Building a CRM system is a significant investment. Get the planning wrong and you waste time and money. Get it right and you transform how your business works. Bespoke CRM Custom CRM
This guide walks through the planning process step by step. Follow these steps and you will build a CRM that actually fits your business.
Step 1: Define Your Goals
Start with clear goals. What do you want your CRM to achieve?
Learn how we helped a client with their membership management system.
- Reduce admin time by 50%
- Improve customer response times
- Increase sales conversion rates
- Better reporting and insights
- Eliminate data duplication
Be specific. Vague goals lead to vague results. Measurable goals help you track success.
Step 2: Map Your Current Process
Understand how you work today before designing how you will work tomorrow:
- How do leads come into your business?
- What steps do you take to convert them?
- How do you manage existing customers?
- What information do you need to track?
- Who needs access to what data?
Document everything. Include the messy bits. Include the workarounds. This is your starting point.
Step 3: Identify Pain Points
What slows you down? What causes problems?
- Manual data entry that takes too long
- Information scattered across multiple systems
- Duplicate records causing confusion
- Poor reporting that requires manual work
- Integration problems between tools
These pain points become your CRM requirements. Solve these and you solve your biggest problems.
Step 4: Define Your Requirements
Turn your goals and pain points into specific requirements:
- Data fields you need to capture
- Workflows you need to automate
- Reports you need to generate
- Integrations you need to build
- User roles and permissions
Be detailed. The more specific you are, the better your CRM will fit your needs.
Step 5: Choose Your Approach
You have three main options:
- Off-the-shelf CRM with customisation
- Bespoke CRM built from scratch
- Hybrid approach combining both
Choose based on your requirements. Simple needs suit off-the-shelf. Complex needs suit bespoke. Mixed needs suit hybrid.
Step 6: Plan Your Implementation
Break your CRM build into phases:
- Phase 1: Core functionality and data migration
- Phase 2: Advanced features and workflows
- Phase 3: Integrations and reporting
- Phase 4: Training and optimisation
Each phase should deliver value. This reduces risk and keeps momentum going.
Step 7: Prepare Your Data
Clean data is crucial for CRM success:
- Remove duplicate records
- Standardise formats and naming
- Fill in missing information
- Validate contact details
- Organise files and documents
Start this early. Data cleaning takes longer than you think.
Step 8: Plan for Change
CRM implementation changes how people work:
- Communicate benefits clearly
- Provide proper training
- Address concerns openly
- Celebrate early wins
- Support people through the transition
Change management is as important as technical implementation.
See how our CRM solutions have helped similar organisations plan their builds.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How long should planning take? – Allow adequate time for thorough planning. This saves significant time later.
- Should we involve staff in planning? – Yes, they know the daily challenges better than anyone.
- What if our requirements change? – Build flexibility into your plan. Requirements often evolve during development.
Talk to SMXi
Ready to plan your CRM build? Get in touch and let us help you create a plan that delivers real results.
