Choosing an Industry-Specific CRM Software: Is It Worth Considering?

Using Our Industry-Specific CRM Tool

There are some specific CRM tools that provide features for a particular niche. These tools are more specialized and cater much better to users within a certain field. However, finding the best CRM software for your industry can be a challenge. 

That’s why our CRM filter is so useful. All you need to do is specify your niche in the search bar. Our filter does the rest, and will provide you with all the industry-specific CRM software you should consider. Discover the perfect customer relationship management tool for your specific business needs with our industry filter.

Why Trust BestCRMsoftware.com?

Every business is different and has varying requirements from the software it uses. At BestCRMSoftware, our goal is to connect businesses with the ideal CRM solution for their needs. We pride ourselves on understanding the nuances of industries and how they can affect the efficiency of a CRM tool. 

The Most Popular Industry-Specific CRM Solutions

Choosing an industry-specific CRM tool involves several considerations. This includes the need for niche tools, usability, and budget. There can be benefits to using a general CRM. But, opting for an industry-specialized tool allows you to access features relevant to your niche, helping you stay a step ahead of the competition.

Small Business

Small businesses aren’t a niche in itself. While it includes businesses from many different industries, there are a few commonalities that bind these businesses together. As a small business, you’re already past the startup stage. You’ve already established some of the basic components of your business. This includes a brand voice, customer bases, and a few essential business processes.

The next step would be improving your processes and growing your business. A customer relationship management solution is one of the core sales apps in your tech stack. But, you also want to ensure that the tool you choose is affordable for a small business. It should also be easy enough to use and integrate with existing systems, while offering the features you need.

When it comes to choosing a good CRM for small businesses, there are many tools you can choose, such as Vtiger or Flowlu. We also found that Zoho CRM is a great solution for small businesses. Zoho offers a robust number of features and a free plan that includes all the basic tools a small business needs. Additionally, the tool is easy to use, and the pricing plans are ideal for scaling your business as you grow.

Project Management

When it comes to businesses within the project management industries, there are a few features you need. These include task management and tracking, seamless document sharing, and integrations with tools related to managing different projects from start to completion.

Additionally, when choosing a project management CRM, you need to consider its flexibility. You need a solution versatile enough to adapt to your different project management requirements. We recommend a tool that offers multiple customization options.

There are a few CRM tools that also offer project management features, making them ideal for this industry. Tools like Pipedrive and Wrike can be very useful for anyone who requires a CRM with specific project management capabilities. 

Another great option for a project management CRM is Monday.com. It offers visual workflows to cover all of your business functions. You can arrange these in boards, making it easy for teams to organize tasks, data, and documentation for specific projects.

Recruiting

Recruitment CRM tools help independent recruitment agencies streamline the acquisition and sourcing of talent for open roles. The features included in these tools automate processes for attracting applicants, qualifying candidates, interviewing individuals, and onboarding them.

Additionally, this industry-specific CRM is ideal if your business wants to house all its end-to-end recruitment efforts under one platform. You also want the tool to be easy enough for any member of your team to use.

Some tools worth mentioning when it comes to recruitment CRMs are Recruiterflow and Tracker. Yet, a tool that stood out among its competitors when it comes to recruitment features was Manatal. This tool outshined the competition for its ease of use, robust features, and customer support.

Nonprofits

CRMs for nonprofits help charities and non-government organizations in their fundraising efforts. These specialized CRMs are usually able to help raise funds, manage donor campaigns, and build volunteer relationships. Some of the key features include a centralized contacts database, communications history, and tracking of financial transactions.

A nonprofit CRM should be able to pull data to understand various trends and use the information to attract donors. Useful platforms should also include some basic marketing automation, such as mass emails and even automatic responses.

We recommend a few options for nonprofit CRM. You can choose the open-source solution CiviCRM for more customization. But, this tool does have a learning curve you need to be aware of. During our evaluation, we found that NeonCRM is also a great solution if you’re looking for a simple-to-use CRM with a gentler learning curve. 

Neon CRM offers many industry-specific solutions that make it ideal for charities. These features include tools for fundraising, donor management, and grant management. Besides these functions, it also includes features for managing event planning and membership.

Real Estate

There are many CRMs made for various real estate professionals. Whether you’re a broker, a real estate firm, or an agent in a small realtor’s office, these CRMs provide immense value. They include tools for managing property transactions, generating leads, and staying on top of listings. 

Additionally, these industry-specific CRM solutions should feature various marketing tools. Being able to send emails and telephone messages is a great benefit. It’s also useful to integrate online marketing and social media.

When it comes to real estate CRMs, you can choose to use a more general CRM like Pipedrive, as it includes many of the features needed. Yet, businesses can opt for industry-specific options like Wise Agent, which includes existing real estate apps already embedded. 

Wise Agent already has built-in integrations with third-party apps like Gmail, DocuSign, Constant Contact, Zillow, PropertyRadar, and dotloop.

Law Firms

A CRM developed for law firms includes many of the same features as a general CRM, with the added benefit of law-specific features. These often include features to track critical information, perform client intake, and manage workflow. Additionally, the best law firm CRM includes case management features.

The automation features included in some of these industry-specific CRM options can help to streamline workflows. For example, some of these include proactive triggers that automatically send invoices once a legal agreement is signed. Some also include time tracking to streamline the billing process.

When it comes to law-specific CRM, there are some great options to choose from. Both Law Ruler and Lawmatics are great options if you’re looking for an industry-specific CRM. Clio is another great option that offers law-specific tools with many features. Despite having to add the CRM components as an ‘add-on,’ this option is still more affordable than many alternatives. 

Auto Dealerships

Using a dealership CRM allows the business to market its showroom and capture new leads more effectively. In addition, these specific CRMs are also great for nurturing leads throughout their lifetime and helping to streamline customer support. These are essential aspects in the dealership industry.

Some of the features that are useful to the car dealership industry include inventory management, car maintenance tracking, and other dealer management systems (DMS), such as credit checks, document management, and paper document scanners.

There are some great automotive CRMs, which we’ll cover further down the road. However, when it comes to car dealership CRMs, we found DealerSocket and Dominion Dealer Solutions to be great options. LivePerson Automotive is also fantastic because of the robust number of tools and features it offers.

Call Centers

Call Center CRMs should offer complete telephony functionalities. The tools should make, track, and record business calls. Some of the features businesses look for in a CRM specific for call centers include voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) level in-app calling, call recording and routing. Additionally, workflow automation, contact management, contact profile enrichment, and call analytics and reports are great bonuses.

Other features that can prove very useful include support ticket routing and interactive voice response. These features enable the support team to deploy tickets to agents based on preset rules. It also allows call center agents to interact and redirect the calls efficiently.

Nextiva is a great call center CRM because of its complete business phone system. But, if you’re looking for a system with more CRM features that’s still at an affordable price point, Freshsales is a great option for call centers.

Hospitality

Businesses within the hospitality sector, such as restaurants and hotels, often need specialized features. These include tools to engage with potential customers, schedule reservations, and even manage event-based projects. Additionally, these hotel CRMs may need marketing tools to increase sales through promotions and generate leads through online forms and advertisements.

Using a CRM is essential for hotels as it helps to improve the customer experience and increase sales before the guests even arrive. The hospitality industry is reliant on customer satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement. Using a specialized CRM platform that understands the nuances of this complex industry is vital.

There are some industry-specific CRMs for hotels, such as Smart Host and dailypoint. Additionally, Profitroom is another hospitality CRM that performs great in maximizing revenue, engaging guests, and nurturing relationships through data-driven automation. Olo is a restaurant-specific CRM specializing in gross domestic product (GDP). 

Automotive

Automotive CRM goes one step above car dealership CRM. Dealerships are looking for tools that are more geared towards sales and the buyer’s journey. Automotive CRMs offer extra features related not only to the selling of cars, but also to production and more.

Automotive CRMs have effective analytic tools to check client feedback, interactions, and purchase insights. These tools also include license and VIN scanning to help automotive companies keep track of all the cars in their facility. These tools also feature enterprise management to help manage and leverage inventory across different branches.

There are many options for automotive CRM, such as VinSolutions Connect CRM, AutoRaptor, and Selly Automotive. Elead CRM is also a great industry-specific option that excels in customer service management for those in the automotive industry.

Contractors

Construction CRMs include extra tools required by this industry. These features help to streamline and even automate certain processes. Some of the functions included are tools to manage contract leads, bids, and various projects. Additionally, they often cover general contracting and specialty trades such as carpentry, demolition, electric work, restoration, and more. 

When considering construction CRM, you need to look for a tool that includes estimating and budgeting tools and construction scheduling tools, among the usual customer relationship management features. Also, having access to marketing tools will help construction companies improve the intake process for quality leads.

There are a few different industry-specific CRMs that are a great option in the construction field. These options include Jobber and Acculynx, amongst their ranks. JobNimbus is also a great option for construction companies looking for an industry-specific CRM. JobNimbus offers some industry-specific solutions, such as templates for estimates and proposal-building tools. There are also handy job site picture-sharing features.

Healthcare

A healthcare CRM is developed with the goal of helping medical facilities streamline their billing and scheduling processes. At the same time, these tools try to improve patient outreach while organizing sensitive medical data in compliance with HIPAA regulations. Using a healthcare CRM is essential to help practices and networks stay connected to their patients while attracting new ones.

Some of the essential industry-specific features required by a healthcare CRM include HIPAA compliance, patient outreach, scheduling, billing and payments, and physician management tools. Additionally, you want to ensure that there are data and privacy security features in place, such as encryption and biometric logins, to protect patients’ information.

There are many tools available that are HIPAA compliant, including a few of the more general CRMs like Freshsales and Zoho CRM. But, if you’re looking for an industry-specific CRM for healthcare, tools like NexHealth and SimplePractice are great options.

Consulting

Consulting businesses depend on their relationships with their clients. Without a strong, loyal relationship, any consultancy firm will start to lose customers. But, many general CRMs with a focus on a traditional sales process might not be the ideal fit for a consulting agency due to the nuanced way the industry works.

As such, your consulting CRM must include features that allow you to see your pipeline at a glance while also including some forecasting features to keep you on track. Additionally, as a consultant, you’ll enjoy a CRM with automatic reminders and scheduling tools that track your conversations with clients.

There are a few industry-specific CRMs that are ideal for consulting companies. Capsule and Keap are great options for larger consulting firms to consider. Yet, if you’re just starting your consulting business or plan to run it solo, then Bonsai could be the perfect fit. 

Retail

Retail CRMs are designed to support businesses with a customer-facing B2C sales approach. These can be online businesses or traditional brick-and-mortar stores. By using an industry-specific CRM, these businesses can reduce costs and satisfy customers while generating more sales.

Industry-specific CRMs for retail stores often include features like a point-of-sale (POS) system and inventory management. They also include analytics to analyze customers’ shopping patterns and purchase history. More features to look for when choosing a retail CRM are cash management that involves tracking register errors, ways to monitor customer relationships, and marketing tools.

When it comes to retail CRMs, there are quite a few options, with many general CRMs having their own version specifically for the industry. This includes Zoho CRM for Retail and Salesforce Retail. Square POS is also a great option with fair pricing and robust features that cater to the retail sector.

E-Commerce

E-commerce CRM software helps online retailers track customer behavior. Beyond this it also helps organize buyer data, and manage digital marketing activities. An e-commerce CRM is different from a retail one because it’s developed with these digital platforms in mind. For example, many of these include features that can be integrated into your e-commerce platform. Also, many of the reports and KPIs are relevant to e-commerce.

Other features that are particularly useful when it comes to e-commerce CRMs are marketing tools, activity tracking, multiple language support, social media integration, and cart recovery. When e-commerce businesses have these functions, they gain more insights into buyer trends so that they can understand their clients and their motivation to buy.

When it comes to e-commerce CRMs, there are a few great options to consider. Shopify is an all-in-one e-commerce platform and CRM combined, whereas Metrilo is a great industry-specific CRM with good marketing analytics. We recommend ActiveCampaign for its ease of use, affordability, and intricate features.

Pros and Cons of Choosing an Industry-Specific CRM Solution

Industry-specific CRMs are designed with a particular goal in mind. These tools aim to address specific business needs within a certain industry. There are many situations where a CRM for a specific industry is a great option. However, there are also times when it shouldn’t be your default choice. Let’s consider some of the pros and cons of using industry-specific CRMs.

Pros

• Highly specialized features
• Addresses specific requirements for highly regulated industries
• Increases security and compliance for highly regulated industries
• Improved workflows for specific industries
• Access to industry-relevant insights and metrics

Cons

• It can be too specific if you only need basic CRM features
• Can be expensive

To Sum It Up

Using an industry-specific CRM can have many benefits for businesses that need a specialized set of features. Healthcare businesses must remain HIPAA compliant and can enjoy a CRM that’s already compliant with these regulations. Additionally, e-commerce businesses can enjoy integrations directly into the platform that allows them to analyze all their sales data from a central point. To see which CRM is ideal for your industry, use our filter and narrow down your search for the perfect tool for your business.