Before you buy a new CRM, is there a CRM you're missing?
«We need a CRM» is a common phrase in a growing business. However, a new system isn't always what's missing. Often, the problem is simply that no one can find what has been agreed upon with customers. Here's how to figure out what you need before you buy anything.
The company has grown rapidly. Projects have multiplied, people are being hired quickly, and one day someone realises they have no idea what has been agreed with an important client. The offer is in one salesperson's inbox. Follow-up was promised over the phone and never written down. And when the project manager left last year, most of what he knew about the clients disappeared with him. These are growing pains. Completely normal for a company in a hurry.
Then the thought comes that «We need a CRM. That's often true. But before you compare SuperOffice, HubSpot, and half a dozen others, there's one question that will determine what you should buy: Do you actually need a CRM, or are you lacking the connection between customers and the work being done for them?
What a CRM actually solves
A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a system for keeping track of customers, contacts and sales. Who you're speaking with, what has been agreed, and how far along a sales opportunity has progressed. It's the address book and the sales log, combined in one place everyone can see.
It solves a real problem. In business after business that we encounter, customer communication lies in private inboxes. Emails, quotes, and agreements that are never shared because they only exist with one person. Knowledge becomes dependent on the individual. A CRM tidies that up. But most pure CRM systems stop there. The sales phase is covered. The rest of the customer relationship is not.
"Vi trenger et CRM" often means something else
When we ask what people are struggling with, it's rarely about a contact list. It's about that Nothing is talking to each other. The project manager doesn't know what was agreed during the sales process, and no one has an overview of the contracts or suppliers linked to the customer.
For most, the job only begins once the agreement is signed. This is where many CRM systems stop keeping pace, and this is where the gap lies. A recurring pattern in the companies we speak to is that they have a CRM, but it has no control over contracts, no overview of subcontractors, and no history of what was actually delivered. Sales are covered. Contracts, suppliers, follow-up, and documents live a life of their own in other systems, or nowhere at all.
Another clean CRM, or customer data linked to the work?
Many growth companies already have a CRM, or parts of one. The question is rarely «no CRM» versus «new CRM». It is usually this:
Buy another clean CRM
Connect customer data to the work
Most CRM systems aren't bad. SuperOffice and HubSpot are among the best at what they do. But A new CRM solves the sales problem and simultaneously adds another silo. For a company already struggling with systems that don't share data, it can exacerbate the problem it's meant to solve. Another platform to log in to, another system to learn, and another place where information can get stuck.
Want to see what this looks like in practice?
When the entire organisation at Izomax works in the same system, it's not just easier to keep track of where information is stored – it's also simpler to share it internally.
Three signs you're not missing a CRM
1. You enter the same information in multiple places
The same customer exists in the spreadsheet, in the financial system, and in the project tool. If something changes, it must be updated in all locations. Then the problem isn't that you lack a CRM, but that the systems don't talk to each other. A new CRM won't solve that. It will just be another place to keep updated.
2. The customer history stops when the agreement is signed
You know what was sold, but not what was delivered, what deviations occurred, or what the customer complained about last year. A pure CRM rarely follows the customer into the project. Then you don't need more sales logging. You need sales to follow through into delivery.
3. The most important thing lies with individuals
When someone leaves, goes on sick leave or takes parental leave, customer knowledge disappears with them. A CRM helps, but only if people use it. Is the challenge that information never leaves the inbox, or is it the workflow that needs to change, not just the system?.
Questions to ask before you buy
What is the problem, sales or context?
Write down the three last times something «slipped up» with a customer. Was it about a lack of follow-up in the sales phase, or about sales, project, and contract not communicating with each other? The answer determines whether you need a CRM or a platform.
Does the new solution replace systems, or run alongside them?
A new tool that replaces three spreadsheets is a gain. A new tool that becomes system number six is a cost. Count the silos you have today.
Does it cover contracts, suppliers and follow-up, or just sales?
Ask to see how the system handles what happens letter signing. If the answer is «it doesn’t, but it integrates with another system», you have found the next silo.
4. Does the team already work in Microsoft 365?
If customers, emails and documents already live in Outlook, Teams and Sharepoint, the barrier to entry is lowest for a solution that builds on this, not one that requires everyone to learn a new platform from scratch.
5. What happens to the data when a key person leaves?
The best system is the one that makes the business less Person-dependent. Test every option against this one question: If the seller leaves tomorrow, what is left?
This is how CRM fits in with the rest of Business Online
Business Online is not a pure CRM. CRM is one of the modules in Microsoft 365, and it shares data with projects, contracts, and quality. In practice, it looks like this:
A salesperson registers a sales opportunity for a customer. If you win the job, it becomes a project for the same customer, with the contract linked to it. Deviations and documents are stored in the same place. When someone half a year later wonders what was actually agreed upon, they go into the customer and see the entire history: the offer, the project, the contract, the correspondence. This also includes the email that was previously buried in a private inbox. And since everything resides in Microsoft 365, there is no new platform to learn, only Outlook and Teams as the team already uses them.
For some, a clean CRM is the right choice. But if the problem is that Sales, project and contracts operate separately, buying yet another standalone system is of little benefit. The gain then is to consolidate them. See how others have solved it in our customer stories.
FAQ
Not necessarily a separate, standalone CRM. What you need is an overview of customers, deals, and follow-ups that isn't dependent on individuals. For many small and medium-sized businesses, this is best solved by having customer data linked to projects and contracts, rather than by buying yet another system.
A CRM handles the sales phase with contacts, opportunities, and follow-up until the deal is closed. A project system handles the delivery afterwards. The problem for many growing businesses is that the two don't communicate, so customer history is broken just as the deal is signed.
Many people do this, but it makes knowledge dependent on the individual. Communication remains in private inboxes and is shared to a small extent. This works up to a certain size, but becomes a problem as soon as more people need to collaborate on the same customer, or when someone leaves.
Not necessarily. The question is whether the pure CRM solution addresses the entire problem, or just the sales part. If contracts, projects, and supplier follow-up still exist in separate silos, the benefit is connecting customer data to the work, not replacing the sales tool for its own sake.
See how customer, project, and contract are interconnected
Instead of another silo, see how Business Online's CRM connects sales to the work that follows.
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