The Best Sales Management Solutions, Compared

The relationship between customer experience and sales performance is intertwined now more than ever. This makes customer relationship management (CRM) software tools an effective medium for improving sales performance.

However, CRM solutions are also notorious for being too feature-rich, making them quite an expensive business purchase. Our research on CRM buyer trends corroborates this—“unnecessary features” and “cost” rank as two of the four most widely reported dissatisfactions.

So if you’re out looking for a software solution solely to support your sales operations, investing in a niche tool over a wide-scoped CRM might be of more worth. The decision involves several questions such as the sort of relationship you have with your average customer or the number of sales calls you typically make each day.

If your requirements boil down to a sales-specific solution, this article is for you.

We’ve compared hundreds of sales solutions and selected the top five based on the ratings and reviews of Software Advice users. Read more about our product selection methodology.

The tools are listed alphabetically. We explore their key capabilities and recommend which users they’re most suitable for.

5 best sales management tools

1. DealerCenter

2. HoneyBook

3. PhoneBurner

4. Pipeliner

5. VanillaSoft

1. DealerCenter

DealerCenter comes with a prospect management dashboard that allows sales reps to store customer details (captured manually or automatically via websites and other online sources) in a central location. Sales reps can also record detailed interactions with new prospects using the dashboard.

Additionally, the tool offers built-in calendars for scheduling appointments with clients, a sales pipeline dashboard for tracking customer conversions, and a compliance module for automatically verifying the veracity of the information provided by customers.

Suitable for: DealerCenter is specifically designed for auto dealers. To that end, the solution offers specialized functionalities such as a vehicle management module that allows auto dealers to store and search vehicle information—car model, specifications, price, photos, etc.—in a central location.

Viewing sales rep activity summary in DealerCenter (Source)

2. HoneyBook

HoneyBook is a tool that combines project management, invoicing, and contract management capabilities. Its project management functionality allows sales reps to set up project dashboards for viewing daily tasks, capturing details of new prospects, and tracking interactions with clients, all in a single place.

The contract management functionality helps businesses manage client communications and documentation. The features include customizable proposals, online questionnaires, automatically generated invoices, and a workflow for capturing e-signatures of clients.

Suitable for: HoneyBook is a template-driven sales tool that is particularly targeted at small businesses that are involved in creative works, such as boutique shops and freelancing photographers. The intent is to help businesses with a resource crunch manage operations. An example is the template online questionnaire that allows users to understand client requirements without the typical deluge of email exchanges.

Sales project dashboard in HoneyBook (Source)

3. PhoneBurner

PhoneBurner is a sales solution that adds a sales dialer functionality to its CRM module for improving the productivity of sales teams. The dialer essentially allows sales reps to automatically pull client information from the contacts dashboard, making the calling process faster and more efficient.

The CRM module comes with functionalities such as contact management that allows sales reps to view customer details and track past communication to understand requirements and manage appointments.

Suitable for: PhoneBurner is an ideal solution for outbound call centers that need a calling software with traditional CRM functionalities for capturing prospect details and tracking team productivity.

Contact management in PhoneBurner (Source)

4. Pipeliner

Pipeliner helps users organize client information and track team productivity. On the client management side, the tool helps sales reps in qualifying leads to identify valid opportunities and visualizing prospects on a sales pipeline.

For the team management aspect, the tool offers features such as sales task management dashboards, organization charts, and team performance reports.

Suitable for: Pipeliner is suitable for businesses of all sizes. However, the tool’s predictive analytics functionality can be of particular help for large enterprises that want a tool that not only tracks and organizes client information but also offers recommendations and predictions for improving sales.

Managing leads in Pipeliner (Source)

5. VanillaSoft

VanillaSoft comes with functionalities such as lead management for sorting and tracking leads and a sales dialer with the ability to set up inbound and outbound call rules. Additionally, the tool offers built-in calendars for scheduling appointments, sales team performance monitoring dashboards, and email/SMS marketing automation capabilities.

Suitable for: VanillaSoft is a sales solution ideal for both inbound/outbound call centers as well as businesses that rely on inside sales strategies such as email and SMS marketing.

Scheduling appointments on a built-in calendar in VanillaSoft (Source)

Next steps: Which sales management solution should I use?

Selecting the right sales software for your business can be tricky because these tools are part of the larger category of CRM solutions. So the first thing you need to decide is whether you need a CRM tool or just a sales management solution, or maybe a tool that combines both.

While the five tools listed in this report can give you the starting ground for your software search, you can also explore other products by checking out different categories of sales software such as inside sales software, sales acceleration software, and sales enablement tools.

Product selection methodology

To be listed in this report, the products had to meet the following criteria:

• Products had to have a high overall rating (an average of 4.5 out of 5) on Software Advice.

• Products needed a minimum of 20 user reviews on Software advice (published in the last two years).

• Products had to offer core sales software functionalities such as contact management, lead management, opportunity management, and pipeline management.

Note: The content in this piece that provides opinions and points of view expressed by users do not represent the views of Software Advice.