Glossary
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
A CRM is software that gathers all your information and interactions with customers and prospects in one place, so you can manage sales, contacts and relationships in an organized way.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. In practice it's the program where you record who your customers are, what they bought, when you last spoke to them and where each open deal stands. Instead of keeping this information scattered across emails, spreadsheets and the memory of individual salespeople, you keep it all in one place that the right people can access.
A CRM typically tracks contact records, the history of communications, the quotes you've sent and the status of each sales opportunity. Many CRMs add reminders, to-do tasks and reports that show how many deals are in progress and how much they're worth.
There are off-the-shelf CRMs (subscription-based) and CRMs that are built or adapted around a company's specific needs. The right choice depends on how far your sales process differs from the standard and on how much you need the CRM connected to the other tools you already use.
FAQ
A spreadsheet is fine for a handful of contacts, but it becomes fragile when several people share it: you end up with different versions, duplicate data and no reliable history. A CRM is built to be shared, tracks every interaction and reminds you of what needs doing, without the risk of overwriting a colleague's work.
