10 Best Manufacturing CRM for 2024

Customer relationship management can be quite complex for manufacturing companies to excel at for several reasons. The mix of B2C and B2B operations, long sales cycles, high-value orders, and the importance of relationships with distributors can be hard to navigate without a proper manufacturing CRM solution.

Fortunately, modern manufacturing CRMs can help companies easily address those challenges if chosen and implemented in a way that matches the specific needs of your business.

This article outlines key functionality and benefits of CRM for manufacturing companies and gives you a list of 10 CRM solutions to choose from.

Why Manufacturing Needs CRM?

CRM stands for customer relationship management and refers to software that helps organize and process customer data, documents such as quotas or contracts, and business processes.

CRM software is typically used by customer-facing teams, such as sales, marketing, and customer service. However, in addition to customer-facing activities, manufacturing CRMs are often used to automate other business processes, such as supply chain management and procurement management.

The definition of “a customer” in manufacturing can be a bit complex. Most manufacturers sell their products through various channels with the help of distributors and retailers. That means that along with the final customer, manufacturers need to understand their retailer partners and build strong relationships with both. Such a mix of B2C and B2B business models requires strong data consolidation, as well as flexible automation workflows to account for multiple types of sales and other activities.

Therefore, the key benefit of a manufacturing CRM is to serve as a single source of data that brings together sales, marketing, customer service, distribution, partner management, and other activities. CRM empowers manufacturers to efficiently manage their business without getting lost in duplicate processes and data streams, making all customer-facing activities more efficient and employees more productive.

In such a way, CRM allows manufacturers to build more streamlined customer experience while improving operations.

Top Benefits of Manufacturing CRM

Let's dive deeper into the benefits of a manufacturing CRM and see how exactly it improves customer relationships and production planning.

Increased sales

A CRM system centralizes all your sales activities. This enables your sales team to efficiently manage omnichannel communications with prospects within a unified system and avoid drowning in multiple screens.

Also, centralized data management ensures that sales reps can have a complete view of the customer and use it to foster stronger relationships and trust. They can respond quicker and adapt their strategy to the lead's needs. In addition to that, marketing automation features provided by a CRM allow you to set up automated yet still personalized campaigns that bring more leads to your pipeline.

These elements significantly enhance the likelihood of successfully closing deals with new clients as well as find more cross-sell and upsell opportunities with existing customers.

Ultimately, an organized sales team and a well-managed sales pipeline result in improved performance and increased deal closures.

Improved customer engagement

One source of truth for customer information allows you to build personalized communication, building stronger relationships. A CRM can ensure that you don't lose sight of the existing customers and leverage previous relationships to generate new sales through automated retention campaigns.

CRM facilitates prompt responses to customer inquiries from your customer service teams by showcasing all the necessary information and contacts in one place and automatically sorting and prioritizing customer requests.

Strong customer support and personalized, well-nurtured relationships encourage higher levels of customer satisfaction and increased loyalty.

Improved productivity and collaboration

CRM systems connect various front-office departments and facilitate the exchange of customer information between them. For example, customer service agents can see what communication channels a customer preferred during the sales process and use them when solving a service request.

Centralizing data from different departments and facilitating its exchange streamlines collaboration between different departments and makes your teams more productive.

In addition to that, CRM software offers task management features, allowing managers to organize the work of their teams and track employees’ performance.

CRM automation also drastically cuts down time spent on routine operations such as follow-ups and approvals and allows teams to dedicate more time to high-impact activities.

More precise demand forecasting and production planning

A CRM helps your sales team forecast revenue growth based on their existing pipeline of potential deals and historical sales data. Sales forecasts help you plan, schedule, and allocate resources earlier rather than waiting for customer orders to be placed.

CRM gathers all the customer information and audience analysis insights in one place and processes this data to make precise predictions about customer demand. This helps you plan production accordingly, avoiding overproducing or delivery delays.

Supply chain visibility

CRM supports supply chain management by giving you an overview of real-time data from operations, inventory management, order processing, warehousing, and distribution chains.

With increased visibility into these processes, businesses can effectively manage production schedules, optimize inventory levels, and gain advantages in purchasing and procuring materials.

Informed decision-making

A CRM system empowers managers with actionable insights and data-driven intelligence to drive strategic decision-making and optimize business processes. The ability to see critical business metrics in one dashboard allows executives to quickly identify opportunities for growth and zones of risk and act on these discoveries.

Essential Manufacturing CRM Features to Consider

There's a standard set of features provided by CRM vendors that support sales, marketing, and service teams. This list aims to highlight common as well as manufacturing-specific functionalities necessary for manufacturers to get the best utility out of a CRM platform.

Lead and pipeline management

A CRM needs to give your sales team complete control over the pipeline and automate the process of tracking, scoring, and assigning leads to sales representatives. This allows you to greatly increase your conversion rate and identify weak spots in your sales strategy.

Sales forecasting

This feature allows CRM users to create sales forecasts based on their current pipeline and historical sales data. The best CRMs will give you the ability to tweak forecasting models and algorithms and select which parameters to consider and which data sets to rely on.

Campaign management

A good CRM system needs to offer campaign management tools that enable you to build, automate, and analyze personalized marketing campaigns.

Customer service management

Features such as a holistic 360-degree view of the customer, contact center, and task management are typically included in Service CRM applications to assist customer support teams. Make sure the CRM of your choice offers omnichannel customer communication, including phone calls, emails, and social media chats.

Order processing

As a manufacturer, you can greatly benefit from automating order placement and validation through a CRM, saving you time on the manual processing of these requests. Some companies may choose a separate tool to manage orders but incorporating it in your CRM is more convenient and allows you to quickly connect customer service reps if there are issues with an order.

Supply chain management

This feature allows you to track all production input, automate shipment scheduling, and minimize production downtime via automated delivery processes. You can set up product data synchronization between multiple divisions and receive supply and shipment updates in real-time. This feature is specifically made for manufacturers; thus, it might not be available in a general CRM. Make sure to ask the vendor if they provide supply management tools.

Customization

An effective CRM system should provide customization options enabling manufacturers to construct workflows tailored to their specific needs and preferences. This flexibility empowers you to scale the platform as your team and business expand, ensuring that you won't need to transfer all your data and configurations to a different system when your company grows.

Integration

The ability to connect to other platforms is one of the most crucial features of manufacturing CRM. You need to prioritize a solution that seamlessly integrates with your existing manufacturing software stack, for example, with accounting and logistics software, email services, etc.

Analytics and reporting

Many CRM benefits come from its powerful data analysis. A comprehensive CRM system should offer customizable dashboards and robust reporting features that accommodate multiple sources of data inputs.

Partner relationship management (PRM)

PRM features help you streamline communication with your partners, i.e. retailers and distributors, and enable you to collaborate on marketing campaigns, track your partner's sales, manage returning orders, etc.

These capabilities provide insights into key performance indicators, aiding in predicting future sales and making better-informed business decisions.

10 Best Manufacturing CRM Software Solutions

Based on research and customer reviews, we picked out 10 CRM solutions that fit the manufacturing industry and offer the features listed above.

Some of these platforms are specifically aimed at manufacturers, while other vendors target a wider market but offer manufacturing customizations to accompany their main CRM product.

Creatio

Creatio offers a no-code platform based on composable no-code architecture that enables you to automate workflows and CRM with the ultimate freedom. Its unique advantage is the combination of powerful CRM and business process management (BPM) capabilities, and the ability to build custom apps and features without the need for coding skills. Any knowledge worker can build their own automation solution with drag-and-drop features.

CRM Creatio includes three products for sales, marketing and service. The Sales product offers pipeline management features, providing complete control over your sales. You get a 360-degree view of each customer with access to their full information, engagement status, and history of interactions. AI-powered sales forecasting ensures the precision of your predictions. 

The Marketing product allows you to build all-round customer knowledge, create target segments in a matter of seconds, manage complex marketing campaigns across multiple channels, boost lead generation, and increase conversion rates.

The Service product gives you a holistic customer view, unifies all communication means in a single environment, accelerates and unifies the processing of complex issues and cases, and allows you to build enterprise-grade automated service workflows.

In addition, Creatio offers a set of manufacturing-specific features that include (but not limited to) order processing, product lifecycle management, procurement lifecycle management, supply chain planning and tracking, and more. Additionally, Creatio's Marketplace offers a plethora of ready-made applications that you can leverage to optimize processes related to production, distribution and logistics, inventory management, and others. Moreover, you can create custom automated processes and apps with no-code tools – and you don't need professional IT developers to do it.

Creatio incorporates AI and machine learning tools across all its products, utilizing them for scoring, prioritization, data analysis, and recommendations.

Creatio is a perfect choice for manufacturers looking for a powerful CRM that will adapt to their business needs.

Pros:

• A unified no-code platform to automate CRM and manufacturing workflows
• Limitless customization powered by no-code, user-friendly UI
• A suite of turn-key manufacturing-specific capabilities
• Powerful analytics and reporting
• Transparent pricing

Cons:

• Deployment may take time
• Requires practical employee training

Pricing

Creatio offers a composable pricing model which means you can choose which functionality to purchase. The base no-code Creatio platform costs $25 per user/per month. Free trial is available. 

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FreeAgent

FreeAgent CRM is a cloud-based CRM solution tailored to small businesses. FreeAgent's manufacturing CRM provides pipeline management, lead tracking, and reporting capabilities. The pre-built integrations cover essential connectors such as Quickbooks and Outlook with the ability to build additional connectors with Zapier's no-code tools.

Its user-friendly interface makes it an ideal choice for manufacturing companies seeking a straightforward CRM solution.

Pros:

• Flexible and customizable
• Quick and responsive customer support
• Easy to use

Cons:

• Reporting capabilities are not as advanced as other CRMs
• No mobile app for remote work

Pricing

The “Starter“ plan goes for $18 per user/month “Team“ for $28 per user/month, and “Pro“ for $60 per user/month.

HubSpot CRM

HubSpot is renowned as a marketing automation platform with an impressive suite of tools for inbound lead-generation. It also offers an all-encompassing CRM solution. It helps you manage relationships with distributors and retailers, segment your leads, and create personalized marketing content powered by AI.

While HubSpot's integrations library is modest compared to other tools, it offers the core manufacturing integrations you might need. Its automated features streamline lead generation, saving valuable time, and enhancing overall sales and marketing endeavors for businesses.

HubSpot CRM is best suited for manufacturers in search of an easy-to-use CRM with strong marketing tools.

Pros:

• Powerful marketing automation tools and analytic
• Easy to set up
• User-friendly UI

Cons:

• Limited customization options
• Targets Enterprise-level businesses in its pricing
• Inability to purchase CRM modules unbundled
• Limited number of integrations

Pricing

Free version available. The paid version of Hubspot CRM starts at $1575 per month (includes 5 paid users).

Zendesk Sell

Zendesk is primarily known for its customer service platform, but it also provides Zendesk Sell, a robust CRM system for any industry. This solution aims to boost productivity of customer-facing teams and improve lead conversion through competent sales engagement tools.

Considering its roots, the highlight of Zendesk Sell platform is the customer service product, which contains task management features, contact center, and multi-channel communication options.

Other features include sales engagement tools, customizable customer data lists and templates for leads and deals, easy-to-navigate reports, and a library of 100+ integrations.

Consider adopting Zendesk Sell if you're looking for a simple and affordable solution with a sufficient marketplace for integrations.

Pros:

• Quick onboarding
• Affordable pricing models
• Proven customer service tools

Cons:

• Limited customization capabilities
• Few marketing tools

Pricing

The pricing starts at $25 per user/ month.

NetSuite

NetSuite’s primary manufacturing offering combines an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) platform with a powerful cloud-based CRM.

It provides many tools covering essential manufacturing use cases such as order management, supply chain management, shop floor control, and procurement. CRM features include sales force automation, marketing automation, and customer service and support management.

NetSuite will best suit enterprise-level manufacturers with global operations looking for a unified platform for analytics and business automation.

Pros:

• A comprehensive suite of ERP and CRM features build for manufacturers
• Powerful analytics
• Lots of integrations

Cons:

• Requires time to set up
• Steep learning curve for adoption
• Third-party integration can be challenging without a specialized support team

Pricing

Pricing for this CRM for the manufacturing industry is calculated on a custom basis.

Monday.com

Monday CRM is a versatile and intuitive CRM platform designed to streamline workflows and enhance collaboration within teams. With customizable features and integrations, Monday CRM facilitates efficient project management, task tracking, and communication, empowering businesses to achieve their goals effectively.

It offers manufacturing templates to help users manage production processes and organize data. However, more elaborate manufacturing capabilities, such as supply management, are missing.

Monday.com is a great solution for companies looking for an affordable and user-friendly platform for sales engagement and productivity.

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Offers manufacturing templates
• Great for collaboration

Cons:

• Weak reporting
• Underperforming marketing automation tools
• A limited number of integrations

Pricing

The pricing for Monday CRM starts at $14 per user/month.

SpotlerCRM

Spotler CRM is a comprehensive CRM system designed to optimize marketing, sales, and customer support efforts.

It offers robust features for lead management, email marketing automation, and campaign tracking. With intuitive tools and analytics, Spotler CRM empowers businesses to generate, nurture, and convert leads effectively while enhancing overall customer engagement and retention strategies.

Consider SpotlerCRM if you're looking for an easy-to-use straightforward solution to track your sales, marketing, and service activities.

Pros:

• Offers Zapier-powered integrations
• User-friendly UI
• High-performance marketing tools

Cons:

• Limited customization options
• Weak reporting tools

Pricing

Free trial available. The pricing starts at $35.

Keap CRM

Keap CRM is an excellent choice for manufacturers seeking a comprehensive CRM solution with automation features.

This software offers customizable pipelines and stages to streamline sales processes, while its e-commerce integration can drive revenue growth. However, manufacturing businesses should note the limited customization options for reports and the absence of a built-in telephony feature.

Pros:

• E-commerce integration
• Potent marketing capabilities
• Advanced reporting and analytics

Cons:

• Limited customization options
• No built-in telephony feature
• Subpar mobile app

Pricing

The pricing starts at $199 /month and includes 1500 contacts and two users.

Infor

Infor CRM is a comprehensive cloud-based application designed to streamline various aspects of CRM. It offers functionalities tailored for sales, customer service, marketing analytics, and reporting, all within a unified platform.

Infor CRM stands out for its seamless integration with its own manufacturing ERP solution tailored specifically for global manufacturers. It empowers companies with enhanced visibility and automation, enabling them to respond promptly to customer demands, supplier requirements, and regulatory standards without the need for extensive software customizations. The ERP platform provides supply management, manufacturing execution system, and product lifecycle management tools.

This CRM is a great choice for global enterprise-level manufacturers looking for an end-to-end CRM and ERP solution.

Pros:

• Seamless integration with Infor ERP
• Scalable and customizable CRM

Cons:

• Poorly designed interface
• Lack of CRM integrations outside of Infor's ecosystem
• Requires a lot of training

Pricing

Pricing is available on request.

NetHunt

NetHunt CRM is a cloud-based platform specifically tailored to streamline sales and customer service operations.

It offers robust features for managing customer interactions, tracking sales pipelines, and organizing data. Its main advantage is pre-built integration with GSuite, which allows you to effortlessly connect the CRM with Google products, including emails and calendars.

NetHunt CRM facilitates streamlined communication, personalized outreach, and efficient workflow automation, making it a versatile solution for businesses of all sizes looking to enhance their sales and customer management processes.

Pros:

• Built-in integration with Google products
• Intuitive interface
• Quick set up

Cons:

• Limited integration options
• Learning curve that comes with adoption
• No built-in telephony features

Pricing

Free trial available. The pricing starts at $30 per user/month.

Boost Your Manufacturing Business With CRM

Selecting the appropriate CRM for manufacturing significantly enhances business operations and boosts performance. Optimal CRM systems support partner management, automate marketing processes, and facilitate lead generation. They also promote alignment between customer-facing teams and internal departments within a manufacturing company.

Creatio is the best choice for companies looking for a powerful CRM that offers functionality tailored specifically to manufacturing processes. Sign up for a free trial to see how easy it is to streamline your operations with Creatio.