8 best CRM integrations for Shopify in 2022

As the business saying goes, “customer is king”. In the world of e-commerce where tech-savvy customers value efficiency, flexibility, and personalised retail experiences above all, the significance of this phrase rings truer than ever.

However, it’s easier said than done. When confronted with a massive amount of customer data, many e-commerce businesses, like yours, may find organising contact information and managing relationships with current and prospective customers a confusing process.

Wondering which Shopify CRM works best for boosting your business’ revenue? SleekFlow is here with an introduction to the 8 best CRM integrations for Shopify that will help you achieve your business goals.

What is Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? 

In essence, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) encompasses the activities, strategies, and technological solutions that businesses use to handle their interactions with current and potential customers. From reach to conversion, retention to loyalty, understanding your performance throughout the end-to-end customer lifecycle is key to keeping customers satisfied. 

That is why CRM software and tools exist - to give insights into your interactions between businesses and customers whilst resolving issues through AI-powered automation and personalisation.

In fact, a robust CRM is a must-have when running a successful e-commerce business nowadays. 65% of sales professionals use a CRM and 97% consider sales technology "very important" or "important," according to LinkedIn State of Sales 2020. By choosing the CRM software best suited for your business, you can leverage the tracked information and insights to make data-driven decisions that will boost customer satisfaction, thereby converting leads and driving sales growth. 

Key benefits of Shopify CRM 

Amongst the CRM tools available on the market, many businesses are opting for cloud-based CRM, also known as SaaS, due to its cost-effectiveness and accessibility to the centralised data from anywhere, at any time. 

And as one of the world’s largest all-in-one e-commerce platforms, Shopify has seen immense growth in recent years with Shopify stores in the UK increasing 39% year-over year in 2022 Q1. If you’re a Shopify merchant, you’re most likely familiar with Shopify’s built-in marketing tools, 24/7 technical support, quick and secure payment processes, and perhaps the most valuable feature of all, Shopify CRM integrations. 

But with over thousands of options to choose from, how do you evaluate which Shopify CRM integration is right for your business? 

3 factors to consider when choosing Shopify CRM

Omnichannel communication across popular social apps

Social platforms are revolutionising the way we sell and shop. 23% of UK consumers use social commerce to find new products, whilst 33% of UK consumers purchase products directly on social media. With social commerce rising in prominence, Shopify’s CRM integrations enable merchants to reach customers across all touchpoints from email and social platforms to live chat. More than just a database to store your contacts, an effective CRM tool needs to ensure that you are instantly there for your customers without ever missing a window of opportunity, especially when they have urgent queries about the product or need immediate help with their orders. 

Explore how social media integrations can boost Shopify sales in our article.

Highly customisable automation tools to streamline your workflow

Think of Shopify CRM integration as your trusty virtual assistant. From brainstorming marketing campaigns to broadcasting emails at prime time, its efforts should help you save time and manpower, so that you can focus your energy on higher-value work. Automation features like auto-assignment and auto-response guarantee exceptional customer service experiences whilst increasing conversion rates. 

Seamless and unified data integration across internal teams

Ideally, your Shopify CRM integration is an all-in-one solution that gives your marketing, sales, and customer service teams a holistic overview throughout the end-to-end customer lifecycle. Other than saving your business time on data migration and management, it should enhance the customer experience quality immensely without risking duplication or errors. With access to your Shopify customer analytics and social interactions, your integration tool should propose practical solutions on how you can improve your marketing and sales processes to achieve business goals faster. 

HubSpot

HubSpot was created primarily as a resource for marketers to assist companies with inbound marketing. They now offer a completely integrated CRM with tools for teams throughout the customer lifecycle from sales, marketing, service, and operations.

Pros: 

• Easy-to-use UX/UI with deal pipeline dashboard to gather insights and opportunities
• Marketing automation is integrated with HubSpot’s vast database of contact management solutions
• Unlimited access to HubSpot’s resources (i.e. HubSpot Academy, support, community forum)

Cons: 

• May not be cost-effective for large companies, as the cost for premium features grows exponentially
• Insights and reporting capabilities are not as comprehensive compared to other paid CRM tools
• Exporting data from HubSpot CRM involves many steps

Pricing for the CRM Suite (based on annual subscription): 

• Free plan is available for unlimited users 
• Starter Sales Plan: £23 for 2 users / month
• Professional Sales Plan: £1,312 for 5 users / month
• Enterprise Sales Plan: £4,110 for 10 users / month

SleekFlow

SleekFlow is an omnichannel social commerce platform developed for sales, support, and marketing teams to increase revenue by enabling full conversational journeys across SMS, live chat on websites, and popular social and messaging applications including Official WhatsApp Business API, Facebook Messenger, and live chat. 

Pros: 

• UX/UI gives access to a unified interface for sales, support, and marketing teams to manage omnichannel communication across all widely used social messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, LINE, etc.)
• Customisable automation tools to facilitate personalised broadcasting, campaigns, allowing for consistent customer engagement
• Wide range of integrations is available, including Shopify and WhatsApp Business API, for making the customer purchasing journey quick and easy with in-chat payments, and one-click checkout, etc. 

Cons: 

• Free trial plan has limitations, i.e. no access to WhatsApp or Shopify integration 

Pricing (based on annual subscription):  

• Startup plan: free forever
• Pro plan: £59 / month
• Premium plan: £299 / month
• Enterprise plan: Custom

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a CRM with extensive email marketing tools for businesses whose strategy focuses on email marketing campaigns and outreach. 

Pros: 

• Helpful for businesses that rely on email marketing with access to Mailchimp’s extensive template library, including product photos, price, and links to the product pages 
• Advanced contact management features to easily identify prospective customers and tailor targeted emails 

Cons: 

• Do not offer sales or pipeline management tools
• Expensive for mid to large enterprises because their plans increase drastically as the number of email subscribers, contacts and emails increase

Pricing (based on annual subscription):

• Free: limited to 1 user only, up to 2,000 contacts with limited features and templates
• Essentials Plan: £9.06 / month
• Standard Plan: £14 / month
• Premium: £246.23 / month

Zoho

Zoho is a CRM with advanced social media analytics and reporting that is tailored to businesses that rely heavily on social media marketing. 

Pros: 

• Unlimited access to a wide range of features within the free plan, including an in-app dialer and mass email broadcasting
• Contact allocation allows for 1 million profiles
• Extensive social media marketing integration with Shopify

Cons: 

• Pricing plan increases significantly across various tiers of plans
• Very limited features for free and low-tier plans

Pricing (based on annual subscription):

• Free plan: includes up to 3 users
• Standard plan: £12 per user / month 
• Professional plan: £18 per user / month 
• Enterprise plan: £35 per user / month 
• Ultimate plan: £42 per user / month

Pipedrive 

Focusing on small to mid-size businesses, Pipedrive is a sales-driven CRM solution that provides tools for the entire marketing and sales processes. 

Pros: 

• Straightforward UI/UX that allows merchants to use the platform with no training
• Provides a visualisation of the sales pipeline from start to finish, which is ideal for small to mid-size businesses
• Unlimited access to integrations marketplace including many popular productivity platforms, extending from Google G Suite, Xero, and Zapier 

Cons: 

• Does not provide marketing automation tools to enhance marketing strategies
• Limited contact sorting capabilities, making it challenging for larger enterprises that manage a considerable amount of data

Pricing (based on annual subscription):

• Essential plan: first two months free, then £14.90 per user / month after
• Advanced plan: first two months free, then £24.90 per user / month after
• Professional plan: first two months free, then £49.90 per user / month after
• Enterprise plan: first two months free, then £79.90 per user / month after

Agile

Agile is a Shopify CRM integration that equips e-commerce businesses with automation tools for sales, marketing, and customer support. 

Pros: 

• Insightful and robust analytics are drawn from customer data
• Plans across all tiers include an unlimited number of users
• Integrates information collected across sales, marketing, and customer support and creates targeted automation messages to convert leads into customers

Cons: 

• No option for free plans, which makes it challenging for small businesses
• Users can only use the desktop version of the platform and no mobile app

Pricing (based on annual subscription):

• Free plan: includes up to 10 users
• Starter plan: £8.99 per user / month
• Regular plan: £29.99 per user / month
• Enterprise plan: £47.99 per user / month

Metrilo

Metrilo is a CRM designed specifically for e-commerce businesses that allow Shopify businesses to optimise their marketing strategy across social platforms. 

Pros: 

• Advanced e-commerce analytics tools that help Shopify businesses oversee marketing and sales performances
• Product bundle suggestions to give businesses specific ways to drive more revenue
• Robust insights on customers’ buying patterns, retention rates, and segmentation to inform businesses and make data-driven decisions

Cons: 

• No mobile app available 
• Pricing plans become expensive as its lower-tiered plans are charged at per-user subscriptions

Pricing (based on annual subscription):

• Essential plan: £80 / month 
• Pro plan: £135 / month 
• Premium plan: £204 / month

Salesforce

Salesforce is an advanced CRM software that allows for a range of CRM systems, including Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, Analytics Cloud, Data Clouds, Community Cloud, App Cloud, and IOT. 

Pros: 

• Flexibility with pricing that can accommodate usage from startups or small businesses to large enterprises
• Advanced AI-powered solution provides to help businesses make data-driven decisions within a short period of time
• Access to Salesforce Trailblazer community (with over 2.3 million users), giving access to Salesforce’s established network and training programs

Cons: 

• The complexity of the system makes the setup complicated and demanding, especially for small businesses with limited resources
• Navigating UX/UI requires some additional training

Pricing (based on annual subscription): 

• Essentials plan: £20 per user / month
• Professional plan: £60 per user / month
• Enterprise plan: £120 per user / month
• Unlimited plan: £240 per user / month

Level up your Shopify store with SleekFlow

Shopify holds 20% of the market share in the United Kingdom (the world’s third-largest e-commerce market), according to Statista. Moreover, social media sites drive the majority of traffic to Shopify websites. So if you’re running an e-commerce business in the UK, you will need a handy CRM that is automated, personalised, and seamlessly integrated with Shopify and social apps. 

A powerful omnichannel social messaging platform like SleekFlow could be the best CRM solution for your UK-based Shopify business, especially as the social commerce industry is expected to grow further by 37.5% from 2021 to 2022. Combining Shopify with popular communication channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram, SleekFlow’s all-in-one unified interface gives you actionable insights into your customers’ buying behaviour so that you can upgrade your product and qualify leads, convert potential customers, as well as strengthen customer relationships quicker than ever. Furthermore, with the latest features like Official WhatsApp Business API, one-click checkout and in-chat payment, SleekFlow’s social CRM enhances the buying journey holistically, allowing you to keep an eye on what your customers do on every social media platform.

Whether you run a shop online or offline, utilize our payment links and collect payment in chats with just a few clicks on SleekFlow. Check out our latest YouTube video to learn more.