BEST CRM

Winner: Contactually; Runner Ups: Cartavi and Infusionsoft

CONTACTUALLY

PROS: “Even though it’s not your standard CRM program, Contactually is my pick for the best and most applicable for most real estate agents,” Matt Dollinger, president and founder of real estate tech consulting company Gearbox Consulting, said. There are a lot of positive qualities about Contactually that make it convenient and easy to use. Nobu Hata, director of digital engagement for the National Association of Realtors, likes how easy it is to use. “It easily integrates with Salesforce, MSExchange email, Gmail, social media – almost anything agents are using nowadays,” he said. “That, combined with intuitive user experience right off the bat, makes it an affordable and usable software that works.” Contactually also monitors your interactions and keeps a record of them in the application with a user-friendly dashboard, and makes it very easy to follow up with people by allowing to you to create simple buckets or types of contacts, and send you daily reminders to follow up with them.

CONS: It’s important to note that Contactually is simply an overview of communication with contacts, which means it is a separate destination from your inbox. Some say it also lacks the depth of automatic social awareness of email features, like LinkedIn messages.

PRICE: Basic plan is free, premium plan is $10 per month

WHERE TO BUY: http://www.contactually.com/pricing

CARTAVI

PROS: Cartavi is known for its ability to sign and send documents, but it does much more than that. The app has a feature called “Transaction Rooms,” which enables for quick access and storage of documents to everyone involved in a transaction. It also ensures private storage for secure documents, and there are different permissions to allow who in your network can see what. And because it is partnered with DocuSign, clients can electronically sign and send documents easily on a smartphone or tablet. Amy Smythe Harris, broker/owner of Urban Provisions Realtors and a board member with the Houston Association of Realtors, said that many CRMs are being integrated into paperless transaction platforms, so Cartavi is definitely part of that trend.

CONS: Even though free accounts are available, they have a lot of limitations. They can only secure 1 GB of storage, have only three Transaction Rooms available, do not allow inbound or outbound faxing of documents, cannot achieve documents in a transaction room and do not integrate e-signature verification or DocuSign.

PRICE: Free, but the Basic bundle starts at $10 per month, or $99 per year. The Premium bundle is $20 a month, or $199 per year.

WHERE TO BUY: http://cartavi.com/plans/

INFUSIONSOFT

PROS: Not only is Infusionsoft a CRM program, it’s also a program for e-commerce, social media and email marketing, making everything very easy to manage. According to Bill Harney, president of Keeping Current Matters, the system is very powerful and automatically converts leads into new customer and grows sales from existing ones. “For top producing agents who are interested in automating personal follow-up and attracting leads to them instead of chasing after the next customer, this is a solution you should look at,” he said. When you consider all of the above, plus the free technical phone service, it can be a great program to use.

CONS: Because the system is so detailed and powerful, it is not for everyone. Until you become used to it, the layout can be confusing and overwhelming. It also is not the most affordable CRM program, with the cheapest edition costing $219 per month.

PRICE: Ranges from $219 per month to $379 per month, depending on which edition you get. Adding additional contacts also costs extra.

WHERE TO BUY: http://www.infusionsoft.com/pricing