Choosing the right CRM for your small business can feel overwhelming. With so many options boasting endless features, it’s easy to get swept up in flashy tools that sound impressive but might not actually serve your needs. When I was putting together the comparison framework for CRM Game Plan, I realised one thing: small businesses do better with simple tools rather than complicated ones.

Here are five CRM features most small businesses need and three you can probably skip (at least for now):

5 CRM Features Small Businesses Need

1. Contact Management

At its core, a CRM is a tool to manage your customer relationships—and that starts with contact management. A good CRM should allow you to store customer details, track interactions, and easily find key information when you need it.

Why it matters: Keeping all your customer details in one place saves time, reduces errors, and ensures you deliver a consistent experience every time you interact with a customer.

What might make you different: You deal with organisations, not just people, perhaps with complex relationships. This can get complicated in some industries like healthcare, and your CRM probably needs to reflect that complexity because your team needs to understand and handle it too.

2. Task and Follow-Up Reminders

How many times have you thought, *”I’ll follow up with that lead tomorrow,”* only to forget? A CRM with task and reminder functionality ensures you never miss an opportunity, whether it’s a sales lead, a customer support follow-up, or a project deadline.

Why it matters: Follow-ups are critical for growth, and an organised CRM keeps them on track, so nothing slips through the cracks.

What might make you different: You seldom deal with individual customers, and you need automated communications, not individual follow-ups. The other case is if you are a project/service organisation that already has this under control. Adding another system of taks management might be a recipe for disaster!

3. Email Integration

Your CRM should integrate with your email system so you can send, receive, and track emails directly within the platform. Many CRMs even allow you to set up email templates for commonly used messages. Some CRMs will also offer calendar integration, so you can keep track of meeting requests or even have meeting bookings handled automatically.

Why it matters: Email integration saves time by centralising communications and providing a clear history of interactions with each contact. This is especially true if multiple team members contact customers. However, look carefully at how this integration works—not all CRMs do it well!

What might make you different: Again, if you tend not to communicate with customers individually, you might need a marketing CRM more than individual email links.

4. Reporting and Analytics

Even a simple CRM should offer basic reporting tools to help you track performance. Analytics help you make informed decisions, whether you’re monitoring sales, tracking marketing efforts, or measuring customer engagement.

Why it matters: Numbers don’t lie. Reports and dashboards give you insights into what’s working and where you can improve.

What might make you different: Honestly, I think everyone needs this one—unless you already have a sophisticated reporting framework that you plan on linking your CRM to!

5. Bulk emails to customer segment

Consistent communication with your customers is critical. If they don’t hear from you, they will forget you!

Why it matters: Being able to send a newsletter, end of year greetings, or even specific offers to groups of previous customers creates enormous value in the long term.

What might make you different: You work with very few customers, so you prefer to communicate with them individually, rather than as a group.

3 CRM Features Small Businesses Don’t Need (Yet)

1. Complex Automation

While automation can be a game-changer, many small businesses don’t need advanced workflows or complex triggers right away. These features can add unnecessary complexity and take significant time to set up.

Why you can skip it: Start simple. Focus on mastering the basics before diving into advanced automation.

What might make you different: If your business focuses mostly on automated communications, having automated email sequences might be important out of the gate. However, keeping these simple is still a good idea!

2. Enterprise-Level Integrations

Some CRMs offer integrations with dozens of enterprise tools, like advanced accounting systems or custom APIs. While these are useful for large organisations, they’re often overkill for small businesses.

Why you can skip it: Chances are, you’re not running a multi-department operation just yet. Stick to the integrations that directly support your current workflows.

What might make you different: There are critical links and workflows for your type of business. For example, if you are running online courses, you would expect to have some links between the customer records in your CRM and the records on your course platform so that you don’t need to jump between systems to respond to customer questions.

3. Advanced Customisation

Custom fields, dashboards, and workflows sound great in theory, but they often add unnecessary complexity for small teams. In many cases, a CRM’s default settings will work just fine.

Why you can skip it: Save time and money by starting with what’s already available. You can explore customisation options as your business evolves.

What might make you different:  If you have some very specific important processes or information that MUST be in your system. For example, you might have a very specific sales flow that your team needs to follow, or there is some specific data you need to capture; for example, in Australia, you might need to store additional information for NDIS clients.

Final Thoughts

The key to choosing a CRM as a small business is focusing on what will make your day-to-day life easier without overloading yourself with features you don’t need. Simplicity is your friend.

If you’re not sure where to start or how to evaluate what’s right for you, my course, CRM Game Plan, walks you through the entire process step by step. From understanding your needs to avoiding costly mistakes, it’s designed specifically for small business owners like you.

Ready to make your choice simple? Check out the CRM Game Plan course right now!

What features have you found most (or least) useful in a CRM? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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