ClickUp vs HubSpot - Can ClickUp Serve as a CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a crucial element of any business strategy. A well-designed CRM system can help companies better understand and meet customer needs, leading to increased sales and improved customer satisfaction. There are many CRM tools available on the market. In today’s post, we will focus on describing HubSpot, which is undoubtedly a powerful and very good tool, and ClickUp CRM. ClickUp as a CRM can work particularly well in small and medium-sized enterprises that do not require the advanced features available in HubSpot. Nonetheless, while reading this article, you might be surprised by how much can be implemented in ClickUp, which allows for this thanks to its flexibility.

ClickUp, originally a project management platform, has impressed with its versatility and ability to be customized to various needs, including customer relationship management. If you want to learn more about what ClickUp allows, be sure to read more articles on our blog, such as this one on how ClickUp can be called an ERP system today: ClickUp as an ERP for Small and Medium-sized Businesses. With flexible templates, custom fields, and integrations, ClickUp allows creating a CRM system tailored to the specifics of a company’s operations.

Below, in a table format, we have listed the most important features that can be implemented in ClickUp, which are also available in HubSpot. Next to each feature, we have described in more detail the value that ClickUp provides in the context of implementing CRM. Further in the article, we will list the features that might be missing in ClickUp.

Function	Description
Sales funnel	The most crucial aspect of CRM is efficiently managing the sales process, which can be excellently organized using statuses and custom fields. This allows for comprehensive analysis through dashboards or views. ClickUp’s flexibility ensures that you are not constrained, even if you have very unique requirements.
Tracking Efficiency – Dashboards and Views	This point extends from the previous one, but we highlight it separately to emphasize that this feature is available in ClickUp and works excellently. If you plan your CRM implementation well, using custom fields and statuses appropriately, you will be able to analyze everything properly and respond accordingly. You will be able to plan your team’s work to continually improve efficiency. This is all possible by sorting this data into appropriate views or dashboards. You can also create relevant charts that provide an immediate snapshot of the situation in a particular area.
Stages of Customer Lifecycle	This aspect ties into the two previous points, but it is worth mentioning separately to explain that thanks to ClickUp’s flexibility, you can customize it to fit the stages of customer service to your needs. Proper use of custom fields and statuses, along with views or dashboards, will allow you to assess the situation in the company within seconds of browsing the system.
Customer Databases	In ClickUp, you can create advanced customer records where you can store a wide variety of data. With custom fields, you can standardize all this information efficiently. Additionally, custom fields enable the creation of advanced reports and ongoing monitoring.
Contacts	If your customers have multiple contacts in different departments, ClickUp allows you to organize this information so you never lose track of the right person. Thanks to relationships, the contact database is accessible from the customer record.
Ongoing Work with Clients	With the aforementioned custom fields and the ability to create any views in ClickUp, you can quickly and efficiently tailor ClickUp to your needs. For instance, filters will allow you to select clients who have not yet been assigned a specific service to carry out additional upselling activities.
Email Communication from Customer Records	ClickUp enables sending emails directly from the customer record. For example, after the first sales meeting, you can send a thank-you email to the client with a reminder that a sales offer will be prepared within a specified time. Importantly, you can also maintain communication with the client this way. For example, if you need to confirm the color of products ordered by the client, you can send an email from the customer record, and when the client replies, the response will appear in the record. The person assigned to the task will receive a notification.
Email Templates	ClickUp allows the creation of email templates, significantly speeding up the work process. The aforementioned thank-you email can be a template that can be activated with a few clicks in the task. This is also a quality element because templates help maintain communication standards and avoid errors in the message content.
Advanced Orders and Briefs	If your company needs to handle more complex orders that require filling out a brief with the client containing even dozens of questions, ClickUp can handle this without issue. We set this up for our clients so that orders can be processed separately with access from the customer record. Again, custom fields allow for standardizing the collected data. Importantly, the brief or order survey can be generated from a form, allowing you to manage all questions, and the answers are entered into ClickUp as a task. A practical example of using ClickUp for order processing was a survey in a furniture manufacturing company containing about 50 questions organized in an online form using various custom fields such as text, dropdown, labels, numbers, attachments, etc. Designers working with our client could fill out these surveys themselves. This saved the client several hours per meeting.
Meeting Organization	There are many ways to organize meetings in ClickUp. One of them is to organize meetings in the form of subtasks, allowing you to assign people to specific meetings, set dates, and maintain a history of meetings in the form of comments.
Documentation	If you want to keep documentation such as procedures, instructions, price lists, etc., organized in your CRM, you will be positively surprised by how well this is handled in ClickUp. If your company holds regular meetings, ClickUp documents are also useful for organizing meeting notes.
Meeting Calendar	Using dates and calendar views, you can efficiently manage meetings.
Forms	This is an absolute highlight of ClickUp. You can create forms that automatically generate tasks. The form can be shared with people without access to ClickUp via a link or embedded on your website. Examples of usage: Lead Collection: Potential customers can submit preliminary inquiries, which automatically turn into tasks, and your sales department can start working on them. With automation, you can automatically assign the lead to a specific person and set preliminary task deadlines to ensure nothing is missed. Order Brief or Survey: You can design various custom fields so the client can quickly and efficiently answer all questions and even attach files. Everything turns into an “order” task that can be processed without needing additional explanations. If you work with subcontractors or intermediaries, you can create such forms for them to conduct conversations with clients. An example is designers ordering furniture on behalf of clients in a furniture manufacturing company. Do you know how much time this can save? Submissions: You can create other forms for submitting reports, as described below.
Service, Warranty, or Technical Support	While not strictly a CRM issue, we have implemented such solutions for clients to submit various topics using forms. A great example is the help desk. Clients can submit any type of issue using a form, and with custom fields, you have tasks ready for further processing.
Offers and Contracts	ClickUp itself does not have a solution for automatically creating offers or contracts but don’t worry if this is important to you. We have implemented such solutions for our clients, for example, a law firm creating automatic contracts based on data contained in the CRM. We created special integrations with Google Drive, and within seconds of “ordering a contract” in ClickUp, a ready PDF file with the contract would appear in the task.
Automations	In ClickUp, you can create various automations from the ones mentioned in the points above, like automatically assigning a responsible person, and setting a task deadline, to more advanced ones. For example, when a client decides to collaborate, the “Lead” can turn into a “Client.” You can even create production tasks from a sales order once the sales process is completed.
Team Communication	ClickUp is excellent for team communication. This is very important, for instance, if an important client requests a special order delivery date. How can this be achieved? In the task, add a comment and tag your supervisor or reassign the task, add a high priority, and get a quick response. Create various chats in ClickUp to discuss specific topics with a larger group, like a classic chat. For example, if the mentioned quick delivery date needs to be consulted with various departments like production, projects, etc., you can quickly determine if you can confirm the delivery date to the client.

Examples of What Might Be Missing in ClickUp as a CRM

Mass Email Campaigns: ClickUp lacks the ability to send mass emails as part of a campaign.
Email Statistics: There are no built-in email statistics within ClickUp.
Website Visit Statistics: While ClickUp does not provide web visit statistics, you can work around this by adding special links in list descriptions or custom fields to tools like Google Analytics or Senuto.
Direct Calls: You cannot make direct phone calls from ClickUp, although this could potentially be addressed with integrations with phone call tools.
Live Chat: ClickUp does not have a live chat feature, but again, this might be possible with external integrations.
Messenger Chat Integration: There is no integration with messenger chat services.

Summary

Deciding between ClickUp and HubSpot should be based on the specific nature of your business, key CRM needs, and budget. HubSpot offers more advanced CRM-specific features, ideal for companies looking to deeply engage and analyze their customer relationships. On the other hand, ClickUp provides greater flexibility and might be a better choice for organizations seeking a more integrated project management tool with a simpler CRM system.

A significant advantage of setting up a CRM in ClickUp is that you can simultaneously implement various other departments and processes, such as projects, HR, production, etc.