Capsule CRM: Flexible Solutions for Dynamic Business Needs
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Updated: August 19th, 2024.
Choosing the right CRM solution can transform your business operations, boost customer relationships, and streamline sales processes. Founded in 2009 in Manchester, UK, Capsule provides a versatile CRM platform that serves startups, small businesses, and larger enterprises.
In this review, we’ll delve into Capsule’s key features, pricing plans, benefits and disadvantages, and the Capsule user experience. We aim to offer a clear and concise overview to help you assess whether they fit your business needs. Continue reading to see how Capsule might enhance your CRM strategy and support your business growth.
Pros
Cons
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Quick Stats
Capsule at a Glance
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Manchester, UK, Capsule CRM is a dynamic customer relationship management software provider developed by Zestia. Catering to a wide spectrum of clients, from agile startups and ambitious small businesses to established mid-sized and rapidly growing large enterprises, Capsule crafts tailored solutions for diverse industries. Their mission is to transform how businesses manage customer interactions, streamline sales processes, and enhance project management.
Capsule CRM is packed with powerful features designed to empower businesses. Imagine comprehensive contact management at your fingertips, customizable sales pipelines that adapt to your unique sales processes, and workflow automation that takes care of repetitive tasks. The platform excels in lead generation, offers advanced reporting capabilities, and integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Gmail, Outlook, Zapier, and Google Workspace. Security is a top priority for Capsule, boasting GDPR compliance, two-factor authentication, SOC 2 accreditation, and Transport Layer Security (TLS). Additionally, businesses can explore Capsule without any financial commitment with a free trial and free plan.
The Best CRM Solution award at the TechRadar Pro Best for Business Awards in 2019 and the Best Entrepreneurial Tech Company award at the Northern Tech Awards in 2011 are notable examples of Capsule's stellar reputation in the industry. These honors reflect Capsule’s unwavering commitment to delivering innovative and effective CRM solutions, cementing their status as a trusted partner in the business world.
Features & Services
Contact management
Capsule CRM consolidates all your contact management into one place, offering a comprehensive view of your customer interactions. Ideal for small businesses, freelancers, and startups, this CRM software eliminates the need for spreadsheets, enabling your marketing teams to manage data efficiently. You can import existing customer data from various sources, such as Outlook, CSV files, Google Contacts, and vCards, ensuring a smooth transition. Integration capabilities with apps like Gmail and social media keep your contacts’ latest information, including social media activity, invoice amounts, and support ticket statuses, updated and easily accessible.
With quick search functionality and full-text search, finding essential information about your contacts is effortless. Social search integration automatically enriches contact profiles, while customizable tags and custom fields allow for easy organization. Additionally, Capsule CRM supports creating custom lists, attaching essential documents, and sharing contacts with your support team, ensuring everyone has a unified and up-to-date view.
Sales pipeline
Capsule CRM allows you to track sales opportunities by setting values and milestones and gathering detailed reports on your business deals. The visual sales pipeline lets you manage all open sales opportunities on a single page, providing a clear view of your entire sales pipeline. The pipeline dashboard offers comprehensive insights into sales statistics, future projections, and summaries, which help accurately forecast sales. With support for multiple sales pipelines, Capsule CRM enables customization for different products, services, and markets, offering a more precise picture of your sales process.
Workflow automation
Capsule CRM’s workflow automation tools reduce manual work, speed up processes, and ensure task consistency. You can keep deals active by setting up workflows and triggering activities that occur automatically to enhance team collaboration. This feature helps move deals through the sales pipeline and efficiently assign ownership of sales and tasks. Extending beyond sales tasks, workflow automation integrates with project management features to automate candidate management, onboarding, marketing, and other business processes, reducing bottlenecks and maintaining quality and consistency.
Email marketing and tools
Seamlessly integrated with Transpond, an intuitive email marketing tool, Capsule CRM allows for easy syncing of contacts and running email campaigns directly from the platform. You can create email campaigns and templates that drive responses from your contacts, with automation and sequences driven by actions within Capsule to achieve desired outcomes. Transpond provides precise analytics to understand how contacts interact with your communications, and dynamic content ensures that messages are tailored to specific groups for timely and relevant engagement.
Sales analytics
Capsule CRM offers robust sales analytics tools to monitor every aspect of your sales cycle. You can assess the health of your pipeline with reports on Pipeline Forecast, Pipeline by Owner, Pipeline by Team, and Pipeline Growth. Activity reports provide insights into team performance, comparing activity types and volumes side-by-side. In contrast, sales reports offer a detailed look into won and lost opportunities, average sales values, and reasons for lost deals. These insights enable you to identify top performers, spot trends across teams, and make informed decisions for future planning.
Task management
Capsule CRM includes a comprehensive task management system for creating tasks related to appointments, meetings, phone calls, and more. You can always know their relevance by linking tasks to contacts, projects, or sales opportunities. The task management features help prioritize tasks, plan time effectively, and meet deadlines. Integration with calendars like Apple Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, and iCalendar allows you to view tasks in a calendar format, with task reminder emails keeping you on track by notifying you at the start of each day.
Project management
Capsule CRM’s built-in project management tool, Projects, streamlines sales and service operations within a single system. You can create Kanban-style boards, use Tracks for consistent processes, and provide your team visibility across projects. Integrated with customer interactions and deals, projects enhance the visibility of project status, workload, and potential bottlenecks. Team and project managers can monitor tasks, track progress, and ensure timely project completion. Capsule supports integrations with tools like Zapier and Google Workspace, facilitating seamless project management.
AI assistant
The AI Content Assistant in Capsule CRM helps quickly overcome writer’s block by generating relevant email copy. Customize the tone and content to suit your needs and benefit from the efficiency of AI-powered content creation. Designed to save time and energy, the user-friendly AI assistant requires no technical background, allowing you to focus on more critical tasks. Whether drafting a follow-up email after meeting a potential client or creating an introductory message, the AI Content Assistant provides quick and relevant suggestions, ensuring smooth and professional communication.
Reporting and analytics
Capsule CRM provides advanced reporting and analytics features to help you make informed decisions. Detailed sales reports offer insights into won and lost opportunities, pipeline growth, average sales values, and reasons for lost deals. The integration with Google Data Studio enables the creation of custom, interactive dashboards, and detailed analytics using multiple data sources. You can filter reports by periods, users, or teams for focused insights and export data for further analysis in tools like Excel, ensuring comprehensive reporting and detailed analytics.
Pricing & Plans
Capsule CRM offers a variety of pricing plans to meet different business needs. The Free plan is ideal for startups and freelancers, allowing up to 2 users to manage 250 contacts at no cost. For more advanced features, the Starter plan costs $18 per user per month when billed annually or $21 when billed monthly. This plan includes 30,000 contacts, one sales pipeline, one project board, 50 custom fields, 10 AI content assists, one shared mailbox, five email templates, activity reporting, and key integrations.
The Growth plan, costing $36 per user per month when billed annually or $38 monthly, is perfect for growing businesses. It includes everything in the Starter plan plus 60,000 contacts, five sales pipelines, five project boards, 150 custom fields, 1000 AI content assists, three shared mailboxes, 50 email templates, workflow automation, custom activity types, advanced sales reporting, user roles and permissions, and business and contact enrichment. This plan offers more customization and seamless workflows to manage customer relationships effectively.
For businesses seeking even more features, the Advanced plan is priced at $54 per user per month annually or $60 monthly and includes support for 120,000 contacts, 50 sales pipelines, and 50 project boards. The Ultimate plan, at $72 per user per month annually or $75 monthly, offers the most comprehensive features, including 240,000 contacts, 100 sales pipelines, 100 project boards, unlimited custom fields, ten shared mailboxes, 1000 email templates, and premium support services.
Capsule CRM also provides a marketing add-on, Transpond, starting at $11 monthly for enhanced email campaigns and automation. Each plan comes with a 14-day free trial and integrations with tools like Gmail, Outlook, and Zapier, making Capsule CRM a versatile and scalable solution for customer relationship management.
The Benefits of Working With Capsule
- Customization capabilities: Capsule offers extensive customization options, allowing businesses to create custom fields, design workflows, and tailor the system to match their unique processes. This flexibility ensures the software can adapt to various business needs
- Integrations: The CRM integrates seamlessly with popular apps like Gmail, Outlook, Zapier, and Google Workspace. These integrations enable smooth data synchronization and enhanced functionality, making it easier to manage all your customer interactions and data in one place
- Auto-enriched contact profiles: Capsule enriches your contact profiles with additional information, such as social media profiles and avatars. This feature enhances your ability to understand and connect with customers on a deeper level, providing a more personalized experience
- Free trial and plan: A 14-day free trial of the paid plans allows users to explore features before committing. Additionally, the free plan accommodates up to two users and 250 contacts, making it an accessible option for startups and small businesses without a financial commitment
- Automation features: The CRM’s automation tools help streamline workflows, reduce manual tasks, and enhance productivity. Automation can be applied to various business processes, such as sales, project management, and marketing, ensuring consistency and efficiency
- Mobile app: Capsule CRM provides a mobile app for iOS and Android devices. This app allows users to manage their CRM on the go, ensuring they can access critical information and perform essential tasks from anywhere. Additionally, the mobile app can be used offline, enabling users to work without an internet connection and sync data once they are back online
- AI assistant: The AI Content Assistant helps you quickly generate relevant and professional email content. Whether drafting a follow-up message or composing an introductory email, this tool saves time and improves communication efficiency
Why You Might Not Choose Them
- Marketing tool as an add-on: While Capsule offers essential CRM functionalities, their advanced marketing features are available only through the Transpond add-on, which requires an additional purchase. This could be a drawback for businesses seeking an all-in-one CRM and marketing solution
- Limited features in free plan: While useful for small teams, the free plan lacks several key features included in the paid plans. Workflow automation, advanced reporting features, conversion rate tracking, sales pipeline milestones, and sales forecasting are not included, potentially limiting the effectiveness of the free plan for more complex needs
- No phone support: Customer support is limited to email and online resources, with no phone support available. This might be a concern for businesses that prefer real-time, voice-based assistance for troubleshooting or inquiries
- Lacks advanced marketing features: Although Capsule covers the basics, they may not be sufficient for businesses that require sophisticated marketing tools, such as in-depth campaign management, A/B testing, or advanced segmentation. This limitation could lead some companies to look for alternative CRM solutions with stronger marketing capabilities
The User Experience
While Capsule does not have a Better Business Bureau profile, they boast strong ratings across various platforms, including 4.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot, 4.7 out of 5 on G2, 4.5 out of 5 on Capterra, and 8.8 out of 10 on TrustRadius.
Positive reviews
Customers expressed satisfaction with Capsule CRM’s clean and lightweight interface, appreciating its simplicity and ease of use compared to other platforms. They found the system intuitive, making it easy to navigate and manage without getting lost in unnecessary complexity. This straightforward approach, combined with the ability to customize the platform with features like custom fields and tags, has been a significant advantage for many users.
The responsive support team received high praise for their quick and thorough assistance. Customers highlighted the team’s readiness to resolve issues efficiently, which has been crucial in helping businesses maintain smooth operations and grow. The integration capabilities with tools like Office 365, Transpond marketing automation, and various other applications were also commended for enhancing workflow and seamless data management.
Customers were satisfied with Capsule’s organizational capabilities, noting how it helps keep daily tasks and company activities well-structured. The platform’s affordability and user-friendliness have made it a favored choice among various businesses. Users also appreciated the ability to streamline business processes, manage contacts effectively, and integrate with other software solutions, making Capsule CRM a reliable and efficient tool for their needs.
Negative reviews
While Capsule CRM is well-regarded, users have noted that their mobile app could be more user-friendly, with some finding it cumbersome compared to the desktop version. Customers have also pointed out the lack of social media tracking and limited accounting software integrations, like QuickBooks, as frustrating.
Users have also expressed concerns about email integration with Outlook 365, wishing for a more seamless experience that utilizes Outlook's full capabilities. Customers also said they would prefer managing contacts flexibly, such as adding them to lists without creating tasks or tags.
Pricing has been another critique, particularly for small businesses. The free plan's 250-contact limit is seen as restrictive, and some users feel that the costs may not be justifiable as their needs grow. Additionally, the separation of mass email features into a different tool is viewed as an unnecessary complication.
Customer Support Options
You can reach Capsule’s support team by emailing [email protected] or using the ticketing system on their website. For further assistance, Capsule provides a comprehensive support page, an informative blog, and a range of video tutorials to help users navigate the platform and resolve issues.
Final Words
Capsule CRM stands out with their customizable features, including contact management, sales pipeline tracking, and workflow automation, making them a versatile choice for businesses of all sizes. These tools allow companies to streamline operations, improve customer relationships, and manage projects efficiently, all from a user-friendly platform that integrates well with popular tools like Gmail and Zapier.
Capsule's strengths lie in their flexibility, ease of use, and strong support team. Features like AI-powered content generation and mobile access enhance operational efficiency and customer satisfaction, setting them apart from competitors. However, some drawbacks include the limited features in the free plan, the need for separate marketing tools, and less intuitive mobile app functionality.
For a deeper dive into how Capsule compares to other CRM solutions, use our comparison tool or explore other options that might suit your needs by checking out our reviews of top CRM providers. Additionally, our blog page offers valuable insights to help you make informed decisions about your CRM strategy.
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