There are many CRMs on the market, but they all have one thing in common – they’re a little difficult to use. I’ve tested several and narrowed down my top three. If you’re looking for something that is easy to learn, can be customized the way you want it and doesn’t cost a fortune this is the list for you!
In this guide, we review the Best Crm For Life Coaches, free crm for coaches, crm for health coaches, and best crm loyalty programs.
Best Crm For Life Coaches
CRM is a very important tool for any business, especially if it’s in the field of personal coaching. Life coaches have to keep track of their clients and their progress, so that they can provide the best possible service with the information that they have. I’ve tried out several different CRMs and narrowed down my top three choices based on ease of use, customer service and price. Here’s what I found:
Best CRM for Life Coaches
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, a system that helps companies manage their customer relationships.
It’s important to have a CRM because it helps you keep track of the people who are interested in your services and products, so that you can provide them with the best possible service. In this article, we’ll explain how CRMs work, discuss what makes a good one for life coaches and help you pick out the best CRM for yourself.
Free Trial
A free trial is a great way to test out a program before you commit. It usually lasts for about two weeks and gives you access to the full functionalities of the software. The price applies if you decide to sign up for the paid version at any point during your free trial.
There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to trials:
- You can only get one free trial from each company; if you do this with multiple companies, they may cancel your account or prevent future access entirely.
- If there isn’t more than one payment method available, then most likely there won’t be any cancellation options for you—so make sure that’s okay before signing up!
- If there are no cancellation options or cancellation procedures listed on their page (or if they’re not made clear), then contact them directly before starting anything so that they can help answer questions about their policy on cancellations as well as other concerns related specifically toward working with those tools/services provided by each vendor involved.”
Integration
Integration is an important feature for CRM software. It allows you to connect your CRM with other platforms and processes, whether it’s customer service software or social media accounts. You can also integrate your CRM with payment processors, which is helpful if you’re selling digital products or services (like coaching).
Integration with other software means that if a customer buys something from you online through WooCommerce, their information will automatically be imported into their contact record in the CRM so that they’ll appear as a new lead. If they pay through PayPal, then any payment information will likewise be imported into the lead record so that you’ll know how much they paid. This way there’s no need to manually enter all of this information yourself when it becomes available elsewhere because integration makes sure that everything stays in sync across multiple platforms at once!
Customer Service
Customer service is important for any business, but it’s especially important for Life Coaches. It’s vital that you feel like your coaching CRM is there to help you succeed—and not just by providing a great platform and easy-to-use tools.
Getting in contact with customer service can be daunting: Do I email? Call? What information do I need to give them? How long will I have to wait before someone responds? These are all valid concerns, but here are some tips that will make contacting customer service as painless as possible:
- Check the Help Center. The Help Center has answers to common questions, plus links to in-depth articles and videos on key features so you can learn more about Crm software without having to wait on hold or spend hours on the phone with a representative (who may not know everything).
- Search through past conversations using the search bar at the top of your screen (see below): This way, you’ll find out if anyone else has had similar issues with your CRM before so you don’t have to waste time explaining yourself over again!
Integrations
While you can use the Zoho CRM platform to manage all aspects of your business, it’s not a smart idea to store all your data in one place. You should consider using integrations with other apps and services so that your data is accessible from multiple places.
For example, if you use your email provider’s contact management service (like Gmail), then you could also link that account with Zoho CRM so that new contacts are added automatically without having to add them manually when they sign up for something via email.
In addition, integrations between Zoho and third party apps allow users more freedom when creating automated workflows and automating tasks such as sending newsletters or reminders about upcoming events.
Ease of use
Ease of use is a crucial factor for you. If your CRM isn’t easy to use, it’s not going to provide the functionality that you need and you may end up feeling frustrated.
Here are some things to look out for when evaluating ease of use:
- Intuitive interface: Does the CRM feel intuitive? Does it have a simple interface that makes sense to navigate?
- Simple navigation: How easy is it to find what you’re looking for? Is there a way for users with basic knowledge of the system but not much experience with this type of software (i.e., learners) to get started on their own?
- Easy learning curve: Will users need extensive training before they can start using your CRM product, or is there enough documentation available so that most users can figure out how everything works on their own in just one or two days’ time?
Price
Price is a factor for many people when choosing a CRM. You can get a good one for free, but it won’t have all the features you need. You can also get one for $10 per month, or one for $100 per month.
Activity Tracking
When it comes to activity tracking, you’re probably most interested in three things:
- Calls
- Emails
- Meetings and tasks
Task Management
It’s important to note that Task Management is a feature of the CRM and not the other way around. A great CRM should help you manage tasks, not create them.
Task management is an important part of your business, as it can help you plan your day, delegate tasks to your team and make you more productive.
Call Recording
If you are a life coach who runs your business with the help of a team of people, then call recording is one feature that will be important to you. This allows you to listen back on calls and get an idea of how client interactions are going.
Call recording can be included in certain CRMs as standard, but not all CRMs include this feature. If it’s important for your business, make sure that the CRM you choose has call recording capabilities built in as standard or offer this as an add-on service.
free crm for coaches
While most CRMs offer basic information such as a client’s contact information and basic interaction history, coaches who want to impact their student’s lives need something that provides more detailed information on student engagement.
Specifically, you need a solution that will provide visibility into what a student has completed and where they get stuck in addition to basic CRM functionalities such as meeting scheduling, contact information, and call/email history.
Therefore, we compiled a list of the best CRMs for coaches.
1. upcoach
Upcoach is an all-in-one coaching platform complete with a substantial CRM that provides detailed information on each student’s engagement history. Specifically, you can see:
As you can see, upcoach is designed for coaches who are focused on improving the experience of their coaching program – not necessarily those who want to just close more clients.
So if you want to improve course completion rates and NPS scores, upcoach might be a great fit.
As it’s an all-in-one platform, you can also host your course material, accountability tracking, meeting scheduling, and CRM in a single place. This means you only have to pay for one software instead of bolting together a CRM solution, a course platform (like Thinkific), a scheduling tool (like Calendly), and a habit tracker or accountability tool.
Below we’ll dive into some of the unique features upcoach offers, or you can book a demo and see it for yourself.
Inside Upcoach’s CRM
When you first log into the upcoach CRM, you’ll immediately see that it offers a wealth of detailed information for each student. First, you’ll have access to the student’s contact information, time zone, and bio.
However, the real magic of upcoach’s CRM is the detailed engagement data.
Track Completed To-Dos
As upcoach is an all-in-one platform, the coach can assign clients to-dos at the end of each lesson (a worksheet, uploading a document, etc.), and the to-dos automatically appear in their course feed.
As the coach, you can open any student’s profile in the CRM and see a detailed list of every to-do that has been crossed off. This makes it easy to quickly identify clients that are falling behind.
Track New Habits
Your goal as a coach is to get your clients to take action, and a key element of taking action is setting and tracking new habits.
For example, let’s say the student wants to lose weight and the new habit is going to the gym three times per week. In this case, have them log their gym sessions in the habit tracker. By logging their habits, the changes are more likely to become permanent as you can hold them accountable to their own promises.
Schedule Meetings
Rather than paying for a tool like Calendly to schedule meetings with clients, you can schedule meetings with clients directly inside the upcoach platform. You can also take meeting notes and store them in the platform for future use.
View Completed Worksheets and Lessons
Another issue with most courses is that while you can offer worksheets, coaches never know how much of it has been completed as most clients just make a copy of the worksheet and complete it on their own time.
However, upcoach offers Smart Documents, which are interactive documents embedded into the upcoach platform. Clients can edit them inside the platform, and they can’t be copied or taken off the platform. This ensures you have full visibility into client engagement. To view overall worksheet completion at a glance, log into the CRM, click on the Smart Docs tab, and you’ll see a list of every assigned worksheet and the percentage completed.
View All Student Messages in One Place
For professional coaching businesses with multiple coaches or even just a small team consisting of a coach and tech support, having multiple people messaging the same student is a waste of resources.
That’s why you can quickly check if someone has already responded to a student by looking in that student’s message tab.
If you want to see for yourself how the upcoach CRM can help your team be more efficient, try it out today.
Who is upcoach For?
Upcoach is designed for coaches that prioritize improving the client experience. Upcoach users tend to prioritize metrics like NPS scores, completion rates and other indicators of client success. These coaches also value habit tracking, accountability, and similar features that assist in improving their target KPIs.
Pros
Cons
2. HoneyBook
Honeybook is a cloud-based client management software that offers a CRM designed to automate client sales and administrative tasks. You can schedule meetings, invoice clients, manage documents, and message clients directly inside the platform.
Non-technical coaches love it as it’s easy to set up, has a large community, fast support, simple workflows, and a clean interface that’s easy to navigate.
When a lead comes into the platform, Honeybook asks how they found your coaching business and tracks the most effective channels. To respond quickly to common client inquiries, you can use pre-built email templates, or build your own custom email templates.
The customizable digital brochures in Honeybook are also handy as you can create one with FAQs and send it to people that want more information on your program.
Once a client is ready to sign, you can send them a contract either with your own contract or a contract template made by Honeybook.
Although Honebook has some bookkeeping tools, most users prefer using the Quickbooks integration because its native features are relatively basic. It also has a built-in calendar so users can schedule calls directly inside your platform.
Honeybook does not support payments via Venmo, PayPal, and Stripe, and it lacks other major integrations such as Dropbox, Microsoft teams, and Salesforce.
Unfortunately, Honeybook is not an all-inclusive solution as it provides no means of tracking the client’s progress through to-dos or habit tracking. Therefore, you’ll have to combine it with another course platform such as Thinkific or Teachable (or you can just use an all-in-one solution like upcoach).
Key Features
Who is HoneyBook for?
HoneyBook is ideal for individual coaches that want to automate their sales process. It’s very intuitive, making it easy for non-technical people to figure out and use. However, it doesn’t offer any features after the sale, so you’ll have to integrate it with a course platform or project management software once a person has signed up.
Pros
Cons
Pricing Plans
Honeybook has three pricing plans as follows:
The starter plan costs $9 monthly with access to all features and up to six months of concierge support.
The unlimited monthly plan costs $39 per month. It allows access to all features, six months of concierge support, unlimited transactions, and an unlimited number of team members.
The unlimited annual plan costs $390 with everything in the unlimited monthly plus a 17% savings.
3. Bitrix 24
Bitrix24 is an online workspace that offers a CRM solution for small businesses and coaches. It is designed for larger coaching businesses that require employee management tools, such as time tracking and project assignment capabilities.
You’ll also be able to store all of your video calls and other coaching content within the platform so that you don’t have to purchase a second project management software.
Bitrix24 also makes it easy to schedule meetings, share files, and create discussions with clients and other team members.
From a sales perspective, Bitrix24’s CRM provides detailed lead contact information and can trace the source of any lead (social media posts, Google organic search, YouTube, and Facebook advertisements). This makes it easier for you to identify channels that work and double down on them.
Inside the software, the kanban user interface makes it easy to move clients through the program. Unfortunately, you still have to manually track student progress and there isn’t really a way to automate to-do tasks. However, you can create notifications for various milestones and activities.
Key Features
Who is Bitrix 24 for?
This CRM software is for coaches with a sizable team that need an all-in-one solution with more advanced capabilities. Ideal customers are experienced coaches who know how to navigate CRM software as it can be a little overwhelming at the start. In addition, most beginners don’t need the more advanced features. .
Pros
Cons
Pricing Plans
Bitrix 24 offers four pricing options as follows;
Free plan: This allows users to test the software at no cost
Basic plan: Priced at $30 per month, this allows up to 5 users and offers simple collaboration tools plus customer support service
Standard: It costs $60 monthly and offers advanced collaboration tools and increased user capacity of up to 50 users.
Professional: Cost $120 monthly; this plan allows unlimited users and unlocks all the features.
4. Satori
Satori is a CRM software built specifically for coaches. Within the platform, users can automate onboarding processes, schedule meetings, process payments, send questionnaires, design packages, sign contracts, and securely maintain client accounts on one easy platform.
Essentially, it’s similar to Honeybook in that it helps relieve a lot of the administrative stress of a coaching business.
You can also use their email integration to link your email account and keep track of your contacts and emails in a single place. You can also use the automatic follow-up feature to re-engage prospects that don’t respond.
Clients also love it as they can schedule sessions, review agreements, access billing history, monitor their progress, and update their profiles.
Satori also automates your billing system with scheduled invoices and subscription payments. All payments are then entered into the metrics dashboard to give a broad overview of your business’s performance.
Key Features
Who is Satori for?
Satori is for one-on-one coaches who are just beginning their coaching business and looking for simple CRM software to help them grow their businesses. If you already have project management software and don’t want an all-in-one platform to host your course or coaching resources, it’s an excellent option. While you won’t receive detailed engagement information, it’s still an excellent option for coaches that just want something simple.
crm for health coaches
If you’re a health coach who wants to grow your practice online, you don’t need to get stuck in a world of spreadsheets and emails! There are software products specifically designed to support health coaches in growing your business.
Before choosing a software tool to support your health coaching business, you’ll want to get really clear on WHY you want to use the tool. Do you need help with booking appointments? Tracking client contracts?
Checking in with your clients and tracking their progress? Assigning action items and getting feedback? Be clear on the areas where you specifically want support and automation for your coaching, so you can assess which coaching tools are the best for your business!
Paperbell is a scheduling, payment, and client management tool in one, designed just for coaches. Your clients can schedule their appointments, sign contracts, access digital downloads, and pay (including payment plans, ongoing subscriptions, group coaching, and multi-session packages), in one online hub. Paperbell handles all the admin, so you can focus on working with clients!
Read our full review of Paperbell here, then sign up to try your first coaching client for free!
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Start Your Wellness Business – from scratch!
2. Teachable
While not exclusively for health coaches, Teachable is an essential tool if you want to create online wellness courses and programs for your clients. Setup online courses complete with PDF downloads, audio and video files, and let Teachable do the work to deliver that content to your clients.
3. That Clean Life (Meal Planning App)
Don’t struggle to make meal plans for your clients – That Clean Life has it taken care of! Hundreds of chef-developed recipes with ingredients lists and beautiful photos, regularly updated and ready to use with your clients. You can select specific recipes or use their pre-designed meal plans to save time.
4. Moxiee
Moxiee gives coaches a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to track their leads and opportunities, as well as manage their existing clients. It includes a client-side mobile app for your clients to track their results, and also a private messaging system to keep in touch with your clients between sessions.
Acend is a complementary product for the popular weight loss app Lose It! Not only do you gain access to your client’s metrics and progress on weight loss and activity, but you also have a private messaging ability to communicate between sessions and give them the encouragement they need to reach their goals.
Healthie is a management platform for wellness professionals offering everything you need for a successful coaching business. It was specifically designed with health coaches in mind. It is beneficial for maintaining client records, scheduling appointments, handling billing and your calendar, and meeting with clients.
FREE CHECKLIST
Start Your Wellness Business – from scratch!
Meal Garden is another software tool designed for health coaches who sell meal plans and nutrition programs. You will find thousands of recipes, you can add your own recipes, and you can adjust meal and health plans according to the needs of each specific client you are coaching. You will also find grocery list templates and more so that your clients are informed and know exactly what they need to purchase at the store to stay on track.
With software by MBody360, you can create your own health plan for your health coaching programs and then have it directly delivered to your client. Having this level of personalization allows you to create stronger relationships with your clients. It also allows you to monitor and track different metrics to make sure everything is on track.
NutriAdmin health coaching software provides you with essential tools and resources to grow your health coaching business. You will find meal plans, billing, reports, questionnaires, and so many more helpful and convenient features. It is the ideal software for a health coach who is looking for a bit more organization. It is best for health coaches that already have an established practice and are already coaching clients.
If customer and coaching management aren’t your best skills and you are finding it difficult to handle appointments and other coaching business that needs to be done, then Shore’s Coaching Software is what you need to get that upper hand. It provides you with an online calendar that allows for automatic synchronization so you can keep all of your online bookings, appointments, and customer information organized and easy to access.
The Benefit of Software for a Health Coaching Business
Two of the more important aspects of any health coaching business are client management and meal planning. These two aspects of your business will also most likely take up the most time and the most resources to accomplish. That is where this software comes in and makes things easier.
The software we have listed above can help you streamline everything from creating your meal plans to managing your clients and appointments. You will be able to keep up with the increasing demand for health coaches while staying up to date and organized and miles ahead of the competition.
Do you use health coach software to manage and grow your business? What’s your favorite app? Let us know in the comments!
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best crm loyalty programs
Customer loyalty software describes any computer or web-based tool used for tracking and strengthening customer value after the point of purchase, and the category may include customer engagement software, advocate marketing software, loyalty programs, and gamification.
The customer loyalty market is changing, both in form and in function. When you consider customer loyalty, you probably think of a loyalty card. Further, you think of a points-based system in which customers accrue credit for each purchase. In these systems, customers receive credit in a brick and mortar store or through online purchases. This credit acts as a secondary type of currency the customer redeems for rewards, usually after they reach a predefined number of points.
While retailers find success with both the physical loyalty card and point-system, a different type of loyalty market is emerging. This market responds to the new type of interaction happening between brands and consumers. Since customers engage with retailers in many online spaces, the majority of interactions consumers have with an organization will not result in a purchase.
That means the best customer loyalty programs now have to extend past sales.
For instance, a visitor who frequents a website to read a blog post may not be far enough down the sales funnel to make a purchase, so incentivizing a purchase would be a waste of resources. However, rewarding consistent readership with an offer to download exclusive content or with recognition via social media are both methods for keeping these customers engaged. This type of interaction turns the concept of purchase-based loyalty on its head, and changes the way businesses think about their customer relationships.
Today’s buying process is complex, and raising retention rates post purchase often requires more than sending coupons to past customers. Loyalty happens across a range of actions — often centered on the consumption of content.
This type of interaction is a response to consumer expectations, but it typically requires integrating a software platform dedicated to rewarding customers. This guide details the features of customer loyalty software, examines how businesses can measure ROI, and discusses the continued use of purchase-based loyalty programs.
Market overview
Compare customer loyalty software, by category
Features
Rewards customization
To properly reward non-purchase behavior, businesses will need to structure rewards that create user loyalty. These rewards can vary from access to unique or limited-time content to gamification elements such as special statuses or badge icons. Robust loyalty program software also allows businesses to customize their rewards based on the context of the interaction as well as the type of loyalty behavior the business wants to promote. The best customer loyalty programs should make distributing rewards intuitive for business users, making oversight of the rewards program straightforward.
Loyalty game elements drive users to engage in specific behavior, so we often see gamification in loyalty programs. By structuring loyalty campaigns into levels or tiers and rewarding users for engagement, organizations can create experiences that play on a user’s sense of progress and increase their motivation to participate.
Companies can also take advantage of loyalty rewards with time-limited campaigns like contests, especially when software provides intuitive customization of limited-time loyalty events.
Omni-channel accessibility
While online interactions drive many of the new innovations in customer loyalty software, some leading programs offer businesses omnichannel capabilities. This means customers access loyalty rewards and features through three main channels: desktop, mobile, and in-store.
Even though customer expectations have increased for online interactions, they have not lessened their in-store expectations, so companies must track customers across all available channels to get a full picture of the customer’s actions. Providing consistent interactions across digital and in-person interactions is also known as a seamless experience.
For example, if one of your customers receives coupons in his email, an omnichannel or seamless experience would allow this customer to open the email on their smartphone and scan the coupon in-store.
Of course, mobile access may not be relevant for programs that feature a physical card, though it’s becoming more common for card-based programs like Pirq to take the form of a digital app that customers also scan through their phone.
Integration
Organizations that implement loyalty functionality on their site must consider how their new loyalty program software will integrate with legacy systems. To function properly, the loyalty program software will need to connect via an API to content management systems like WordPress. Otherwise, your installation will require heavy support from the software vendor, which could delay the launch date and make future software changes difficult.
Also consider social media integration, which makes it easier for customers to log in with their social profiles and for your company to distribute rewards for targeted behavior through social channels. You can also use integrated email programs to distribute coupons and other rewards to your customers.
Similarly, look for loyalty solutions that integrate with your customer relationship management system (CRM). With a customer loyalty and CRM system integration, businesses organize their customer information and track the behavior of each customer wherever it happens.
Brick and mortar businesses can’t ignore digital customer loyalty and should look for point of sale systems that integrate with their loyalty solutions. Card-based products like Belly feature unique hardware for customers to scan their loyalty card, while others will allow scanning straight into the POS system. Advantages exist to both: the latter may be more user friendly for your employees and customers while the former collects more detailed information about buying habits.
Analytics
Common to both card-based and web-based customer loyalty software, analytics features enable businesses to gain greater insight into the buying behavior of customers. You can then cross reference this information with demographic data to develop customer profiles that better target your customers. The type of data you gather will vary depending on the type of platform you deploy.
For example, web-based loyalty management software captures data on how customers act when they visit your site, when they mention your brand on social media, and when they make a purchase. Card-based systems gather a narrower set of data — mostly buying behavior and demographics — though loyalty software vendors like Perkville can sometimes gather more robust data.
Small business customer loyalty software
Customer loyalty is especially important for small businesses, who work hard to gain every customer and want those customers to keep coming back for repeat business. Loyalty programs and software are a great way to keep customers coming back. They’re also a great way to reward customers for their repeat business and referrals.
Just like any software, customer loyalty programs for small businesses can range from analog punch cards to intense gamification programs with mobile apps and built in marketing features. When just starting out with loyalty, we recommend finding a software that does the most basic loyalty program you envision for the company, and then build up from there. Consider looking for any of these features:
Top customer loyalty software for small businesses
Belly
Belly provides custom loyalty programs for small businesses where companies can choose their rewards, track their customer growth and engagement, and market directly to existing customers. The system lives separately from the company’s POS terminal, and customers check in every time the visit the store. Dedicated marketing automation and email marketing tools provide companies with marketing choices right where all of their loyal customer data is stored. And for security-conscious customers, Belly’s hardware communicates with Apple Passbook, Google Wallet, and comes enabled with iBeacon for near-field data transfer.
The Loyalty Box
The Loyalty Box is customizable customer loyalty software built to serve brick and mortar or ecommerce retail spaces. This rule-based software boasts nearly infinite customizations based on the types of loyalty programs your company is interested in running. And the loyalty programs can be run through the POS, on the company website, on a mobile app, or through Facebook.
Badgeville
Badgeville by Callidus Cloud is an enterprise rewards and gamification system built on customized rules. Badgeville works for both internal and external loyalty and engagement. The system is highly flexible, and companies can set up their own guided experiences to lead customers and employees through training, engagement, and loyalty tools. Social integrations drive engagement rewards that go beyond simple badge awards. Use the API to deploy Badgeville to nearly any app or software.
Vend
Vend is a retail and small business POS that can be downloaded directly to an existing iPad and used to expand brick-and-mortar into the ecommerce space. Customer loyalty features include the ability to produce gift cards and store credit, segmented customer lists, exports to email marketing software, and the custom Vend Loyalty program. Vend Loyalty can automatically add customers to your loyalty program or you can ask customers to sign up via email. A customer’s reward balance is easily visible on the pay and checkout screens so employees always know when a customer is eligible for rewards.
Square
Often considered as the go-to small business POS software, Square leads the market with their sleek user interface and handy hardware. The Square Loyalty program comes as an add-on to the POS program, where customers can sign up by entering their phone number. Use those phone numbers to send text marketing messages, and reward customers based on how much they spend. Customer spend and usage statistics are gathered in analytic reports that help you better understand your customers’ buying habits.
Customer loyalty software for enterprises
Enterprise business loyalty software will cover many of the same features available to small businesses, but expect to see a higher price tag to complement the greater customization and larger scope of the business. Look for these features to differentiate an enterprise loyalty program software:
Before you start looking for the perfect customer loyalty software for your business, plan out the types of features you know you’ll take advantage of immediately and which you can live without. This will help you decide between all the options out there.