PIPELINEGuide
Checklist: Prepare for CRM integration
What you should clarify before requesting quotes for CRM integration. The more of this is clear beforehand, the more reliable the quotes will be.
Before deciding on CRM integration, a brief assessment is worthwhile: which workflow costs the most time, who will maintain the system later, and whether the necessary content even exists. The complete checklist is below.
01 — Checklist
Clarify before the first quote
- What should improve? In one sentence, no jargon.
- How will you know? One number that should change.
- Who decides? One person, not a committee.
- What budget is available? A range is enough — it makes quotes comparable instead of arbitrary.
- By when? And what the deadline depends on.
- Which systems are involved? And who has access to them.
- What do you already have? Content, data, preliminary work — this reduces the cost.
02 — Participation
What we need from you
- A contact person who can make decisions — not just forward them.
- Access to the affected systems, in time and not on launch day.
- Real examples from daily business — the messier, the more useful for testing.
- Two to four hours for coordination, distributed over the project duration.
- An answer to the question of what success means. Without it, nothing can be assessed afterward.
03 — Questions
Questions you should ask
- What happens if the project becomes more expensive than estimated — who bears that?
- Who owns data, access, and, if developed, the source code?
- What does operation cost in the second and third year?
- What does the documentation we receive at the end look like?
- How would you measure whether the project was successful?
- Is there a case in which you would advise us against this?
04 — Questions
Frequently asked questions
How do we ensure it gets maintained?
By making as little maintenance necessary as possible. Everything that can be created automatically is created automatically. What remains manual work is reduced to what is actually needed in daily operations.
What does the training look like in practice?
Using your real data, not sample datasets. The team practices the workflows it needs daily and receives a brief written summary afterward as a reference.
Can we simply import existing Excel lists?
Yes, that's the standard when starting. Before import, duplicates and inconsistent spellings are cleaned up, otherwise the new system just inherits the old mess.
Which CRM is the right one?
The one your people actually use. For small businesses, a lean system that gets filled automatically is almost always better than a powerful one that stays empty. We recommend based on workflow and team size, not feature list.
What happens to our old data?
It will be transferred, cleaned, and consolidated. Duplicates are the norm — usually the same company exists three or four times in different spellings.
What if different departments use different systems?
Then one of them is designated as the central source, the others feed into it automatically. Maintaining two equal systems in parallel leads, experience shows, to exactly the contradictions that a CRM is supposed to resolve.
Is this GDPR-compliant?
With a European provider, data processing agreement, deletion concept, and documented legal basis, yes. A CRM without a deletion concept is an open issue under data protection law — that needs to be set up as well.
05 — Next
Related pages
- CRM integration — Overview
- CRM integration — Requirements
- CRM integration — Provider comparison
- CRM integration — Small businesses
- CRM integration — Common mistakes
- CRM integration — Process
- CRM integration — How it works
- CRM integration — Duration
- Process automation
- Lead qualification
- Custom software
- All guides
CRM integration by region
Next step
Let's talk briefly about whether this makes sense for you.
A twenty-minute conversation is usually enough to clarify whether a project makes sense. If not, we'll say so — that's cheaper for both sides than an offer nobody needs.