How CRM Systems Work

Quick answer: A CRM is one shared record of every customer, enquiry, quote and follow-up, so nothing depends on one person's memory.

The core parts

• Contacts. Who they are and how to reach them.
• Leads. New enquiries and where they came from.
• Pipeline. The stages from enquiry to won or lost.
• Follow-ups. Reminders so quotes don't go cold.
• Reports. Which sources bring in sales.

The best CRMs fill themselves

Website forms and emails should arrive in the CRM automatically, so nobody types enquiries in twice.

Off-the-shelf or custom?

Many businesses do well with an existing CRM product. Custom makes sense when your sales process doesn't fit, or the CRM needs to live inside a client portal or operations system.

Making it stick

• Keep the fields to what people will really fill in
• Review the pipeline in a weekly meeting

See our custom software service.