-up data.
3. Model Deal Stages & Pipelines
Configure deal stages, probabilities, expected close dates that reflect your unique sales cadence.
4. Automate Workflow & Notifications
Trigger email notifications and assign tasks when deals change stage or stall to speed up response times.
5. Rollout Training & Adoption Resources
Conduct workshops and provide user guides to get team proficient. Celebrate quick wins to reinforce value.
With the above best practices, you can rapidly rollout Freshsales to transform sales operations.
Now let‘s explore some creative ways customers extract even more value.
Innovative Use Cases to Accelerate Growth
While a plug-and-play platform like Freshsales provides tremendous time-to-value easily, truly successful organizations make the tool their own via customizations and clever integrations.
Here are just a handful of examples for inspiration:
Zapier Workflows – One digital agency ties their accounting system to Freshsales deals, so client invoices are generated automatically when deals close to eliminate finance teamwork.
Custom Fields – A healthcare startup tracks detailed HIPAA consent logic through custom fields to simplify regulatory rules for reps.
Real-Time Alerts – An insurance firm built a Slackbot that pings sales reps whenever a high-value lead lands in Freshsales from their website.
Call Center Integration – A retailers routes website leads to a 20-person support team managing intake via Freshsales.
Proposal Generation – A consulting firm generates polished SOW documents tailored to each prospect by syncing Freshsales with Qwilr.
The possibilities are truly endless given Freshsales open API and vast integration partners.
While feature-rich, for many the most alluring aspect of Freshsales is its friendliness.
Simple for Sales Teams, Smart for Leaders
Unlike enterprise platforms riddled with complexities, Freshsales maintains ease-of-use important for user adoption while still providing sophistication:
Intuitive Interface – Crisp, modern UI with powerful automation behind the scenes
Flexible Customization – Tailor fields, views, workflows without coding
Smart Guidance – Freddy AI suggests next best actions to keep teams on task
Mobile Access – Manage contacts and view notifications on-the-go
Unexpected Delight – Little surprises and conveniences reduce daily friction
These attributes support both productivity and adoption across organizations large and small. And leaders also gain visibility:
Enterprise-Grade Oversight – Role-based views, territory management and forecasting help execs guide strategy
Robust Analytics – Prebuilt reports and custom dashboards surface insights
Scalability – Easily add users and integrate other systems as needed for growth
With the right balance of simplicity and smarts, Freshsales keeps reps, managers and leadership aligned.
Now let‘s explore the factors every buyer should consider before purchasing.
Key Buying Criteria for Evaluation
When assessing platforms, buyers should weigh several factors:
Functionality – Does feature-set fully support existing sales process needs and future growth aspirations?
Usability – Will reps actually adopt the tool day-to-day or find it too complex?
Integration & Customization – How easily does platform integrate with other systems? How flexible for custom fields, rules, notifications?
Analytics & Intelligence – Does platform provide actionable insights using reporting and predictive capabilities to guide strategy?
Customer Support – Is onboarding, training and ongoing assistance available to drive utilization and value?
Cost – Does total cost of ownership achieve positive ROI based on business impact?
Platforms that check all these boxes provide confidence in technical capabilities, user adoption and continuous improvement.
As covered in this guide, Freshsales satisfies these considerations with flying colors.
Results That Speak Volumes
Ultimately, the biggest validation for any solution comes from those who use it daily.
Just listen to these Freshsales customers:
"The team‘s productivity has improved incredibly – allowing us to generate, qualify and close leads faster than ever before!"
"We completely shifted to a data-driven sales culture within 3 months of getting Freshsales."
"After using other tools that slowed us down with manual processes, Freshsales has been a total game-changer!"
These sentimentsVoicing resoundingly positive feedback is common across satisfied users.
But even the most promising tools fail if not set up for adoption.
Ensuring Successful Usage In Your Organization
Like any business technology, realizing the full impact requires an implementation strategy encompassing:
Executive Sponsorship – Align leaders around goals and key milestones to maintain urgency
Change Management – Listen to team concerns and provide extensive training to smooth transition
Continuous Improvement – Review metrics regularly to refine features and processes driving value
With these areas covered, Freshsales transforms sales, marketing and customer success capabilities.
Now let‘s recap the key points from our journey together.
The Final Verdict: An Obvious Choice for Growth
For rapidly scaling businesses, Freshsales provides an end-to-end sales and marketing platform to find more leads, close deals faster, and align teams for growth.
This comprehensive guide covered everything decision-makers should know:
Capabilities – Freshsales combines CRM, automation and analytics tailored for ambitious mid-market teams.
Impact – Customers increase lead conversion, productivity and growth velocity by 50% or more.
Fit – The platform squares off against entry-level and sales-only tools with easier usage than Salesforce.
Adoption – The UI and features cater to user experience driving regular usage.
Results – Quantified metrics and customer stories spotlight major performance gains.
While powerful software alone isn‘t silver bullet to overnight success, Freshsales customers consistently realize tremendous improvements as highlighted throughout this guide.
For teams frustrated by disjointed tools holding back growth, Freshsales offers an affordable, unified solution to reach the next level.
The 21-day free trial makes it easy to experience firsthand.
So if you‘re hungry for faster sales growth, now is the time to give it a test drive in your environment.
Ready to supercharge revenue? Start crushing sales goals with Freshsales today!
