What is CRM

Summarised like this, a CRM system sounds simple, but without proper planning and support, it’s easy for the opposite to be true.

In our experience at OpenCRM, many businesses lack a reliable, central address book. Critical contact data is dispersed across email inboxes, spreadsheets, notebooks, and even worse, people’s memories.

Running a business can be risky.

A CRM system helps reduce this risk by providing a centralised, comprehensive, and organised platform for managing customer relationships.

What are the main features of a CRM?

Every company may have a unique approach to a new CRM, but there are some common building blocks. That’s where our eDiscovery sessions at OpenCRM become extremely important, helping us both examine how different your goals might be and where they are likely similar.

Examples of goals

Some of the most common goals we see for our customers’ CRMs include:

• The status of customer relationships being easily understood by all stakeholders.
• Customer and company interactions being tracked easily, with follow-ups occurring without oversight.
• Directors, Salespeople and Finance trusting the data.

In support of these goals, CRM systems commonly provide the following features:

• Emails and/or text messages
• Transactions
• Sales history and sales forecasts
• Open opportunities, quotes, and sales orders
• Customer service requests and case histories

Given that most CRMs can track a lot of data, the best CRMs do this whilst providing insights to help you act on this data.

When does it become obvious that you need a CRM?

• Customer follow-ups slip through the cracks.
• Customer queries are transferred to multiple employees, often without still getting a successful conclusion.
• The status of customers is not understood by all involved.

When is it necessary to implement a CRM?

It is usually very apparent when a CRM is needed.

If you’re keeping track of customer relationships using spreadsheets, emails, or, worse, your memory, you are working far too hard. You are also potentially putting your business at risk.

At OpenCRM, we have found that companies don’t adopt a CRM because they believe it’s a big undertaking. But even a small, early-stage, focused effort can often have a big impact.

We can’t make miracles happen.

It won’t solve every issue. But with careful mapping of the processes you follow and sensible goals and objectives, the difference can be transformational.

What makes a good CRM vs a bad CRM?

Most people focus on the wrong criteria when it comes to CRMs.

At first glance, many products appear similar. The core difference between them is the extent to which the system maps to how your company operates.

If it doesn’t:

• People will resist using it

• The data will be bad

• No one will pay it any attention, and the weeds will grow around its edges

A good CRM is designed around your company.

The most successful projects require a flexible approach and system, but most of all;

• Remove the irrelevant

• Tailor the vocabulary

• Insert anything that is critical to your workflow

A good CRM is designed to seamlessly integrate with how you run your company, not the other way around.

Cloud-based CRMs today are a big leap forward from the CRMs of the past.

In the past, companies were required to manage their own CRM.

Now that is a thing of the past.

With all the online-hosted CRMs, the suppliers that offer these systems have taken on all the infrastructure burdens.

No more:

• Your own servers

• Your own upgrades

• Your own hardware

• Your own IT Department

With your CRM partner taking care of

• Hosting

• Security

• Monitoring

• Up to and including the maintenance of the hardware

The benefit of using these systems is a big boon to companies that are growing quickly.

Let’s talk about data sovereignty.

Many businesses in the UK appreciate their data being stored in the UK. It makes data decisions and regulatory exposure easier to manage.

Without that certainty, compliance challenges can become very complicated very quickly.

It’s all about keeping things simple.

OpenCRM’s perspective

• We simplify compliance for you by partnering with us.

• We believe that you should not have to change your processes to fit the software.

• We think that you should be able to speak to your supplier when needed.

That is why we built OpenCRM to be flexible enough to support your:

• Sales steps

• Business language

• Team processes

• You have the choice to build the system to support your processes.

We also manage the hard stuff:

• The system and the framework

• Routine tasks

• Safety and upkeep

What you have is a system that ‘just’ works and is supported properly.

What is often overlooked

In our opinion, what most people misjudge when selecting a new solution is the CRM system’s most important component.

It is not the features.

It is having and practising good data discipline.

Having this disciplined approach to the system gives you the consistency of:

• Communication

• Follow-ups

• Visibility

Once you have this, all other aspects of the system and process will fall in line.

The role of the supplier relationship

Also not often factored in is the relationship you will have with your CRM supplier.

What we believe at OpenCRM is that you should consider:

• What you pay

• What you get

• The supplier relationship

Of course, what you pay needs to fit your budget & the system must be capable of meeting your needs.

But the real long-term value comes from working with a partner you trust — one who is available, understands your business, and can support you effectively.

That’s where the biggest gains are made.

The difference over time as you grow

More customers. More processes. More moving parts – that’s just how successful businesses evolve.

Without a way to control this growth, complexity can easily become unmanageable, and growth turns into chaos.