Sage CRM review 2019

Is it time you started using CRM software? Find out how Sage can benefit your business

What is Sage?

Sage is the UK’s second-largest technology company. It provides software solutions for businesses of all sizes, including accounting, payroll, HR, and (of course) Customer Relationship Management (CRM). And as you’ve probably already guessed, today we’re focusing solely on its CRM software.

So what exactly does Sage CRM do, and how can it benefit your business? Let’s take a look at what you can expect from a Sage CRM system.

Sage CRM offers simple, colourful, stylish breakdowns of your business’ performance, in colour and style

Sage CRM features and benefits

✔ Automate the day-to-day stuff

Let’s face it – even in the most efficient sales teams, there are still plenty of boring admin tasks hogging your time and energy. A great feature of Sage CRM, then, is that it streamlines your workload – automating the daily drudgery, and freeing you up to grow your business.

With intuitive order processing, lead management, and sales forecasting features, Sage CRM handles a big portion of the day-to-day tasks that weigh your team down. Sage CRM also acts as a diary, scheduling your sales calls and meetings for you. This means you’ll spend less time juggling afternoon appointments, and more time enjoying your lunch!

✔ Create targeted marketing campaigns

Sage CRM integrates with MailChimp to allow you to put together good-looking, effective emails. Take advantage of Mailchimp’s drag-and-drop builder, as well as a range of proven email templates, to create messages that drive home your brand’s voice and values. Then, use Sage CRM to send those emails (in bulk) to your existing contact database.

Having such a detailed list of contacts also means that you can target specific demographics through your email marketing. This provides a tailored, personalised approach to your campaigns, and increases the likelihood of your customers opening and engaging with your emails.

✔ Better reporting and analytics

Sage CRM also lets you leverage key insights from your sales and marketing efforts. You can track the success of your latest email campaigns, and generate cutting-edge reports about the health of your business.

Sage CRM also allows you to pull and present data around customer service, leads, sales, marketing, and more. Produce customisable reports to show how your team is performing against its KPIs, and make smarter decisions to grow your business.

Sage pricing

Unlike most CRM software suppliers, Sage doesn’t publish prices on its website. And when you’re trying to find the CRM that best suits the needs and budget of your business, that’s frustrating.

To get an accurate quote for your SME, you’ll need to contact Sage directly. Alternatively, take a minute to try out our quick, quote-finding webform.

We’ll ask you a couple of questions about your business, and match your requirements with top CRM suppliers. You’ll then get free quotes from CRM system providers, and can start comparing them to get the best deal.

Sage editions

Sage’s most basic plan is perfect for small businesses who are still getting to grips with CRM. It comes with plenty of features, too, including:

Essentials

Sage’s most basic plan is perfect for small businesses still getting to grips with CRM. And it comes with plenty of features, too. Here are some of the most important:

• Full contact and calendar management
• Social media integration (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn)
• Sales management dashboards
• MailChimp email marketing
• Basic customisation capabilities
• 2GB cloud storage
• 10,000 daily mass email send limit

Professional

The next step up on the pricing scale is Sage CRM Professional, which is well-suited to both small and medium-sized businesses. As well as everything in the Essentials edition, you’ll get:

• Sage CRM for iPhone and Android
• Campaign and outbound call management
• Case and territory management
• Advanced security settings
• Customisable CRM builder
• Workflow management
• 5GB of cloud storage

On-Premise

If you’re looking for a more extensive solution for your business, Sage’s on-premise offering is for you. Unlike the other plans, it’s installed directly onto your office’s computers, rather than being hosted ‘in the cloud’.

Sage’s on-premise plan comes with bespoke pricing, and is fully customisable, too. This edition also integrates seamlessly with Sage’s ERP software, providing you with a more holistic approach to running your business.

Expert verdict

Sage is a huge name when it comes to business technology – one of the biggest in the world, in fact. It produces software that’ll help take care of your accounts, your HR, and your payroll. So if you already use Sage to handle the other tricky parts and processes at your business, then it makes sense to use its CRM, too.

But we’ll be honest – if you’re looking for a standalone CRM, there are better options out there than Sage. For instance, Salesforce offers the hottest sales analytics on the market, while Freshsales delivers a free, feature-rich plan for those new to the CRM rodeo.

Don’t get us wrong – Sage CRM is still packed with all the features you’d want in a CRM system. But its lack of transparency when it comes to pricing lets it down, as does its more limited set of integrations.