Excel is not a CRM

It is not unusual for Excel spreadsheets to be used as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. As a consultant I soon find the organization’s most used knowledge systems. They are Excel spreadsheets that contain customer contacts and interactions, a wealth of information about customers social interests, who contacted them, when, what products they bought, how much we received etc…

Each sales rep seems to have their own private spreadsheet. Then there are spreadsheets for each customer project, and more spreadsheets to log customer support calls. Even if there is a CRM system, I often find that each sales rep still has their own private spreadsheet or paper binder!

Overall, it seems like spreadsheets must be the perfect CRM system to manage the organization’s knowledge. Microsoft Office is installed on most computers. It is a simple tool that we are all familiar with – we can easily create new tabs, columns, and formulas. Why build a CRM database?

Don’t be fooled

Excel has some limitations as a CRM database. It is not easy to:

• Control data or spreadsheet deletions
• Share spreadsheets with all the sales and support reps
• Report across multiple spreadsheets
• Create time based workflow ticklers
• Get a 360 degree view of your customer relationships
• See all of your customer interactions
• To manage marketing campaigns across spreadsheets
• Secure your customer data