CRM with Project Management

CRM (customer relationship management) and project management are interconnected disciplines that help businesses manage their operations and projects. It helps sales, project, and customer service teams collaborate to provide business customers with the required pre and post-sales services. 

Also, with project management CRM, relevant information regarding projects, products, customers, and individual tasks is readily available for the teams to foster better coordination and communication.  

Organizations have been able to adopt a customer-centric approach by integrating CRM with project management. This helps businesses collect customer data such as history, customer preferences, interactions, and more, which helps businesses tailor deliverables as per specific customer needs. 

In this article, we will learn about the 7 best CRM with project management tools businesses can use for efficient resource allocation and project management.

What is CRM with Project Management? 

CRM with project management integrates CRM software and project management tools that contribute to managing customer interactions and relationships along with project planning, execution, and monitoring. A project management system built on a CRM platform allows businesses to understand project workflows and individual tasks specific to the customer’s needs. 

CRMs’ primary task is tracking user information, improving customer service, and managing the sales pipeline. This gives the business a centralized database that stores customer information, communication logs, preferences, and more. The business can then engage with its customers effectively and focus on long-term relationships.

In contrast, project management tools focus on facilitating the planning, organizing, execution, and improvement of projects. It defines project goals, allocates resources, sets deadlines, creates to-do lists, tracks progress, and more that guarantee quality project outcomes. 

7 Best CRM with Project Management

  1. Salesforce
  2. Monday.com
  3. Zoho CRM
  4. HubSpot CRM
  5. ClickUp
  6. Insightly
  7. Pipedrive 

#1. Salesforce

1. Salesforce home

Salesforce is one of the most popular cloud-based CRM platforms that help an organization manage its customer data, track performance metrics, and automate sales processes all under a single platform. It is suitable for all business sizes but widely used by small business owners because of its ease of use and seamless navigation. 

The integrated platform connects service, sales, marketing, e-commerce, and all other business segments to provide users with the best possible service delivery.  

One of its project management solutions, TaskRay, is used by businesses for post-sale processes such as implementations, onboarding, installations, and more. Hence, with the help of TaskRay, Businesses can assign the correct people for the right job at the required time. The platform ties all information within the app to an existing Salesforce account, and managers can visualize this data in different modes such as Kanban, Gantt chart, and more. 

What makes Salesforce stand out from its competitors:

  • Its app builder platform helps users build mobile solutions catering to CRM project management
  • It offers user-friendly pipeline management at no additional costs 
  • Offers contact management, lead management, and opportunity tracking
  • Automates processes for multi-users through AI with their Flow Orchestration 
  • Custom reports for each user 
  • Packages start at only 25 USD per month per user 

Click here to visit Salesforce

 #2. Monday CRM

2. Monday CRM home

Monday.com’s sales CRM solution allows different teams within a business to manage work and collaborate. The platform comes equipped with multiple tools that manage contacts, leads, and pipelines and even create customer projects, customer support communication, marketing campaigns, tram tracks, and more. CRM project management solution aligns teams, projects, and support systems to provide people with real-time project progress.   

The platform offers online video tutorials for businesses to align their CRM and project management. It also comes with guides to set up a wide variety of integrations easily, making almost all tasks possible within a single dashboard. 

It has one of the strongest dashboards in the market, with over 50 columns with a mix of folders and boards. This helps businesses manage many groups and leads and segregate between qualified and disqualified leads. 

Read my monday.com review.

Read my monday.com CRM review

What makes monday.com stand out from its competitors:

  • It comes with pre-configured workflows that help in aligning team members and customers 
  • New client onboarding, sales request, and account tracking can all be made with a single click
  • It comes with a visual board that has color-coordinated tabs to segregate and track each task easily 
  • It comes with task management prioritization tools
  • It has a scheduling tool that allows team members to schedule each task at a later date/time 
  • It comes with robust automation 
  • The CRM feature is a part of Monday.com’s base package, starting at 8 USD per user per month 

Click here to visit monday.com

#3. Zoho CRM

3. Zoho CRM home

Zoho’s CRM tool caters to all sizes of businesses from vast industries by providing robust analytics, automation, and process tracking. It has a free project module with the Professional and Enterprise edition that gives you access to all project management tools. 

From Gantt charts to set milestones, you can access Kanban boards and create new projects from customers’ accounts. This gives your business better visibility in front of the customer’s eyes. Zoho also offers one of the strongest customizations in the market, allowing users to work with as many add-ons as they may like.

Its lead management feature helps businesses find sales pipelines with card scanners, web forms, website tracking, and more. Live chat, distributing channels, and social media integrations are some of the many sub-features that come with this. Its AI-powered sales assistant efficiently predicts the best contact timings, urgent emails, and other relevant statistics. 

What makes Zoho stand out from its competitors:

  • It comes with analytical widgets like KPIs, funnels, and more
  • In-depth report feature that filters data based on name, deal stage, time, etc. 
  • Creates customizable sales workflows
  • It comes with a SalesSignals tool; users receive notifications at every actionable stage 
  • Starts at USD 14 per month per user 

Click here to visit Zoho CRM

#4. HubSpot CRM

4. HubSpot CRM home

HubSpot CRM comes with a base platform that is free of cost and works well for both start-ups and enterprise-level businesses. However, sales process automation and project management solutions come at a cost with multiple-level paid plans. These features help businesses track customer interactions, project analysis, project management, and more with over 1,000 integrations. 

The platform has a seamless communication system with robust ticketing and live chat options. This has improved customer satisfaction with the after-sales service over the years. It comes with several self-service options that allow businesses’ users to create responses directing specific outcomes. 

What makes HubSpot CRM stand out from its competitors:

  • Its customizable reporting system helps businesses track their KPIs
  • It offers a segmentation feature that allows businesses to segment leads based on industry
  • Its lead scoring system allows users to prioritize leads as per their potential value 
  • It has a simple user interface, which is easy to navigate 
  • The platform can be customized end-to-end because of the wide variety of integrations 
  • The plans start at USD 50 per month per 1000 contracts with a 14-day free trial 

Click here to visit HubSpot CRM

#5. ClickUp

5. ClickUp home

ClickUp as a project management tool is fairly new compared to the other names but suits small businesses the most. It allows visual management of accounts, emails, customer relationships, project progress, etc. 

It has multiple views that users can choose from, like boards, lists, and descriptions that clearly state what needs to be done in each task. Custom status workflows help with account pipelines, and users can also use custom dashboards on ClickUp to analyze data about their customer data. 

ClickUp allows users to integrate their email with the platform and centralize each task with seamless work organization. Team collaboration with ClickUp becomes easy, and project updates, communication, onboarding, and adding/deleting tasks are done through a single window hassle-free. The all-in-one productivity tool is the best for a team of five or more and includes docs, goals, whiteboards, chats, and more for seamless working. 

What makes ClickUp stand out from its competitors:

  • It offers over 1,000 native integrations with Dropbox, G-Suite, and more
  • It comes with a free plan that includes several useful features 
  • Offers real-time reporting 
  • Maps, calendars, maps, and everything else on ClickUp are highly customizable with pre-installed templates 
  • Allows users to create custom fields, workflows, views, boards, and more 
  • It is one of the cheapest tools in the market that, starts at only USD 5 per month per user

Click here to visit ClickUp

#6. Insightly

6. Insightly home

Insightly is best known for small companies that want to scale up quickly with a flexible CRM and project management tool. If you are a team of only two people, you do not have to pay anything to use these features on Insightly. Hence, the platform is truly beneficial for easy-stage start-ups or solo entrepreneurs. It comes with a pipeline and milestone-focused view, which can be easily shifted from one to another.

Its recurring task feature also allows users to set multiple task alerts that recur at regular intervals. This ensures regular check-ups are happening around the tasks and nothing goes missing. On the other hand, project status reports are also easily generated through the platform with a few clicks. 

If you are working with Insightly’s pipeline management tool. You can use collaboration tools with people across the globe without any additional hassle. Multiple pipelines, workflows, and tasks can be streamlined at one go with the platform, making all business teams come together for particular projects. 

What makes Insightly stand out from its competitors:

  • It comes with dashboards that are easily customizable as per business needs
  • It has a strong segmentation of roles enabling businesses to distribute tasks seamlessly
  • Its record-linking system provides businesses with a better system for managing customer relationships
  • Personal dashboards can be built by as many team members as required 
  • It comes with AI predictive tools to create specific items for specific projects triggering sales actions
  • Insightly’s KPIs and tracking metrics are highly customizable 
  • It has custom validation rules, workflow automation, and dynamic page layouts as handy features 
  • For over two people in a team, its price starts at USD 29 per month per user

Click here to visit Insightly

Let’s now move to the last best CRM with project management software.

#7. Pipedrive

7. Pipedrive home

Pipedrive is one of the simplest tools to merge CRM with project management. It suits all business sizes, but especially small businesses. With Pipedrive, users can manage their leads, visualize workflows, and track contacts without hassle. In its Enterprise plan, users also get notified about suspicious logins and potential data leaks. 

Pipedrive offers pre-designed email templates, signatures, email scheduling, email tracking, click rates, two-way email sync, video call scheduling, and more. However, these features are only available in plans including or above the Advanced level plan. The basic plan has basic features that any starting business can use. 

If you need an intuitive tool for lead management, Pipedrive has a lot to offer – from sales pipelines, deal management, and app integrations to a 14-day free trial. 

  • It is the easiest tool to set up and use
  • It comes with data visualization features that make all the other work even easier to understand
  • Critical tasks can be highlighted on the dashboard for priority
  • Its drag-and-drop interface makes customizing dashboards easy
  • The fields and pipelines are both customizable, optimizing the existing workflow without hassle
  • It has a mobile app that allows businesses to engage with their customers even on the go
  • The platform itself is multilingual
  • Its communication tracking ensures that all your teams are connected at all times 
  • It comes with a 14-day free trial and then costs USD 9.90 per user per month 

Click here to visit Pipedrive

Conclusion 

CRM system merged with project management features intelligently manages customer information and data and captures the number of leads coming in. This ensures that the business is always well aware of the potential customers in the market and helps businesses convert them into actual customers. 

The top 7 CRM project management tools we have discussed will help businesses of all sizes to enhance their customer service, manage sales pipelines, customize workflows, and support sales teams end-to-end.

Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase after clicking. Please understand that I recommend these resources because they are useful, not just because of my commissions. Please do not purchase unless you need the materials to achieve your goals. Read the disclaimer.

Fahad Usmani, PMP

I am Mohammad Fahad Usmani, B.E. PMP, PMI-RMP. I have been blogging on project management topics since 2011. To date, thousands of professionals have passed the PMP exam using my resources.