“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort” said John Ruskin, and there it goes, nobody sells a quality product for free. There is always a price that you need t pay to get qualified product or service. In the same way a free CRM Software will never provide you with the best service.
Drawbacks of a free CRM Small Business Software are:
Missing Features: This is one of the obvious compromises that you must make. You would end up not finding at least the one main feature you definitely need for your business. you might say it is just one, but then the quality has already been reduced here. You need that feature to have a tight bonding with your customers and you do not have it!!
Security of the data: Yes. It is a free tool. The provider does not really care about the security of your data. There is no one to blame for data theft or corruption that might happen during business operations. You will just have to lose it. Losing the data apparently deteriorates the quality of the service you provide to your customer. This might be a bigger threat to your business as well because this can result in losing loyal customers.
Ease of usage: Most of the free CRM solutions available online have a complex design. The design being complex it makes it difficult for the employees to understand the software easily. It would not be very handy for the employees.
Limited usage: Most of the software that is free is a trial version. You would always find a much-advanced version with many added features for a paid version of the software. This a sign that the free version delivers a much lesser quality.
The outdated module features: It is reported by many reviewers who used the free CRM systems that the templates that these platforms provide are out of style. They are less attractive and as it is available free online that does not give any unique appeal to their customers.
Other issues with free software for small business
Period of access: the free versions of many software available online are for a limited period. You will have to purchase an advanced version after the completion of the trial period. Hence, it can be understood that a good crm application is available for free only for a short duration.
Many users: As it is a free open source software, there might be many users using it simultaneously and nobody managing the software. This might cause lag in the processes.
Less flexible: A free CRM Software like HubSpot would not allow users to include multiple contact details like two mail ids to a single contact or merge two companies in the crm system database. This is just one such example, there would be many such flexibility issues with the free crm systems. These glitches are a part of the quality drawbacks of free CRM solutions.
CRM Integration: This is one of the most important drawbacks of a free CRM program. It would be difficult to integrate this software into your business as there will be no room for customization. A general CRM must always be customized up to a certain level to make it work for your business. Unfortunately, free CRM will never allow you to do that.
Set up: A free CRM always needs not be compatible with the devices that you have implemented in your firm. There would be absolutely no way to run the software without incurring any setup costs. There you go, it’s not completely free!! Is that the only cost? Just go back to the previous points in the section. The list gives you all the reasons to say a big NO! for free CRM software.
In a nutshell, this is what the reviewers of these free CRM solutions have to say. The employees need technical expertise to work with most of the free CRM platforms, less flexibility, limited features, lack of room for customization, security threat, and integration as the major reasons why Free CRM Software always fails to deliver the best quality.