A CRM system is software that a company uses to keep track of clients, deals, communication history and staff tasks. In terms of a sales team's work, this is what a CRM system is: a way to see who is handling a particular purchase, what has been agreed with the client and what action comes next.
The business owner opens a client record: “Paid”. Yet today, the same client was promised an estimate for another order. The status is correct, but it refers to the previous purchase. In this illustrative example, which is not a RENTROP case study, the company has recorded the client and their orders in a single record. Now staff have to search through correspondence for the new request, even though the software has already been bought and staff are entering information into it.
Adding a mandatory “Next step” field is not enough here. The client has several purchases happening at the same time, each with its own deadlines, people involved and promises. While all this is mixed together, one neatly completed record hides the work on another purchase.
I believe you should sign off on CRM based on whether the team can continue a specific deal without a verbal recap from the salesperson. That is why it is worth understanding what to store in it, how to link records and what work to assign to the head of sales.
CRM in simple terms
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management — managing relationships with clients. In Russian, it is pronounced “see-ar-em”. The name describes an approach to working with buyers, while a CRM system is the software that supports that work.
To start with, it is enough to distinguish four things:
- Client — a person or company you work with. This record needs information shared across different purchases: contact details, company details and the history of the relationship.
- Contact — a specific person the salesperson communicates with. When selling to a company, there may be several contacts: an engineer discusses requirements, a buyer discusses terms and an accountant discusses documents.
- Deal — one separate purchase you are trying to bring to an outcome. It records what is being bought, the stage, the person responsible and the outcome: the purchase went ahead or was declined.
- Task — an action for a member of staff with a deadline. Send an estimate, get the missing dimensions, agree a meeting date. A task relates to a specific piece of work, rather than simply sitting next to the buyer's surname.
The links between them are what make CRM useful. From the deal, a salesperson can go to the right person's record, see the latest email and open the task for the promised estimate. The client record retains other purchases, including completed ones. Section names vary between systems; these are the links you need to preserve during setup.
You may also come across the word “lead”. It means a potential buyer or an initial enquiry that needs to be reviewed. A separate lead record is needed where there is work in its own right before a deal: finding out what the enquiry is about, whether it matches what you offer and how to get in touch. If the team immediately starts discussing a specific purchase, there is no reason to create an extra stage just for the sake of the term.
CRM and clients
Let us return to the example. A service company repaired a client's equipment and received payment. Now the same client is discussing annual servicing. One buyer, two purchases. The completed repair stays in the history, while the servicing gets a separate deal.
This prevents two mistakes. If you overwrite the old record with a new order, you lose a clear history of the repair: what was agreed and how the work ended. If you create a new client each time, their purchases will be spread across different records. The head of sales will see several unfamiliar buyers instead of a relationship with one company.
You also need to link the people to the purchase. The client's engineer has agreed the work to be done — that does not yet mean the buyer has agreed the contract terms. Recording each participant's role and the issue they deal with is enough. Then the salesperson will not ask the accounts department to decide what the servicing should include, or take technical approval to mean the client is ready to pay.
Who is responsible within your team must also be clear. One person handles the whole purchase; others help with individual tasks. If a service specialist prepares the estimate, that does not remove the salesperson's responsibility to send it to the client by the promised deadline.
And a refusal relates to the purchase for which it was received. The client turned down annual servicing but continues to order repairs. Ending the entire relationship with the company because of one refusal means losing the distinction your database is meant to preserve.
A sample record that lets you continue the work
Below is a deal record from the same illustrative example, with its details filled in. The dates, quantity of equipment and terms were made up to explain how the record is structured. This is a task for setting up the system, without reference to any particular software interface.
- Client: a manufacturing company that has already ordered a one-off repair.
- Subject of the deal: annual servicing of two machines. The previous repair is linked to the client as a separate, completed deal.
- Person responsible: the salesperson handling services.
- People involved on the client's side: the engineer agrees what the servicing includes; the buyer reviews the contract and terms; the accountant receives the documents after agreement.
- Stage: the work to be done has been agreed; the proposal is being prepared.
- Last confirmed fact: on 12 October, the engineer sent the equipment list and confirmed what work was needed. The email is attached to the deal.
- Promise to the client: send the proposal to the buyer on 13 October by 12:00.
- Next task: the service specialist completes the estimate on 13 October by 10:00; the salesperson sends the proposal by 12:00.
- What is still unknown: who on the client's side gives final approval for the annual contract. The salesperson asks the buyer about this when sending the proposal.
- Linked materials: the equipment list, the engineer's email and the current version of the estimate.
From a record like this, another salesperson can see both the history and the unfinished work. They do not need to ask the client again about information already sent. At the same time, the record is honest about what is unknown: the person who approves the contract still needs to be identified.
There are two deadlines here: the internal deadline for preparing the estimate and the deadline promised to the client for sending it. If you record only the second, the salesperson will discover the estimate is missing at the very moment they should be sending it. CRM is useful because it allows these actions to be linked in advance. The head of sales decides who responds when the first deadline is missed.
Do not turn this example into ten mandatory fields for every business. Some of the information is already in linked records. Make information mandatory where an employee would make a mistake or be unable to move the purchase forward without it. If the answer to a field is unknown, it is better to leave it blank with a task to find out than force a salesperson to choose a random value just to save the record.
How CRM differs from a spreadsheet, email and accounting software
A spreadsheet is useful for lists and calculations. Email stores correspondence. Accounting software records documents and business transactions. CRM links work with a buyer over time: what was discussed, where things stand and who acts next.
These systems do not have to replace each other. CRM needs access to payment confirmation if the salesperson's next step depends on it. But there is no reason to move your accounting into it just to make the record complete. Before setting up data exchange, agree where the team gets payment confirmation and who is responsible for discrepancies.
A small team with infrequent, simple orders can manage with a shared spreadsheet. A reason to move to CRM arises when specific losses appear: correspondence is disconnected from the order, staff ask the same questions again and promises sit in personal calendars. The number of salespeople alone is not a reason to switch.
For the business owner, this means deciding how much work to do. First, the head of sales identifies the action that currently gets lost between systems. Then a specialist suggests how to link the data. This gives the change a specific purpose: for example, showing payment beside the order so the salesperson can pass it on for fulfilment in time.
How to start using CRM without transferring the entire archive
Start with one type of sale and active deals. Keep the old database; make transferring the full history a separate task. Otherwise, the launch will drag on as records of buyers the team is not currently working with are cleaned up, while current promises stay in messaging apps.
First step — describe one purchase from enquiry to outcome. The head of sales lists the salesperson's actions and events on the client's side. Stages are needed to mark differences that change the work that follows. “Call made” on its own says little: during the conversation, you may have agreed requirements, received a refusal or simply found the right person.
Second step — decide what is recorded and who records it. The salesperson records the agreement after an interaction. The head of sales defines the criteria for each stage and what to do when a deadline is missed. The person setting up the system is responsible for making sure information is saved and available to the right staff. Conversations, emails and enquiries will only be added to the record automatically if the connections are set up; the team enters everything else itself.
Third step — remove duplicate manual records of the same information. If a salesperson keeps the old spreadsheet and is given CRM as well, they have a second place to report. The business owner will need to authorise dropping the duplicate form after checking the required data against each other. Otherwise, the requirement to enter information into the system competes with the requirement to submit the old file.
Access is also part of the launch. For each role, decide which records staff can view and change. Separately, appoint someone to grant and revoke access. The history of work with a buyer must stay within the company when an employee leaves.
A task for the head of sales before CRM sign-off
The business owner needs a demonstration of how it works using a clear example. The number of transferred contacts and completed fields is not enough. Here is a task you can use; two working days is the time allowed to prepare the demonstration, not a promise to implement the entire system.
Within two working days, prepare a demonstration of one active deal. It must show the client, current purchase, past orders, people involved, latest confirmed event and next commitment with a deadline separately and clearly. Show how another salesperson receives a task and finds the materials they need without calling the person previously responsible. Use a test record to demonstrate a missed deadline: where the head of sales sees it and who they assign the action to. If something is missing, state what still needs setting up, who will do it and when it will be ready. Separately, state which previous manual report we will remove after this.
During the demonstration, the business owner signs off on three outcomes:
- The employee finds the right purchase without confusing it with completed orders from the same client.
- The next person responsible understands what has been promised and what they need to do from the saved information.
- A missed deadline is brought to the attention of the named head of sales, who assigns the next action.
If an employee cannot find information, improve how it is stored and accessed. If the information is there but its meaning has to be guessed, the head of sales clarifies the recording rules. If the missed deadline is visible and no one reviews it, make this a regular task for the head of sales. Buying a new system to deal with all three cases at once is too expensive a way to avoid identifying the cause.
When CRM becomes an expensive archive of records
An archive has a history; an active deal also has an outstanding commitment. A warning sign is treating the date when a record was last changed as the date the purchase moved forward. A salesperson updated a comment and the record looks fresh, but the client is still waiting for the promised estimate.
The head of sales needs a list of purchases with an overdue action and a list of purchases with no action assigned at all. These are different lists: the second will not appear if you only look at overdue tasks. For a separate analysis of why daily work on these deals stops after implementation, see the article “Why CRM does not help increase sales”.
When deals have already built up in amoCRM or Bitrix24, RENTROP offers a CRM audit with AI ROP to review them: it helps identify stalled deals and reviews available calls and correspondence alongside the record. AI ROP only reads data; people remain responsible for changes and tasks.
The “Paid” status closes a specific purchase. The next promise to the same client must have its own place, person responsible and deadline. Then, when the client gets in touch again, the team continues from the agreed point, and the business owner does not have to piece that agreement back together for them.