In the world of RevOps, certain topics have always been off-limits for discussion: religion, politics, and the mack daddy… which CRM reigns supreme– Salesforce or HubSpot. Strong opinions and deep loyalties are prevalent, with some swearing by Salesforce while others champion HubSpot CRM.
For years, Salesforce has established itself as the CRM powerhouse of the market. It offers a wide range of robust features, scalability, and integration capabilities that have made it the go-to choice for many organizations. Salesforce’s extensive customization options, advanced analytics, and strong customer support have been instrumental in its dominance.
However, HubSpot has been gaining increased attention from companies. Initially known as a CRM for smaller organizations, HubSpot has expanded its functionalities and is now making significant strides in the market. With its user-friendly interface, comprehensive marketing automation tools, and seamless integration with other HubSpot products, it has become a viable alternative for businesses of all sizes.
As companies weigh their options, many RevOps professionals find themselves divided into team orange or team blue. We’re diving into the pros and cons of each platform, enabling you to choose the best CRM solutions for your organization’s specific needs.
Why a CRM is Essential for Ops Teams
A CRM system plays a pivotal role across several areas, encompassing customer relationship management, sales and marketing, operations and workflow management, data analysis and reporting, and overall business growth.
1. Business operations
A CRM centralizes customer data, streamlines processes, and improves collaboration, leading to increased operational efficiency.
2. Customer service
Organized customer interactions and preferences allows for personalized and prompt responses, leading to higher satisfaction and overall loyalty.
3. Sales tracking
A CRM helps manage leads, track opportunities, and analyze sales data,enabling better forecasting and decision making.
4. Overall business growth
Ultimately, a CRM leads to an expanded customer base and increased profitability by nurturing customer relationships, driving targeted marketing campaigns, identifying trends, and helping seize new market opportunities.
Choosing the right CRM system has a profound impact on operational efficiency across an organization. By centralizing customer data, automating processes, and facilitating seamless communication, a well-suited CRM enhances productivity and reduces manual errors.
With task and project management features, teams can communicate more effectively and complete tasks more efficiently. Real-time reporting and analytics capabilities enable data-driven decision making and process optimization.
Overall, selecting the right CRM empowers businesses to streamline operations, allocate resources efficiently, and achieve higher levels of operational efficiency, ultimately leading to improved performance and business success.
CRM Overview: Salesforce & Hubspot
The first step of making the decision is to delve into the heavyweight rivalry between HubSpot and Salesforce. Let’s take an in depth look at history, structure, pricing plans, and conduct a side-by-side comparison of their key tools and modules.
What is Salesforce CRM?
Salesforce is one of the oldest and biggest names in CRM solutions. It all began in 1999, when an experienced Oracle executive had an innovative idea to revolutionize the way teams manage their contacts and sales opportunities. This resulted in the birth of Salesforce, originally created as a sales tool suite. It quickly grew to encompass other essential business functions such as marketing, customer support, and a variety of other business SaaS products. Today, Salesforce offers industry-specific suites of features to meet specialized needs.
Salesforce stands out as a leading CRM software option, providing a robust suite of SaaS tools to help businesses succeed. Beyond just contact management, this platform supports everything from marketing to sales to customer service. For sales teams, it offers extensive assistance through the entire sales processes, making it a top choice for businesses of any size, though especially ideal for large organizations. With an array of functionalities and automations, Salesforce delivers versatile sales software that caters to your business needs in a user-friendly manner.
Salesforce’s core offerings include:
- Sales Cloud
- Service Cloud
- Marketing Cloud
- Experience Cloud
- Salesforce CPQ
- Salesforce Shield
What is Hubspot CRM?
HubSpot was founded in 2006 with a mission to transform the way businesses approach marketing. They introduced the concept of inbound marketing, focusing on attracting and nurturing leads through valuable content and personalized experiences. Initially, HubsPot offered a suite of inbound marketing tools, including content management, lead generation, and analytics. Over time, the platform expanded to include additional functionalities such as sales automation, customer service, and CRM, evolving into a comprehensive growth platform.
HubSpots’s core offerings include:
- Marketing Hub
- Sales Hub
- Service Hub
- CMS Hub
HubSpot has continually expanded its platform through acquisitions and partnerships, integrating with various third-party applications. The company went public in 2014 and has since become a prominent player in the marketing and sales software market.
Pros & Cons: Salesforce vs Hubspot CRM
If you’re running a business, you’ll need to choose a top-notch CRM solution – regardless of its size. Let’s explore the pros and cons of two of the biggest players in the game:
Salesforce Pros
1. Wide range of features & functionality
The wide range of features creates a highly customizable environment, allowing businesses to tailor the features to their specific needs and workflows. Main features of Salesforce include:
- Marketing automation
- Email marketing
- Audience discovery
- Contact management
- Opportunity management
- Workflows
- Customer support
- Self service
- Einstein AI
- Analytics and reporting
- Mobile app
- Integrations
2. Scalable & deeply customizable
Salesforce is known for scalability, enabling businesses to expand their operations, accommodate growing user bases, handle increasing data volumes, and adapt to evolving business needs with ease.
3. Extensive customization options
Salesforce offers endless customization for the most complex organizations, allowing teams to take forecasting and reporting capabilities to the next level. Salesforce continually enhances and expands its feature set through regular updates and acquisitions.
Salesforce Cons
1. Complexity
Salesforce is without a doubt more complex than HubSpot. Especially for those who have not used CRM platforms before, the learning curve may seem difficult. However, this doesn’t mean the platform isn’t user friendly, but rather it requires a bit of effort to get started.
2. Cost
Salesforce charges for each user, and it’s necessary to purchase additional add-ons to access essential features. See a detailed description of cost differences between the two platforms here.
3. Potential overkill for small businesses
When it comes to features, the award for sheer volume goes to Salesforce. However, for smaller organizations the number of features may be unnecessary and overwhelming.
4. The overhead required to maintain
Due to advanced features, extra support is required from a Salesforce admin and additional developer resources and time.
HubSpot Pros
1. Simplicity & ease of use
HubSpot doesn’t necessarily require a dedicated admin to maintain it since it’s incredibly user-friendly. A high level Ops team member or marketer could certainly manage it. G2 crowd users ranked HubSpot above Salesforce in ease of setup and admin.
2. One stop shop
HubSpot serves as a one stop shop for GTM teams by combining sales tools, marketing tools and a CRM in one, giving the user more bang for their buck and allowing GTM professionals to do their jobs more effectively.
3. Affordability
In general, Hubspot tends to be more affordable than Salesforce, especially for small to medium-sized businesses, and pricing can scale as you grow.
HubSpot Cons
1. Customization limitations
Overall, Salesforce is a more advanced and customizable platform in comparison.
2. Potential scalability issues
It’s important to evaluate your business’s scalability requirements and consider these potential issues when assessing HubSpot as a long-term solution.
Conclusion: Is Hubspot or Salesforce Right for You?
When selecting the right CRM, it is crucial to consider factors such as the size of the organization, specific needs, and budget. CRMs such as HubSpot and Salesforce cater to various business sizes and industries, offering features and pricing plans that align with specific requirements.
Larger organizations may require robust customization, scalability, and advanced analytics capabilities, while smaller businesses may prioritize simplicity and cost effectiveness. Assessing the specific needs, workflows, and integration requirements of the organization is essential to ensure the CRM aligns with existing systems and processes to ultimately maximize the CRM’s effectiveness in driving growth and efficiency.
For businesses relying on Salesforce as their CRM, Sonar provides a Salesforce blueprint to simplify the complexity of your org, automate system documentation, and avoid potential breaks. And for those coupling Salesforce with Hubspot for Marketing Automation, Sonar now offers an integration blueprint, showcasing the bi-directional sync of data between systems while providing visibility and insight into the accuracy and security of your customer data – no matter which team you’re on.