Know what you need before a CRM vendor tells you what you need.
For businesses considering CRM but still working out what should actually improve, what the system needs to manage, and whether CRM is the missing system at all.
“We want to improve sales” is a valid reason to look. It is not yet a CRM requirement.
You may want better follow-up, clearer forecasting, more consistent sales behaviour, stronger existing-customer management, less dependence on individual people, or simply one place to see what is happening.
Those goals can lead to very different system requirements. Some are naturally CRM problems. Some depend on product, quoting, delivery, project or finance systems. Some need a business definition before software can represent them at all.
The review separates the desired business change from the system you are considering buying.
Seven decisions before vendor comparison.
The output is designed to be used in CRM demos, vendor conversations and internal scoping.
What should actually be better once CRM exists.
Whether the business is primarily pipeline-led, relationship-led or hybrid.
What the CRM genuinely needs to manage.
What CRM should own and what it only needs to see from elsewhere.
Definitions or data structures that need to exist before CRM can represent them reliably.
Business-level requirements to take into demos and implementation scoping.
Proceed to selection, fix a prerequisite first, pair CRM with another system, or do not buy CRM yet.
The thing you want CRM to show may belong somewhere else.
A useful customer view can depend on objects the CRM should not own.
Accounts, contacts, interaction context and relationship state.
Opportunities, renewal risk, expansion, next action and changing probability.
What was sold can be visible in CRM while product identity is governed elsewhere.
Commercial teams may need status without turning CRM into project management.
Financial context may matter without duplicating the accounting ledger.
CRM cannot make inconsistent customer, product, stage or commitment definitions consistent by storing them.
“We need CRM to show what every customer has bought.”
That sounds like a reasonable CRM requirement.
But if products are named differently in quotes, delivery and finance, the missing prerequisite is reliable product identity. CRM can display purchase history only after there is something stable to connect to the customer.
The review stops at that boundary. It does not turn into a full investigation of why product management is inconsistent.
Small enough to do before procurement gets momentum.
No CRM admin access is needed to start.
I review the business before the session.
Company, offer, commercial model and the systems you already use.
We work through the decision.
A 75-90 minute session starting with what you expect CRM to improve, not a feature checklist.
You get a written CRM Decision Brief.
Scope, boundaries, prerequisites, vendor requirements and a clear next decision.
It is deliberately narrower than Unsnag's diagnostic work.
If the review discovers that the problem is larger than software selection - for example, Sales, Delivery and Finance do not agree what a customer or commitment means - I record that as a blocker.
I do not turn a £300 CRM review into an open-ended business diagnosis. If you want to investigate why the wider business is producing a particular result, that sits in the Commercial Diagnostic. If the main issue is that the customer story cannot be followed across existing systems, see the Revenue Visibility Review.
Before you book.
Can the answer be that we should not buy CRM?
Yes. The review is useful only if “not yet” or “not for this problem” are possible conclusions.
Do you recommend a specific CRM?
The review defines what the system needs to do before vendor comparison. A shortlist can be a separate next step once the requirements are clear.
What if we have already chosen a CRM?
If implementation has not started, the review can still test the scope. If the CRM is already in use and the problem is adoption, reporting, forecasting or missing commercial visibility, start with the CRM problem map.
What do you need from us?
A short description of why you started considering CRM, a list of the systems you currently use, and the people who need the new system to work. No prepared requirements document is expected.
Decide what the system should do before you start comparing what vendors can do.
Start with a free 30-minute call. I research the company before we speak.