The customer relationship is at the heart of the success of many businesses. You want leads to have great interactions with your business that inspire them to convert. You want existing customers to feel heard and have their needs met. To do that, your team needs detailed information about each customer, and that information needs to be meticulously organized so everyone can access it.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is the best tool for providing the organization you need to build strong customer relationships. Some businesses cobble together a CRM from spreadsheets and folders full of notes, relying on every team member to keep the shared documents organized. Others choose the off-the-shelf software that gets closest to what they need while staying within a budget they can afford.
Creating custom software will always be the best way to get exactly what you need. The need to enlist the help of programmers, the exorbitant cost, and the significant time investment required have kept a lot of businesses from going that route. However, with the help of no code technology, it’s now possible to build fully customized software without having to code any of it, without the high cost, and without having to wait months for results.
You can start with a CRM template in Glide. By starting with a template, you get the core functionality you need. From there, you can make your software as complex — or as simple — as you like. We suggest enlisting the help of your IT team to build an app that fits your business needs and integrates easily with all the other tools you use at work.
Now let’s take a look at what your CRM looks like in use.
Start with a basic inventory management software template
Start by opening this CRM template on your desktop browser, smartphone, or tablet.
Preview on your desktop: Click preview from the template page to see the app in your desktop browser. You can toggle between the desktop and mobile views from the “Try Template” button at the top. Follow along to see the app in action.
Preview on your mobile device: Alternatively, you can scan the QR code below from your tablet or smartphone to see what your app will look like on mobile.
This shows you what the app will look like in action while your team is using it. It contains generic information that you can replace with your existing business data once you begin customizing the template. You’ll be able to build more complex features into your app later, but this template gives you a solid foundation with the features that are most essential to have in a CRM.
Navigating the template screens
Contacts
The first page of the template is a searchable contact database. Contacts are displayed as icons with just a photo, name, and company, making this screen much quicker to navigate than a spreadsheet crammed with information.
When you do need more details, you can click on a contact’s thumbnail to open up a detailed page with all their information. From here, you can see their contact information, any private notes your business has, and a list of all active, closed, and prospective contracts. There are even buttons to let you call or email them right from the app.
Companies
Next is the companies page that displays all the businesses you have a relationship with. You have the option to sort these businesses as needed, whether by industry, contract type, or whatever other system makes sense for your business.
Opening up the profile of a company shows you the current contracts with that company and their value. It also shows you who at your company is taking point on that contract and gives you a list of current contacts at that business. Separating companies and contacts helps you to keep track of multiple POCs at a single company.
Contracts
The contracts view shows an overview of all active and completed contracts. From the detail view, you can see the active dates and value of that contract and even open up a PDF of the contract itself. Below you can see the detailed contract view on desktop and on mobile. The app has responsive design, so it will automatically adjust to the user’s device without you having to design two separate apps. Below, you can see the same screen on desktop and mobile devices.
Users
The last page is the user page. This is where you can see the profiles of all your coworkers. It provides you visibility into who owns which contracts so you can more quickly ask questions and collaborate with your teammates to drive customer success.
Customize your app to suit your unique needs
Your next step is to click the Copy in Glide button at the top right corner of your screen. This clones the fully working template file into your Glide account. Copying the template is entirely free. From within the Builder, you can begin to add your data and customize the features of your app.
Import your own business data
Your first step will be to add your business data to your app. If you are already using a spreadsheet to store your customer data, you can simply connect that data source directly into Glide, and it will populate your app with that information. Your existing spreadsheet will sync with your app, keeping all your information up to date.
You can also store data right in your software with Glide Tables or Big Tables for enterprises with large volumes of data to manage. You can store or connect photographs, scans, and documents along with business details so that your users have access to all your customer data in one place.
Set up security and privacy controls
Glide as a platform keeps your CRM data and app secure and GDPR compliant, but there are additional steps you can take to make your app even safer. You can set row owners that control who can see or edit certain data (this also helps ensure no one accidentally edits the wrong data) and enable single sign-on to secure access to your CRM.
Create a lead tracking pipeline
To gain more granular visibility into your leads, you can create a lead tracking pipeline right in your app. Add a new page for your pipeline in your navigation, and then add a choice component to each contact’s profile for the stages that are applicable to your business.
This CRM and pipeline template uses a dropdown menu on each lead’s profile so that users can move leads along the pipeline as they make progress. A dropdown is more appropriate here because their pipeline has many stages - lead qualification, demo or meeting, negotiation and commitment, closing phase, post-purchase, and proposal.
This real estate leads template, on the other hand, has a simpler pipeline. This app has three buttons that let users set the pipeline stage for each customer. The structure of your app and your customer profiles can be fully customized so it suits the way your business works and makes it as intuitive as possible for your team to use.
Track your progress with charts
If you want to track financial performance within your CRM, you can do this by adding one or more chart components to your app. These let you display data visually in various ways, like pie charts and line graphs. Your team can use these charts to quickly gain insight into the state of your sales performance and pipeline.
Add AI-powered features
You can add AI-powered features to your app that smooth your team’s workflow significantly. An image-to-text AI feature could let users quickly scan business cards and automatically enter their text into a new customer profile, making it easy to add contacts from a conference or event. You could also use that feature to scan invoices or contracts, making it easier to search their text in-app.
Integrate your CRM with your other software
Your team uses a lot of other software in their work, so your CRM will be more powerful with integrations to link it to the other tools they’re using. Connect it with your email app so your team can send emails to customers directly from the app. You can even automate routine tasks like following up on leads and scheduling emails.
Host more effective events by connecting your event ticketing software to your CRM. Event attendees can be automatically added to your sales pipeline, and your team can follow up. Connect your app to your project management software to help organize tasks around sales and lead generation. Your app should make organizing your work as easy as possible so your team can focus on building client relationships.
Start building your next app
Once you have a custom-fit CRM and your IT team is comfortable building in Glide, there are many more opportunities to spin up additional apps to help smooth your team’s process and support your business.
If following along with this step-by-step guide was intriguing, but you want to see someone build an app from scratch on video, watch our build-along webinar on custom CRM creation.
No code software building like this is a powerful way to create a better workflow and business infrastructure for your entire company.
Take a look through some customer stories to get inspired for your next app build.
