Tool Shortlist
Here are the top 10 customer database software I’d like to highlight out of the 24 I cover in this article:
Our one-on-one guidance will help you find the perfect fit.
Storing your contact information in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets is a thing of the past. Nowadays, most customer database software doubles as customer relationship management systems (CRM), so they can collect data in real-time, organize it into neat reports, and help you map out your audience’s customer journey.
Read my review to discover the best customer database software. The review contains brief descriptions for each solution that made the list, screenshots, and a comparison chart so you can determine which tool would be a good fit for your business.
What is a Customer Database Platform?
A customer database platform is a tool that helps businesses organize and manage customer information. This platform collects and stores customer data such as names, contact information, purchase history, and other relevant details in a centralized database. With customer database platforms, businesses can track customer interactions and behaviors, segment their customer base, and create targeted marketing campaigns. The software can also generate reports on customer trends and behaviors, which can inform business decisions and strategies.
How I Selected the Best Customer Database Platforms
If you're wondering how I selected the best customer database platform, here's where I'll break it all down for you. First of all, I started with customer database platforms that have high user review and satisfaction ratings. Then, using my experience in customer experience, I discerned what key criteria were most important for customer database platforms and compared how each of them stacked up against the rest.
I empathize with how much time it takes to source the right software for a job. I do this work so that you don't have to. I've been using and reviewing customer database platforms for years so you can trust me to do the heavy lifting and compile all the facts you need to make your final decision.
If you have more general questions about customer database platforms, you can skip to our FAQ at the bottom of the page. Or, you can jump right to the 10 best customer database platform overviews if you're ready to start comparing.
Selection Criteria
After careful consideration, I've determined that these are the most important criteria when selecting the best customer database platforms. Here's a brief list outlining the whats and whys of my selection.
User Interface (UI):
The user interface is an essential aspect to consider when selecting a customer database platform because it determines how easy and efficient it is for users to navigate and interact with the software. A well-designed UI can help users quickly find and access the features they need, reducing the learning curve and increasing productivity. It can also help users avoid errors and improve accuracy by guiding them through the data entry process.
Usability:
Usability is crucial when selecting a customer database platform because it affects the efficiency and effectiveness of managing customer data. A user-friendly customer database platform allows businesses to easily and quickly input, update, and retrieve customer information. This enables businesses to make data-driven decisions and respond to customer needs in a timely manner.
Integrations:
Software integrations are an important factor to consider when selecting a customer database platform because they allow businesses to connect their customer data with other systems and tools used by the organization. Integrations enable data to be shared and synced seamlessly between different software applications, improving the efficiency of workflows and reducing the risk of errors or data duplication. For example, integrating a customer database platform with a marketing automation tool can help businesses personalize their marketing campaigns and deliver targeted messaging to specific customer segments.
Pricing:
Businesses need to assess their budget and compare the cost of different customer database platforms to determine which one offers the best value for money. Some customer database platforms charge a flat fee while others have a usage-based pricing model, which means the cost increases as the number of users or volume of data increases. While cost is an important consideration, it should not be the only factor when selecting a customer database platform.
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Overviews Of The 24 Best Customer Database Software Solutions
Here’s a brief description of each customer database app to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
Salesforce Service Cloud
Best for a 360-degree view of customers' information
Salesforce Service Cloud is primarily known as a customer service platform with automation functionalities, but it is also a customer database solution with custom reports and dashboards that provide a 360-degree view of customers' information.
The platform can help teams manage customers’ cases, resolve them, and connect the customers to the right people to help them. It also captures and stores customer information in a single location, in addition to managing interactions. It can be used with AppExchange applications, allowing users to use four preconfigured service cloud dashboards that allow managers, agents, and other relevant team members to review insights about their customer service performance and customer experience.
Salesforce Service Cloud is an effective customer database software thanks to several of its key features, including customer data management, support ticket management, process automation, analytics, and integrations. Thanks to these, Salesforce Service Cloud can help businesses manage customer interactions and support processes by providing users with a centralized location to review customer data analytics and identify opportunities for improvement.
Salesforce Service Cloud plans start at $25 per user per month when billed annually. The native dashboards are available in all Service Cloud plans and the preconfigured dashboards in AppExchange are available for free, allowing any business that uses the platform to have an effective database software solution.
HubSpot CRM
Best for streamlining customer data management to enhance the customer experience
HubSpot CRM is a customer relationship management tool that helps businesses manage their contacts, track deals, and monitor customer interactions. It's designed to be user-friendly and easy to navigate, making it a great choice for businesses of all sizes. With HubSpot CRM, you can keep all your customer data in one place, making it easier to manage and analyze your customer relationships.
I chose HubSpot CRM as one of the best customer database software for CX professionals because it offers a comprehensive set of features that cater to the needs of customer experience professionals. It's an all-in-one solution that helps businesses manage their customer relationships, track deals, and monitor customer interactions. Plus, it's easy to use and integrates with a wide range of other tools, making it a versatile choice for businesses of all sizes.
There are several features that make HubSpot CRM stand out from other customer database software in the market. Some of these include:
- Contact management: HubSpot CRM allows you to easily store and manage all your contacts in one place. You can create custom properties, segment your contacts, and track interactions with them.
- Deal tracking: With HubSpot CRM, you can track deals and monitor their progress through the sales pipeline. This helps you stay on top of your sales process and identify any bottlenecks or areas for improvement.
- Email tracking: HubSpot CRM allows you to track email opens and clicks, so you can see how your customers are engaging with your emails. This helps you optimize your email marketing strategy and improve your overall customer experience.
- Task management: You can create tasks and reminders within HubSpot CRM, helping you stay organized and on top of your customer relationships.
- Reporting: HubSpot CRM offers a range of reporting options, including customizable dashboards and detailed reports on your contacts, deals, and sales pipeline. This helps you gain valuable insights into your customer relationships and make data-driven decisions.
One of the reasons HubSpot CRM stands out from other customer database software is its wide range of integrations. It connects with over 500 apps and tools, including popular options like Gmail, Outlook, Slack, and Zapier. This means you can easily integrate HubSpot CRM with your existing tech stack, making it a seamless addition to your workflow. Plus, HubSpot CRM offers native integrations with other HubSpot tools, like Marketing Hub and Sales Hub, so you can manage your entire customer journey in one place.
Pricing starts at $50 per month, and they offer a 14-day free trial.
Pipedrive CRM
Best for building a customized user journey
Pipedrive is a customer relationship management (CRM) software with a built-in customer database. You can keep records of relevant data and information about each of your customers, prospects, and leads. You can add notes to files, schedule calls and follow-ups, and segment users for email communications. This helps you keep clean, updated records of your customers and offer contextual support with their backstory.
Another core feature of the software is its visual, drag-and-drop pipeline that can be used to track leads through your sales process – or to track customers through various stages of onboarding and product adoption. The pipeline is fully customizable, so you can establish your own unique stages. There are also pre-built templates provided in the system to speed up the process.
Your email account will be connected in the platform, so you can send and receive emails and keep customer communications centralized. The reporting and analytics tools also help you measure customer engagement and other core CX metrics.
Pipedrive integrates with other common SaaS tools like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Trello, Slack, Zoom, PandaDoc, Zapier, and more. Plans start at $12.50/user/month, and a 14-day free trial is available.
Bigin by Zoho CRM
Best customer database for small business
Bigin by Zoho CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform that caters to the needs of small businesses. It's a lean version of the complete Zoho CRM platform, and focuses on the features that are most impactful for smaller organizations, without all the extra functionality you don't need. This makes it an approachable, intuitive software that can help you keep track of your customer records, manage communications, and automate your sales pipeline.
The software serves as a central database for all your customer records. You can create custom fields and modules to best match your needs. To populate the database, you can import your data from a spreadsheet and collect new data through custom forms you can easily build in the system. Data can also be exported as needed.
Multi-channel communication tools are included so you can manage your email, phone, and social media communications through the software. It also has a sales pipeline builder to help you track leads through your sales process and spot which stage each customer is currently at. You can set triggers to automatically move people through the funnel as they take specific actions, too. A custom reporting dashboard is included to help you track your performance.
Paid plans start from $7/user/month, and a 14-day free trial is available.
Scoro
Best for 360-degree views of customers
Scoro is a work management software with powerful customer data management features. The solution helps you create a 360-degree view of each customer, including everything you need to know about them – communication history, shared files, quotes, invoices, related users – in one place. The software is customizable, so you can tailor it to your needs and systems. You can prioritize tasks, monitor ongoing projects, and track KPIs.
Scoro comes with customizable dashboards. The dashboards offer an overview of your team’s tasks and performance, so you can see what’s happening in your organization at a glance.
Scoro integrates with a variety of tools, including Gmail, Outlook, marketing tools, customer service software, and e-commerce platforms. You can access more integrations using a paid account with Zapier.
Scoro costs from $26/user/month. The solution offers a demo and a free 14-day trial.
Freshdesk
Best multi-channel customer data for contextual support
Freshdesk is a client database software that focuses on customer support. The solution creates a centralized location for all your customer data and communications. It helps you provide customer support, automate workflows, and improve the customer experience you offer.
This tool comes with detailed video tutorials, so your team should be able to learn how to use most of its functions with ease. You can tailor the solution to your business and organize your workload as you see fit. One of the things that make Freshdesk stand out is its ability to track customer interactions on eight channels, including email, phone, chat, and social media.
The solution offers direct integrations with popular tools and has an open API for custom integrations.
Freshdesk costs from $15/user/month. You can access a free 21-day trial. The solution also offers a free plan with limited functionalities.
Capsule CRM
Best contact management solution
Capsule CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management software that helps you build stronger relationships with your prospects and clients. The solution has a clean interface and its thorough documentation should help your employees use most of its functions in good time. This tool simplifies your task management process with task prioritization and custom notifications. Users can create daily to-do lists, leave each other notes about different contacts, and schedule upcoming tasks.
Capsule CRM stands out thanks to its ease of use. The CRM platform allows you to filter your contacts in different ways, so you can segment them based on verticals, size, sale potential, service providers, and where they are in the sales process. This can help you optimize your marketing campaigns and increase your conversion rates.
Capsule CRM costs from $18/user/month. You can access a 30-day free trial. The solution offers a free plan for up to two users and 250 contacts.
AllClients
Best for ease of use
AllClients is a CRM software that’s specially designed to help non-technical users. The tool’s interface is easy to navigate, so even novice users should be able to find most of the functionalities without training.
This solution organizes your customer data into neat profiles complete with the client’s contact details, their files, communication history, and your team’s notes.
AllClients allows you to segment your customer list based on various criteria and launch email marketing campaigns directly from the app.
AllClients stands out thanks to its ability to optimize your sales campaigns. The tool enables you to build landing pages, schedule emails, set autoresponders, and track your marketing efforts.
AllClients costs from $29/user/month.
The platform offers a free 14-day trial.
Salesforce Customer 360
Best for streamlining email communication
Salesforce Customer 360 is one of the leading customer database management solutions out there. This software helps you track customer interactions on multiple channels, automate your follow-ups, and forecast sales with the help of AI.
Salesforce helps you segment your contacts in different ways, making them easier to target in your outreach efforts. You can search for individual contacts by name, phone number, client ID, and other details. This solution can help you improve your email marketing campaigns with automated follow-ups.
Your team members can create and save email templates for quick replies, and you can schedule emails based on your prospects’ progression through the sales funnel.
One of the things that make Salesforce stand out is its ability to create a unified view of all your customer data. The software merges the information it records from multiple sources into a single entry, so you can get an accurate view of your clients’ needs.
Salesforce Customer 360 costs from $25/user/month. The platform offers a free 30-day trial.
OCL
Best for customizable client cards
OCL is a client management solution that helps you simplify your account management process. The software keeps track of your client interactions and builds elaborate client accounts where you can store files, schedule appointments, and share information with your coworkers.
This tool enables you to import client lists and creates individual client cards where you can generate offers, contracts, or invoices and send them to clients. The platform also allows you to create business targets for your employees, set deadlines, and answer client questions.
Your team members can communicate directly in the app, leave each other notes on client cards, and highlight important information.
They can also keep up with the latest updates in your organization with the help of custom notifications and email reminders.
OCL costs from $45/5 users/month.
Need Expert Help Selecting The Right Backend / Database Software?
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The Best Customer Database Software Solutions Summary Table
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Salesforce Service Cloud Best for a 360-degree view of customers' information | 14-day free trial | From $25/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
2 | HubSpot CRM Best for streamlining customer data management to enhance the customer experience | 14-day free trial + free plan | From $20/month | Visit Website |
3 | Pipedrive CRM Best for building a customized user journey | 14-day free trial | From $12.50/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | Bigin by Zoho CRM Best customer database for small business | 14-day free trial | From $7/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Scoro Best for 360-degree views of customers | 14-day free trial | From $28/user/month | Visit Website |
6 | Freshdesk Best multi-channel customer data for contextual support | 21-day free trial + free plan available | From $18/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | Capsule CRM Best contact management solution | 30 Days Trial | From $18/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | AllClients Best for ease of use | 14 Days Free Trial | From $29/user/month | Visit Website |
9 | Salesforce Customer 360 Best for streamlining email communication | 14 Days Free Trial | From $25/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | OCL Best for customizable client cards | Not available | From $45/5 users/month | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here’s a few more customer database software that didn’t make the top list.
- Connectivity
Best for multi-location marketing data
- NetSuite CRM
Best for lead tracking across the customer journey
- monday sales CRM
Best customer database for flexibility & customizability
- Zoho CRM
Best for customer analytics
- Copper
Minimalistic CRM that’s specially designed to work with Google tools.
- Apptivo
Flexible CRM with strong automation features.
- HoneyBook
CRM tool ideal for early-age startups that want to track and manage their customer relationships in one place.
- Insightly
CRM software that helps businesses of all sizes become more organized and track every lead, project, and opportunity.
- Keap
Light CRM software that helps small businesses automate their marketing and sales processes.
- Zendesk Sell
Customer relationship solution that builds extensive logs of your customer interactions.
- Maximizer CRM
All-in-one CRM solution that excels at segmenting your customer list and tracking your marketing efforts.
- Really Simple Systems CRM
Adaptable CRM that’s easy to pick up by non-technical users.
- Odoo Helpdesk
Open-source CRM that helps CX teams personalize their sales cycle.
- Onpipeline
Cloud-based CRM that helps you manage your contacts and sales processes.
People Also Ask
Have some lingering questions about customer database software? I have some answers!
What are the Benefits of a Customer Database Platform?
What Key Features Should I Look for in a Customer Database Platform?
Other Customer Data Software Reviews
If you're satisfied with your software for customer database, consider selecting complementary tools from the following categories.
- Customer Tracking Software
- Free Customer Database Software
- Customer Review Management Software
- Customer Resource Management (CRM) Software
- Enterprise CRM Software
- CRM Software for Small Businesses
What do you think about this list?
Customer data is one of the most important assets for businesses worldwide, and many consider it the not-so-secret ingredient for success. As Mei Yang Selvage, research director at Gartner, said:
Good quality data empowers business insights and starts new business models in every industry. It allows enterprises to generate revenue by trading data as a valuable asset.
So investing in software for customer database would be a good step in the right direction if you want to help your company grow.
If you want to receive advice on how to use consumer data from leading thinkers in the industry, subscribe to The CX Lead newsletter.
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