"For very small companies, the most compelling CRM products live in the cloud," a recent study in PCMag noted.

Yes, we're talking the Salesforce.coms of the world. And you don't even need to go that route - as good and affordable as Salesforce.com (News - Alert) itself is, its not the only fish in this sea.

You'll also want to at least take a peek at Social CRM tools, which let you "add social media components, making it easier to follow your customers' activities, interests and needs online," as PCMag says. And don't forget mobile. Never know when you might need to access customer info on the go.

You can even go free if you want - Zoho (News - Alert) has a tool offering many CRM features, and integrating with the Zoho suite of cloud applications, including e-mail and Web conferencing apps.

With Zoho, the free version is a bit limited, and can't be used by more than three users, but it only costs $12 per user per month after that. If you're a one-man shop, maybe you have a receptionist, partner or associate, and you don't have heavy demands for an online CRM system something like that would be the way to go.

You could also look into Free CRM, no points for guessing how much that costs. According to PCMag it "supports up to five users and up to 10MB of storage (which isn't a huge amount)."

It's a bit more involved than Zoho, it was named one of PCWorld's 15 best free services for businesses a few years back, as PCMag notes, and "takes some time to set up and learn, but it offers straightforward tracking of prospects, sales forecasting, and other features."

Again, if you want to upgrade your online CRM a bit you're not losing your shirt, as the Professional Editions are still fairly modestly-priced at $15 per user per month and up, and provide live support, unlimited data storage, and other features.