Best customer database software of 2024

For any business, client data is worth its weight in gold—but only when you can understand and use it to its full potential. That’s where customer database software comes in.

To simplify data collection and analysis, you need an organised system and powerful customer service software with robust database capabilities. In this guide, we’ll tell you exactly what you need to look for in client database software to provide exceptional service at every stage of the customer journey.

The customer database software included in this guide:

• Zendesk: Best for AI-powered CX
• HubSpot: Best database for marketing automation
• monday.com: Best for creative teams
• Salesforce: Best for enterprise sales teams
• Freshsales: Best for simple use cases
• Zoho CRM: Best for shareable databases
• ClickUp: Best for project management
• Airtable: Best for mobile sales
• Keap: Best for lifecycle management
• Agile CRM: Best for free CRM

Customer database software is a key component of customer experience platforms, enabling businesses to capture, store, manage, and analyse customer information. By integrating with systems like customer relationship management (CRM) software and e-commerce tools, it consolidates customer names, contact details, purchase history, interactions, preferences, and more into comprehensive customer profiles. Agents can then leverage these insights to personalise support and make data-driven decisions that enhance customer service.

You can find several customer information database programmes on the market today. Below, you’ll find an overview of 10 of these customer database software solutions.

1. Zendesk

Best for AI-powered CX

Zendesk provides an AI-powered customer database solution designed specifically for CX. It’s user-friendly, scalable, and grows alongside your business and customer base. Plus, with our Advanced Customer Data and Privacy Protection, businesses can trust that their data remains secure.

AI is integrated throughout our solution, including the industry-leading Zendesk Agent Workspace. Generative AI tools equip agents with key customer data and insights before interactions begin. Meanwhile, our agent Copilot guides them in real-time, providing all the information needed to respond to customers faster and more effectively.

With over 1,700 apps and integrations available in the Zendesk Marketplace, businesses can easily connect customer data across systems into the Agent Workspace. This gives agents a complete view of each customer, enabling personalised interactions and stronger relationships. AI Agents, the most autonomous bots in the industry, can also tap into customer data to offer personalised, 24/7 automated support.

Our client database software also offers AI-powered reporting and analytics tools—including Zendesk Quality Assurance and Zendesk Workforce Management—to offer real-time data on team performance and customer interactions. Plus, omnichannel reporting can deliver current and historical insights into customer behaviour across every channel, which you can quickly share with all shareholders.

Features:

• Customisable dashboard
• Centralised customer profiles
• AI assistance for agents
• Advanced reporting and analytics
• Automation
• Seamless integration
• Pipeline management
• Task management
• Enterprise-grade security
• Customer segmentation

Pricing: Plans start at $19 per agent/month, billed annually. A 14-day free trial is available.

Explore more Zendesk pricing plans.

2. HubSpot

Best database for marketing automation

Since its founding in 2004, HubSpot has been a marketing and sales platform for small and medium-sized businesses. The software’s suite of free and paid tools allows businesses to organise sales processes and contact leads within a single client database solution. Plus, it allows teams to manage contact records, log customer activity, and track historical interactions.

HubSpot Sales CRM offers users a free account option with limited features, such as restricted calling minutes, notifications, email templates, and documents per user each month. A paid version of HubSpot’s customer database software includes access to additional features like analytics, transcriptions, and playbooks, as well as 15 million contacts and company records.

Additionally, contact management software through HubSpot allows users to manage sales tasks and connect company data to contact records. Users can also use this software to maintain customer details, make and log activities, schedule meetings, and integrate with other tools.

Features:

• Customer profiles
• Automation
• Integrations
• Task management
• Pipeline management
• Scheduling
• Context curation

Pricing: Paid plans start at $15 per seat/month, billed annually. A free plan and a 14-day free trial are available.

Recommended reading: Learn how HubSpot integrates with Zendesk and how Zendesk vs. HubSpot compare

3. monday.com

Best for creative teams

Launching its first workflow management product in 2014, monday.com is now a suite of management software available to small, medium, and enterprise businesses. This company’s client database software allows teams to manage data and track customer relations in a central database. Plus, monday.com’s client management system also allows small business and enterprise teams to manage leads and automate processes.

With monday.com, businesses can track customer and lead communication, organise data, and manage ongoing and future relationships. It also lets users view data in multiple ways, from dashboards to reporting options. Additionally, monday.com’s pre-made templates allow users to create uniform workflows.

This customer database software also includes drag-and-drop options with editable columns, allowing teams to gather data about customer feedback, including product and service opinions. Plus, monday.com provides automation options for organising data.

Features:

• Dashboard
• Data reporting
• Automation
• Integrations
• Pipeline management
• Pre-made templates
• Drag-and-drop functionality

Pricing: Paid plans start at $9 per seat/month, billed annually. A free plan for two seats and a 14-day free trial are available.

Recommended reading: Learn how Monday.com integrates with Zendesk.

4. Salesforce

Best for enterprise sales teams

Salesforce created its first customer relationship management product in 1999. Today, Salesforce’s suite of products, known as Einstein 1, has software options suitable for marketing, sales, service, commerce, and IT teams, including a client database software option. This platform’s suite allows teams to choose which web-based products work best for their needs and keeps customer data in the Cloud.

With Marketing Cloud’s customer data platform, enterprise-level businesses can access centralised data from multiple sources. This platform also allows teams to engage in contact management, data reporting, and workflow management. This customer data software is also built directly into Salesforce’s CRM.

Though businesses using Salesforce can create customer profiles and work in a central database, admins must be reasonably technically skilled to set up, configure, and manage Salesforce software, requiring IT support to create a navigable system.

Features:

• Dashboard
• Customer profiles
• Data reporting
• Automation
• Integrations
• Customer segmentation
• Data mapping

Pricing: Plans start at $1,250 per organisation/month, billed annually. A 30-day free trial is available.

Recommended reading: Learn how Salesforce integrates with Zendesk and how Zendesk vs. Salesforce compare.

5. Freshsales

Best for simple use cases

Founded in 2016, Freshsales is a cloud-based business management solution offering customer database software that captures and organises user data. This software allows businesses to collect data across multiple customer touchpoints. Plus, Freshsales’ customer database software has options for sales, marketing, and customer support teams.

Freshsales can segment customers based on specific filters and conditions. It also allows users to view customer data in an activity timeline that uses AI tools to organise information. Then, teams can use Freshsales to launch multi-channel campaigns using customer context.

Teams using Freshsales can also personalise data collection and storage, but the platform has fewer customisation options than some of its competitors. This client database software also relies on basic demographic and behaviour information to build customer profiles instead of providing open-ended fields for response collection.

Features:

• Dashboard
• Customer profiles
• Data reporting
• Pipeline management
• Unified inbox
• Freddy AI

Pricing: Plans start at $9 per user/month, billed annually. A free plan and a 14-day free trial are available.

Recommended reading: Learn how Zendesk vs. Freshworks compare.

6. Zoho CRM

Best for shareable databases

Zoho CRM offers a customer database solution for small businesses and enterprises. With workflow and tool options, this company offers centralised management options for various pieces of customer data, including customer service history. Zoho CRM also uses chatbots to answer customer questions and collect customer information, which is organised and managed by its customer database software.

With Zoho's customer information software, businesses can organise everything they collect into sections based on the context of each piece of data, such as geographic location, subscription level, product use, and other parameters. Zoho’s customer database software can also integrate with its CRM to build a single service department that works across various channels.

Zoho also allows users to import existing data and combine it with new data, housing customer information in a single place.

Features:

• Dashboard
• Data reporting
• Automation
• Integrations
• Pipeline management
• Mobile app
• Inventory management

Pricing: Plans start at $14 per user/month, billed annually. A 15-day free trial is available.

Recommended reading: Learn how Zoho integrates with Zendesk and how Zendesk vs. Zoho compare.

7. ClickUp

Best for project management

Founded in 2017, ClickUp is a productivity software company serving small businesses and enterprise customers. This platform offers multiple dashboard views—including Kanban boards, lists, and tables—which allow teams to view customer data in various forms. With ClickUp’s dashboard widgets, teams can also organise customer information into categories based on data context.

With ClickUp’s CRM and customer database software, teams can access a single hub for customer onboarding and outreach. This customer service database also allows businesses to keep all customer communication in a centralised place, allowing individual users to access past, ongoing, and upcoming interactions. Plus, this platform allows teams to tag and track customer exchanges and data.

ClickUp also offers client database software features like lead management, reporting and data analysis, and pre-made CRM templates for teams to use. Businesses can also use ClickUp to create customer service database systems, which allow teams to analyse customer behaviour and interactions.

Features:

• Dashboard
• Customer profiles
• Data reporting
• Automation
• Integrations
• Pipeline management
• Account management
• Customer workflows

Pricing: Plans start at $7 per user/month, billed annually. A free plan with limited features is available.

Recommended reading: Learn how ClickUp integrates with Zendesk.

8. Airtable

Best for mobile sales

Airtable is a centralised management system businesses use to build connectivity applications. With this platform, businesses can track workflows, roadmaps, campaigns, applicants, and other projects or people. Plus, teams can use Airtable to connect multiple projects, allowing task management and collaboration to occur in a centralised space.

With automation options, Airtable allows teams to manage customer data concerning purchase history, work orders, and other interactions. Airtable’s customer data collection also lets teams keep dashboards updated, informing users of real-time changes, projects, and progress. This customer information software also allows businesses to integrate with third-party applications, existing tools, and other business processes.

Features:

• Dashboard
• Automation
• Integrations
• App building
• AI tools

Pricing: Paid plans start at $20 per seat/month, billed annually. A free plan is available.

9. Keap

Best for lifecycle management

Keap is a suite of CRM and marketing tools, including a customer service database. Focused on small business automation and CRM software, Keap gathers, organises, and tracks customer data, which allows users to automate common processes throughout a company.

Keap’s CRM houses its customer database software, so a customer relationship management subscription grants users access to data automatically. This platform’s software also includes access to payment processing, email marketing, and sales pipeline management options. With Keap, small business owners can build automated data management processes, track customer activity and history, and view customer data reports.

Keap’s customer database software also includes lifecycle automation. This process allows Keap software users to build and use customer journeys based on collected data and context. Plus, landing pages and collection forms allow businesses to gather and house customer details in one place.

Features:

• Customer profiles
• Data reporting
• Automation
• Pipeline management
• Calendar management
• Capture forms
• Email and text tracking

Pricing: Plans start at $249 per month for two users and 1,500 contacts, billed annually. A 14-day free trial is available.

10. Agile CRM

Best for free CRM

Agile CRM is a sales enablement, marketing automation, and customer service platform that provides customer database software. With this platform, users can collect data, organise information, and communicate in a single space. Businesses using Agile CRM as customer data software can also access the Cloud and a mobile app.

With single-page contact management, milestone tracking, and appointment scheduling, teams can manage centralised projects with Agile CRM. The platform also allows companies to use omnichannel marketing options to reach customers, including social media, landing pages, emails, and other forms of communication. And with feedback options (like customer surveys), teams can gather data directly from the source.

Features:

• Dashboard
• Automation
• Integrations
• Pipeline management
• Smart views
• Cloud-based

Pricing: Paid plans start at $9.99 per user/month, billed annually. A free plan is available.

Robust customer database software should assist businesses in effectively managing and analysing customer information. When you’re evaluating customer database software, keep these key considerations in mind:

• AI and automation: AI quickly analyses vast amounts of customer data to identify patterns, trends, and preferences, providing insights so you can tailor offerings accordingly. Look for software that uses pre-trained AI like Zendesk, which is trained on over 18 billion real interactions.
• Low total cost of ownership (TCO): Consider licensing fees, implementation costs, maintenance costs, switching fees, and transparent pricing when evaluating a software’s TCO.
• Ease of use: Easy-to-use software minimises training costs, increases user adoption, and enhances agent satisfaction, improving business outcomes.
• Scalability and agility: Ensuring your software can adapt to your growth and changing needs enables your business to increase data capacity and improve service speed in rapidly changing markets.
• Enterprise-grade security: Customer database software stores sensitive data, so investing in enterprise-grade security reduces threats from unauthorised access and other security breaches.

By selecting customer database software that boasts these features and capabilities, you can empower your team to build customer-centric strategies, improve productivity, and maximise your investment.