Custom CRM development
When your CRM stores contacts, but the real customer workflow happens somewhere else.
I build owned CRM and customer workflow software for businesses whose account handovers, quoting, onboarding or fulfilment rules cannot be modelled safely in a standard CRM.
Problem diagnosis
The CRM is not always the problem. The shape of the work is.
- Sales notes, account rules and fulfilment detail live outside the CRM in spreadsheets, email and side conversations.
- Custom fields have become scratchpads because the system cannot represent sites, contracts, orders, renewals or exceptions cleanly.
- Reports are hard to trust because different teams mean different things by customer, deal, order or active account.
The commercial damage is usually slow handover, duplicated admin, missed follow-up and customer history that cannot be trusted when decisions are made.
Responsibility
One person has to understand the workflow, not just configure fields.
I take the work from diagnosis through architecture, build, testing, documentation and handover. If a mainstream CRM is enough, I will say so; if it is not, the build starts from the customer process rather than a software menu.
What I would build
The first useful version would be concrete.
- 01
A customer model that matches the business
Prospects, accounts, sites, contacts, contracts, orders, renewals or service states are modelled in the way the business actually uses them.
- 02
Sales-to-operations handover states
A sale can create the right checks, tasks, owner assignments and exception flags without relying on a meeting or forwarded email.
- 03
Role-specific screens
Sales, operations, finance and account management can see the same customer reality without all editing the same fragile fields.
- 04
Imports and integrations where they matter
The systems that must stay can feed or receive the records they need, with explicit handling for awkward cases.
- 05
Reports based on agreed definitions
The page, pipeline or account report is built from terms the business has agreed, not from whatever happens to be filled in.
Fit filter
Probably right, probably not.
Probably right when…
- Your CRM is central to revenue or service delivery.
- You have already tried configuration and the work still leaks out of the system.
- Customer-specific rules, handovers or integrations are commercially important.
Probably not me when…
- You mainly need CRM setup, training or licence advice.
- A standard HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho or Pipedrive implementation partner is the right answer.
- You want a product comparison or a dashboard-only tidy-up.
First step
Start with diagnosis, not a big commitment.
The first useful conversation is about the customer lifecycle and where the current CRM stops fitting.
£150 per hour plus VAT where applicable. Two hours minimum for new clients. No retainer, no minimum term, no lock-in. You own everything I build.
Useful things to send before a call
- A field export or screenshots from the current CRM
- Two or three real handover examples
- Reports people currently argue about
- The systems that must stay connected
Objections
Questions this page should answer before you email.
Should we customise our current CRM instead?
Often, yes. If the existing CRM can safely hold the process with configuration, that is usually the better first answer.
Can existing customer history come across?
Usually the first job is to decide which history is authoritative, which fields matter, and what should be cleaned before anything is imported.
What if the diagnosis says not to build?
Then that is the finding. The first two hours produce a written note you can use even if the answer is to keep the product you have.
Next step
If this looks like your problem, send me the awkward bits.
The useful first email is short: what is breaking, what product or process cannot handle it, and what working would need to mean.