On this page
What a CRM is
CRM stands for customer relationship management. A CRM is a shared record of everyone your business deals with, plus every enquiry, quote, call and follow-up, so the whole team sees the same picture and nothing depends on one person's memory.
The core parts
- Contacts and companies. Who they are and how to reach them.
- Leads. New enquiries, where they came from and who owns them.
- Pipeline. The stages a deal moves through, from enquiry to won or lost.
- Tasks and follow-ups. Reminders so quotes don't go cold.
- Reporting. How many leads, from which sources, and what converts.
How leads get in
The most useful CRMs fill themselves: website forms, emails and WhatsApp enquiries are captured automatically instead of being typed in. That is usually the first automation worth building.
Off-the-shelf or custom?
Many businesses are well served by an existing CRM product. A custom CRM makes sense when your sales process doesn't fit those products, when the CRM needs to be part of a client portal or operations system, or when you are paying for features you never use while missing the ones you need.
Making a CRM stick
- Keep the fields to what the team will actually fill in
- Automate capture so nobody retypes enquiries
- Review the pipeline in a regular meeting
- Measure where leads come from and what turns into sales
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