Recently, I had the honour of contributing to Capsule’s article ‘An honest guide to choosing CRM’.

In preparation to this I wrote down a few bulletpoints that I feel are quite relevent, however, not often talked about:

• Establish who is going to use the CRM and on what capacity. It might become quite pricey if you have 30 volunteers that all need to use it to update their own individual project. Especially, as this would require Growth plan (for different user permissions).

• Identify tech savviness. Capsule is not difficult to use, however, I still come across businesses and organisations who struggle to understand how Capsule operates. Sometimes, we tend to take it for granted that we understand tech (albeit no-code), but not everyone do.

• Do you have team members that require specific access (e.g. disabilities). Especially, if it evolves around how information is being processed. It is not about the font size, it’s about how ‘linear’ or ‘non-linear’ information is. Linking contacts with organisations, with opportunities and with projects isn’t always such an easy way to understand. Essentially, taking into consideration how the information is displayed.

• When choosing a CRM, it needs to be right for the entire business and team. Everyone needs to be on board and understand the value when bringing in a CRM. Sometimes changing or introducing a new CRM might be a catalyst that will bring out some internal team grudges. Be ready to have the difficult conversations and manage them on time. Any change is difficult, especially when it is a central system for everyday work.