BEST CRM

Winner: Contactually; Runner Ups: Infusionsoft, Sales Force

CONTACTUALLY

PROS: “Even though it’s not your standard CRM program, Contactually is my pick for the best and most applicable for most real estate agents,” Matt Dollinger, president and founder of Gearbox Consulting, said. There are a lot of positive qualities about Contactually that make it convenient and easy to use. Nobu Hata, director of digital engagement for the National Association of Realtors, likes how easy it is to integrate with your email and social media accounts. “It easily integrates with Sales Force, MSExchange email, Gmail, social media – almost anything agents are using nowadays,” he said. “That, combined with intuitive user experience right off the bat, makes it an affordable and usable software that works.” Contactually also monitors your interactions and keeps a record of them in the application with a user-friendly dashboard, and makes it very easy to follow up with people by allowing to you to create simple buckets or types of contacts, and send you daily reminders to follow up with them.

CONS: It’s important to note that Contactually is simply an overview of communication with contacts, which means it is a separate destination from your inbox. Some say it also lacks the depth of automatic social awareness of email features, such as LinkedIn message.

PRICE: Basic plan is free; premium plan is $10 per month

WHERE TO BUY: http://www.contactually.com/pricing

INFUSIONSOFT

PROS: Not only is Infusionsoft a CRM program, it’s also a program for e-commerce, social media and email marketing, making everything very easy to manage. According to Bill Harney, president of Keeping Current Matters, the system is very powerful and automatically converts leads into new customer and grows sales from existing ones. “For top producing agents who are interested in automating personal follow-up and attracting leads to them instead of chasing after the next customer, this is a solution you should look at,” he said. When you consider all of the above, plus the free technical phone service, it can be a great program to use.

CONS: Because the system is so detailed and powerful, it is not for everyone. Until you become used to it, the layout can be confusing and overwhelming. It also is not the most affordable CRM program, with the cheapest edition costing $219 per month.

PRICE: Ranges from $219 per month to $379 per month, depending on which edition you get. Adding additional contacts also costs extra.

WHERE TO BUY: http://www.infusionsoft.com/pricing

SALES FORCE

PROS: Describing itself as the “World’s No. 1 CRM sales app,” Sales Force effectively balances a number of features, including: analytics and insights for social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube; on-the-go access to leads and other projects with three separate mobile programs; Data.com support for managing contacts and company profiles; and finally, Chatter, which is an employee social network.

CONS: Sales Force offers a lot of features, but it is definitely not cheap. The “Unlimited” premier level costs $250 per user and per month. It does come with a 30-day free trial, though.

PRICE: Premier level costs $250 per user/per month

WHERE TO BUY: www.salesforce.com