A CRM system is not just an MS Outlook repository for client and prospect contact details. One of the primary goals of a CRM system should be maintaining and increasing revenue. This is accomplished by leveraging many aspects of an effective system, the most important of which are:

• Communication
• Collaboration
• Enabling follow-up
• Reporting
• Predicting

An effective CRM System should:

• Be the corporate Client Database
• Track and measure Business Development efforts
• Remind you to follow-up in a couple of days, weeks, or years
• Become a central repository for notes and information on a given client or lead
• Manage qualified leads and keep them from falling off the radar
• Manage and track outstanding fee proposals, including forecasting revenue
• Manage prospect customer interactions
• Identify Business Development Tasks that need to happen and whether they are actually happening
• Notify Client Managers about interactions everyone else in the company is having with their client
• Provide feedback on projected revenues and actual revenues
• Report projected revenues by group/department/company
• Increase collaboration between groups and departments through information sharing
• Alert Client Managers and management when revenue is declining for a given client
• Provide a historic record of projects and submissions for the client and prospect
• Be a central repository of information on other firms, e.g. architects that are winning hospitality work that we can team with to pursue future work
• Report on Business Development activities: “That which is measured is improved”
• Manage conferences — costs, exhibiting, attending — and relate it back to specific employees
• Answer the question: what happens to someone’s contacts when they leave?
• Provide historic Information on prospects, marketing events, e-mag distributions, lunches, relationships, and more

A Great CRM should do all of the above and more including:

• Integrate with existing project and client data, allowing for cross reporting related to current revenues and past revenues and how these relate to future revenues
• Identify opportunities that aren’t moving/progressing
• Report on the effectiveness of the Business Development staff
• Identify who and what efforts result in new work
• Integrate with a Client Retention Program (e.g.: survey feedback loop to measure success)
• Become a measurable part of the employee review process