HubSpot CRM Overview

HubSpot CRM is a centralized hub for managing all customer interactions and tracking customer activity across all platforms. The powerful and intuitive system supports cloud integration, helps you automate advertising campaigns, and manage sales.

In this HubSpot CRM review, we’ll look at the pros and cons of the platform, key features, and pricing for use so you can determine if it’s right for your business objectives. After all, choosing the right CRM system is an important step on the road to company success.

What is Hubspot CRM?

HubSpot CRM is an all-in-one solution for driving sales and communicating with your company’s customers with a user-friendly interface. The platform provides automation, helps track target audience activity and increase sales.

HubSpot is a single interface where all team members can work. Any changes made by one member are instantly displayed to everyone, allowing you to focus on improving departmental efficiency rather than manually managing data.

Who is HubSpot’s CRM system suitable for?

HubSpot CRM system is actively used by:

1. Startups and small businesses. Due to the availability of a free version of the service and the ability to customize it, this CRM system is widely demanded by small businesses and startups.
2. B2C companies. HubSpot will automate and optimize processes for a customer-facing enterprise in any business area, no matter what stage of the sales funnel you’re at.
3. Online Services. When interacting with a large number of users on a daily basis, HubSpot is indispensable. It will help you segment your audience and run personalized marketing campaigns.
4. IT companies. Such businesses usually strive for digital transformation and automation of all business processes. CRM allows IT companies to manage customer relationships at all stages of interaction – from lead attraction to implementation and support.
5. FinTech companies. In this field, it is important to maintain complex and long-term relationships with clients, and HubSpot helps accomplish this task with its API and integration capabilities with all popular marketing services.

Who will miss HubSpot’s capabilities?

While HubSpot CRM’s capabilities are extensive, the system may not be sufficient for:

• Specific industries. If your industry requires deep customization of your CRM system, HubSpot’s basic features may not be enough. For example, the problem may be relevant for companies in healthcare, manufacturing, and some B2B industries. In such cases, it is better to choose industry-specific solutions that are specifically designed to solve problems of narrow specificity.
• Large corporations. Large companies with extensive structures and complex internal processes may find it difficult to customize HubSpot to meet their needs. For them, more sophisticated ERP-level enterprise systems are preferable.
• Strict data security requirements. Although the service protects sensitive information, this may not be enough for government or banking institutions.

Benefits of HubSpot’s CRM system

1. Free plan. You’ll be able to add an unlimited number of users to your HubSpot CRM system, whether they’re sales managers, marketers, or executives. Everyone will have access to the features and reports they need. This is especially convenient for small companies and startups that need to save money when launching their business.
2. Simplicity and ease of use. Agree, no one wants to spend a lot of time on mastering a complex interface. Especially sales managers who don’t like to mess around with CRM. As a result, some data can simply get lost. At the same time, HubSpot pleasantly surprises with intuitive navigation, compared to popular analogs. Even a beginner will be able to quickly understand everything without lengthy training.
3. All information about customers in one place. The manager sees in the client card the entire history of interaction – from the first contact to the last purchase. Letters, calls, meetings, orders – everything is collected and structured. Having a complete dossier at hand, you can build personalized communication with each client and increase their loyalty, which positively affects sales and conversion.
4. Routine automation. The HubSpot platform is a great help in automating daily tasks. For example, when you add a new contact, the system itself will pull up the missing data from its huge database, which includes more than 20 million companies. All you have to do is enter the customer’s corporate e-mail address. HubSpot can also help you fill your website and blog with content, write cool sales letters, set up chatbots, and even create ads using artificial intelligence.
5. Integration with your favorite services. Want to friend HubSpot with Google, Facebook or LinkedIn ads? Easy!!! The system integrates with over 1000 applications – from Canva for design creation and editing to Salesforce and Slack for communications. All your tools will work as a single fine-tuned mechanism, and data will be automatically synchronized between services.
6. Opportunities to grow together with your business. Free functionality will be enough at the start. But when your company grows and your tasks become bigger, you can easily switch to one of the paid tariffs. There is a wide choice – from solutions for startups to individual developments for large businesses. The prices, of course, bite, but the possibilities are almost limitless.
7. Own knowledge base. HubSpot does not leave its users to their own devices. On the service’s website, you can find detailed guides and video tutorials on how to work with the system, as well as answers to common questions.

Overview of Hubspot platform shortcomings

Of course, a full-fledged review of HubSpot CRM can not do without taking into account the shortcomings of the system, among them:

• Lack of support for Ukrainian and Russian languages. HubSpot’s interface and documentation are translated into several languages, including English, German, Spanish, French, English, Japanese, Portuguese and Finnish. However, Ukrainian and Russian are not included in this list. This may create difficulties for employees who do not speak foreign languages, as they will have to constantly use an online translator or seek help from more experienced colleagues.
• Not localized for Ukraine. HubSpot does not provide ready-made integrations with services and platforms popular in Ukraine. For example, the list of supported messengers does not include Telegram and Viber. There is also no integration with Ukrainian payment systems (Monobank, Privatbank), marketplaces (Rozetka, Prom, OLX, Allo), delivery services (Novaya Pochta, Ukrposhta) and cash registers certified by the Tax Service of Ukraine. This means that for the automation of many processes you will have to either use third-party solutions or finalize the system by programmers.
• Limitations of functionality in the free version. For example, users on the free tariff can customize only 3 dashboards with 10 reports for each, use up to 5 email templates with the system logo, send no more than 2000 emails per month. Also, the history of users’ actions is stored for only 7 days. If these features are not enough, you will have to switch to a paid subscription model. And the prices are quite high – up to $3600 per month for a corporate plan.
• Weak technical support in the basic tariff. Users of the free version can only rely on independent search for problem solutions through the knowledge base and community forums. There is no technical support by phone, chat or e-mail. In case of serious difficulties, you will have to ask for help from third-party specialists or programmers, whose services are not cheap (from $50 per hour of work).
• Difficulty of initial setup. While HubSpot’s interface is simple and intuitive, the initial implementation and configuration process can be quite labor-intensive, especially if customized customizations are needed to fit your business. This step may require hiring an experienced professional or enlisting the services of a HubSpot Certified Partner.

What features does HubSpot CRM provide?

Let’s take a look at the key features of the HubSpot platform that are most requested by most users.

Tracking visitor activity

The activity of the company’s current and potential customers can be monitored at all stages of interaction with the brand:

• Actions on the website. You can track pages viewed, materials downloaded, forms filled out, and any other forms of customer interaction with the website.
• Traffic sources. The built-in analytics system can determine where a visitor came from – social networks, search engines, media campaigns or other sources. This helps you determine the most effective channels for attracting customers.
• Email. You can analyze the percentage of opened emails, views and clicks on links from your email newsletter.

Online chat

HubSpot allows you to set up an online chat room on your website to instantly answer customer questions right on the site. At the same time, you can chat in the user-friendly interface of your CRM system.

All chats are automatically synchronized with HubSpot, allowing you to save the history of communication with each client and personalize interaction:

In addition, you can use chatbots to automatically answer frequent questions, provide useful information, or forward visitors directly to operators from the right department. This frees up team time for more important issues.

Built-in analytics also collect data on the number of chats, agent response times, customer satisfaction levels and other key metrics for later analysis by company management.

Email integration

You can synchronize your Gmail or Outlook inbox with your CRM. In this case, all incoming and outgoing messages will be automatically pulled into HubSpot to store the full history of communication with each client in one place.

The system also has its own library of email templates that can be used to customize mailings. This allows you to personalize emails for each specific recipient, using data about them stored in the CRM.

The platform also allows you to automate email sending by setting triggers based on specific customer actions. In this way, you can significantly influence conversion rates by increasing user engagement and sending them the right messages at the right time.

Calendar Synchronization

The HubSpot platform supports integration with Google Calendar as well as Office 365 and Outlook calendars. So you don’t have to open your calendar separately to see upcoming appointments and events. All information is collected in one convenient place.

You can also set up automatic appointment scheduling, then the system will display free dates from the calendar. In this case, clients or colleagues will be able to choose a time convenient for them, and it will immediately appear in your calendar.

CRM also allows you to automatically send reminders about upcoming events to all participants, add tasks and deadlines to your schedule and generate reports about the time spent on work based on information from the calendar.

Calltracking

If you have IP telephony connected, HubSpot allows you to record and save calls so you can go back to the conversations later to analyze or train new staff. A built-in analytics system collects statistics on the number of calls, call duration, and other key metrics.

Using this data, you can improve the quality of customer service, as well as optimize call scripts and improve team training.

Without call tracking, the analysis of conversions of a particular advertising source will be incomplete, so to optimize the marketing budget, it is important to be sure to monitor all customer touch points with the brand.

Sales Tracking

HubSpot CRM allows you to visualize your sales funnel, displaying all stages and the number of deals at each stage. The system allows you to add deals, set their status, assign responsible managers, and more.

Built-in automation tools can help you automatically move deals through funnel stages, send task reminders, and monitor compliance with company scripts.

The platform can also build forecasts for future sales based on current orders and historical information. In the analytics dashboard, you can build in-depth analysis on the total number of orders, amount earned, conversion percentage, etc.

Integration with social networks

Using HubSpot features you can both publish posts to social networks directly from CRM and plan future publications. Thus, you can synchronize the schedule of new content release on different platforms.

You can also use built-in tools to monitor subscriber activity – track brand mentions, comments and reviews, which allows you to quickly respond to feedback from your audience.

All data on social media activity is fed into a common analytics system, where you can track which platform is generating leads and targeted actions, as well as identify the most effective channels and content.

Cost of using the Hubspot platform

HubSpot CRM has several pricing plans, depending on the service package you choose:

1. Free. Here are the basic functions for communicating with customers – contact data collection, sales tracking and email integration. It is completely free to use.
2. Starter. Such useful features as online chat, as well as monitoring of visitors’ activity on the site are added. The cost of the package starts at $113 per month.
3. Professional. Automation, tools for SEO site promotion, as well as analytics and reporting are already added here. The subscription price starts at $1200/month.
4. Enterprise. This is the most advanced plan, which includes all the features of the previous tariffs. It is suitable for large enterprises with large marketing budgets and costs from $3600/month. It also offers sales forecasting, connection of more complex analytical systems and much more.