What Is CRM Automation? Top CRM Platforms With Automation

Your ecommerce customers can come from anywhere—online ads, pop-up shops, or referrals. Every interaction is a chance to build a lasting relationship. Managing and nurturing these connections becomes trickier, though, as your customer base expands from hundreds to thousands and beyond.

A customer relationship management system, or CRM system, simplifies this by tracking purchase history, capturing preferences, managing email campaigns, and alerting you when repeat buyers need attention. Today’s CRM tools pack powerful automation features that take the busywork out of staying in touch, giving you more time to focus on what matters most—your customers. 

Here’s more on CRM automation for ecommerce and the top tools to strengthen your customer relationships.

What is CRM automation?

CRM automation is the process of configuring your customer relationship management system to handle repetitive tasks in sales, marketing, and customer service without manual effort. Instead of typing in every new contact, updating records by hand, and scheduling follow-up emails, you can automate these tedious marketing tasks to uplevel your CRM strategy.

Thanks to CRM automation, sales teams save time as leads are automatically sorted, while marketing teams can focus on strategy instead of manually sending welcome emails. When phone calls are automatically logged and customer records update after purchases, your team can dedicate their time to work that requires human attention. Plus, with less room for human error, you’ll have cleaner and more organized customer data.

What to look for in CRM automation tools

• Easy contact segmentation
• Customizable automation rules
• Activity tracking without data entry
• Integration with existing tools
• Task assignment and reminders

The market is flooded with CRM automation software promising everything from basic email sequences to artificial intelligence–powered predictive customer analytics. Before you get caught up in marketing promises about AI features, focus on these essential automated CRM software capabilities:

Easy contact segmentation

Your system should automatically sort customers into groups based on behavior and purchase history. For example, you might tag customers who consistently buy multiple items as “high-value shoppers” to send them bundle deals and early access to sales.

Customizable automation rules

The best systems let you create your own “if this, then that” scenarios to match your unique sales processes. For example, you might enable a setting that sends a personalized abandoned cart email when a customer leaves an item in their cart for 24 hours.

Activity tracking without data entry

Your sales team shouldn’t waste time manually logging every customer interaction. When a customer opens an email, clicks a link, or makes a purchase, it should automatically show up in their contact record.

Integration with existing tools

The CRM system you choose should play well with your ecommerce platform and other business tools—from your marketing automation tools to your customer support platform. This CRM integration means when a customer makes a purchase from your store, their information and order details automatically sync to your contact database.

Task assignment and reminders

Sales reps need clear direction on who to contact and when—typically based on customer interactions. For example, if a VIP customer hasn’t made a purchase in 90 days, the system should automatically assign their account to a rep for follow-up.

Top CRM platforms with automation

1. Salesforce CRM
2. Zoho CRM
3. HubSpot Smart CRM
4. Pipedrive
5. Close
6. Insightly CRM

From household names to hidden gems, here’s a roundup of the best automated CRM software. While they all get the job done, some are built for big enterprise brands and others work better for small businesses. Some go all-in on marketing tools, while others zero in on moving deals through your sales pipeline.

1. Salesforce CRM

Salesforce CRM combines sales, service, marketing, and commerce tools into one platform, enabling teams to access shared customer data across departments. Its AI tool automates tasks like creating lead follow-up plans and closing customer service cases, while also automatically identifying sales opportunities during customer interactions with support. 

Available in both SMB and Enterprise versions, it ensures real-time updates to customer purchase data, service issues, and marketing interactions in a single record. Salesforce also integrates with many third-party apps through AppExchange, letting you connect your existing business tools and automate data flow between them. 

Pricing: Salesforce offers a 30-day free trial of its Starter package, which includes basic marketing, sales, and service features—with no credit card or software installation required. Pricing varies based on the plan, with the small business package running at $25 per user per month for the starter suite, or $100 per user per month for the Pro Suite.

2. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a customer management platform that focuses on contextual AI and workflow automation to handle sales, marketing, and customer engagement tasks. Its AI assistant, Zia, responds to voice and text commands to retrieve customer data, create reminders, and update records on the go—offering more hands-free options than most CRM tools. 

The system automatically detects sales anomalies in real time, helping you spot drops in revenue or spikes in leads before end-of-month reports. It also scans customer emails to flag mentions of competitors. Advanced workflows and no-code functions help automate lead assignments based on rep performance, while the platform integrates with more than 1,000 third-party apps to connect your existing business tools.

Pricing: Zoho CRM offers four tiers, billed annually: 

• Standard at $14 per user per month
• Professional at $23 per user per month
• Enterprise at $40 per user per month
• Ultimate at $52 per user per month

3. HubSpot Smart CRM

HubSpot CRM sets itself apart with a strong focus on marketing features, with built-in tools for lead generation and email marketing at the core of its platform. The system combines marketing automation software with CRM functionality, using chatbots and live chat to capture leads while automatically organizing and enriching contact records in a timeline view.

Its form and landing page builders integrate directly into the CRM system, letting you track which content drives the most conversions and automatically sort leads based on their behavior. While the platform includes essential tools for contact tracking and email campaigns, HubSpot divides its advanced features into marketing, sales, and service hubs, requiring separate subscriptions for full automation capabilities.

Pricing: HubSpot offers four tiers, billed annually: 

• Free tier for up to two users
• Marketing Hub Starter at $15 per month per seat (includes 1,000 marketing contacts)
• Marketing Hub Professional at $800 per month (three seats, 2,000 contacts)
• Marketing Hub Enterprise at $3,600 per month (five seats, 10,000 contacts)

4. Pipedrive 

Pipedrive takes a more focused approach than full-suite CRM platforms, centering its features around visual sales pipelines that let you drag and drop deals between stages and spot at-risk opportunities through color coding. Unlike HubSpot’s marketing-first approach, Pipedrive prioritizes sales tasks with automation tools that handle administrative work like scheduling calls and email follow-ups, along with live notifications when contacts interact with your messages. 

The platform includes built-in revenue tracking for subscription-based businesses and integrates with over 500 business apps to connect your existing tools. Its customizable dashboards and reports help track sales patterns and bottlenecks, though they’re more sales-specific than the broader analytics offered by other CRM systems.

Pricing: Pipedrive offers five tiers, billed annually:

• Essential at $14 per seat per month
• Advanced at $39 per seat per month
• Professional at $49 per seat per month
• Power at $64 per seat per month
• Enterprise at $99 per seat per month

5. Close

Close keeps sales tools simple by focusing on core features rather than enterprise-level complexity. Its CRM automation revolves around a workflow system that coordinates email, phone, and SMS outreach, automatically advancing leads through your sales sequence based on their engagement. 

Sales and marketing teams can set up Smart Views to automatically surface their hottest leads based on behavior like email opens or upcoming renewals, then use the Power Dialer to automatically call through these prioritized lists while viewing the full customer history. When on calls, the platform’s Call Assistant handles the tedious work of transcribing conversations and creating action item summaries, letting reps stay focused on building relationships.

Pricing: Close offers five tiers, billed annually: 

• Base at $19 per seat per month
• Startup at $49 per seat per month
• Professional at $99 per seat per month
• Enterprise at $139 per seat per month
• Custom pricing for teams with more than 10 reps

6. Insightly CRM

Insightly CRM strikes a balance between HubSpot’s marketing focus and Close’s sales emphasis, with standout project management features that automatically convert closed deals into project timelines. Its automation tools handle routine tasks like email follow-ups and data updates, while validation rules ensure consistent, accurate information across departments. 

What sets Insightly apart is its post-sale workflow: When a deal closes, all the customer requirements, records, and tasks automatically transfer to a project pipeline where delivery teams can track milestones. Users can create up to 100 custom dashboard cards to track performance metrics. 

Pricing: Insightly offers three tiers, billed annually:

• Plus at $29 per user user per month
• Professional at $49 per user user per month
• Enterprise at $99 per user user per month