Streak

For my product-based small business, I have a number of sales streams where I cultivate leads. Streak allows me to manage these leads right inside Gmail so I can quickly view all of our correspondences. Since most of my business is done through email, Streak creates a perfect bridge. Specifically, I can create a new box for each lead and categorize it under a specific pipeline (sales stream). Within the pipeline, I can create different sales stages and view all of my leads in one place along with data about our interactions (days since last interaction, days in stage, etc) so I can prioritize my outreach efforts. Within each lead, I can view all of the email correspondences and make notes on the lead. An additional feature in Streak is email open tracking so you can see if your leads have opened your emails. It shows up automatically and displays the times of each open. That's a huge value just to know if your emails are going through. All of these features are completely free and just a simple add-on, which frankly is hard to believe and so valuable for my business!

I really love Streak--for a free program, it offers so much! If I could add anything, I would love to be able to have all correspondences with a specific email address automatically assigned to the same lead box.

It sits right there, in your Gmail inbox, ready to spring into action when you need it. Streak is an ingenious way to deal with CRM and is easy to remember to deal with, as your email is always open anyway. No need to switch tabs or use multiple different solutions for one task.

There were a few issues I found with Streak. Sometimes it takes ages to load and when I'm trying to follow up on an email, write a note for my team, and have three more tasks sitting in my head, the last thing I need is for my CRM to freeze out for 30 seconds. The other thing I noticed is that, every time I would load any other email address in the same browser, Streak would send me a notification that it should be enabled. It would be great if the Chrome extension would recognize which email address is open and not bother me when it is not the one that it should be managing.

I like the fact that there is a very low learning curve for your Gmail users. The UI is simple and intuitive. New users can start using it really fast.

The features of the mobile app are missing a lot of functionality. This means that essentially you have to manage everything from your desktop Streak interface.