Sales, marketing, and customer success/service teams use CRM software to help keep track of customer information and interactions. For sales, this may involve the creation of quotes, order processing, lead qualification, and sales forecasting.

For marketing, CRM activities may include lead management and nurture, landing page creation, and email marketing. For customer support, CRMs can serve as a knowledge base or ticketing system.

What sets open source CRMs apart from proprietary solutions is that its source code is publicly available. Developers and users can access, modify, and distribute the software freely.

The concept of open source CRMs can be traced back to the 1990s and early 2000s when open source software started gaining popularity. The rise of open source CRMs was driven by a growing demand for customizable and cost-effective solutions to manage customer relationships and the increasing awareness of the benefits of open source software.

Some of the key benefits of using a CRM system to track and store customer data include:

• having a ‘single source of truth’ to track and store contact data
• ability to automate repetitive tasks
• increased visibility into marketing, sales, and customer service processes
• ability to conduct lead scoring based on historical data
• greater sales efficiency, leading to shorter sales cycles

To learn more about CRM systems and the benefits of adoption one, read TrustRadius’ Customer Relationship Management Software description.