A company may have Instagram, a website, a spreadsheet and a tool for sending quotes. Even so, every new enquiry may force someone to gather the information by hand:
- Find out where the person came from.
- Understand what they are interested in.
- Check what they were told.
- Decide what the next step should be.
I have seen this problem in very different businesses. They don’t always lack technology. Often they already use several tools, but each one works separately and none of them follows the customer along the whole journey.
That is why, before choosing another app, it is worth asking a more useful question:
What journey does a potential customer take from discovering the business to buying?
The answer helps you decide whether it is enough to better organise what already exists, whether several tools need connecting or whether it makes sense to build a platform tailored to the business.
How to choose software for a company based on its sales process
This is what happens to my friend Rubén’s theatre company. They are really good and put on an improv show at a theatre in Lavapiés. They use social media to attract audiences, have a website where they promote their shows and also offer courses for people who want to learn improv.
The problem is that those two offerings are related, but they don’t follow the same journey.
Two related audiences with different goals
Someone who wants to see the show needs to quickly find:
- The date of the performance.
- Where it takes place.
- How to buy a ticket.
Someone curious about learning improv needs to know:
- The courses available.
- The different levels.
- The next intakes.
- How to request information or enrol.
It can even happen that someone first comes as an audience member, enjoys the show and then wants to learn. That interest already exists, but there needs to be a path that lets them take the next step.
Rubén’s company already has social media and a website. So it isn’t simply a matter of adding more tools. The opportunity lies in better connecting what it already has:
- That a post about the show leads straight to the information for that performance.
- That someone interested in learning easily finds the courses.
- That content about the classes isn’t hidden among the show announcements.
We can’t say how many sales or students they are losing without measuring it. What we can ask is:
How many people show interest, come to their channels and don’t clearly find what they should do next?
Perhaps the problem can be solved by improving the pages and their links. To sell tickets, they could also use an existing tool such as Eventbrite, which already offers event pages, ticket sales and promotional features.
It would only make sense to look at a more integrated solution if they needed to connect shows, audience members, students and the follow-up of each group in a particular way.
Automating business processes to save time on enquiries and quotes
I also know Manuel, who has a construction company specialising in renovations. He posts his work on Instagram and Facebook, but has no website where he can show his portfolio and the quality of his projects in an organised way.
When someone is interested in a renovation, Manuel and his team have to answer questions, ask for information and prepare each quote practically from scratch.
Some of that data is repeated in almost every enquiry:
- What type of work the client needs.
- Where the property is.
- When they want to start.
- How they can be contacted.
- What information is needed to move forward.
Here a website wouldn’t just serve to present the company.
A website can also prepare the first conversation
A portfolio would let them show previous work and help potential clients understand what kind of projects they do.
A form or a 360 AI Agent could collect the initial information about the job. The team could then review that data before calling or preparing a proposal.
That doesn’t mean an agent can automatically calculate the final price of any renovation. A job requires checking:
- Measurements.
- Materials.
- The condition of the space.
- The real scope of the work.
- The client’s particular needs.
The initial information would serve to guide the conversation and, if the business finds it useful, produce a preliminary estimate that would always have to be reviewed.
The process continues when the quote is accepted
Manuel’s work doesn’t end when the client accepts the quote. He then needs to keep track of the progress of the job, the pending tasks and the information related to each project.
That part belongs to another stage of the work, but it is connected to the sales process.
When a quote is accepted, the opportunity stops being just a potential client and becomes a project in progress.
If both areas are connected, the team doesn’t need to re-enter data it had already collected. The information follows the client from the first enquiry to the follow-up of the job.
Automating doesn’t mean removing human involvement. It means preventing the team from having to repeat tasks and rebuild information it already has.
When Excel is enough to run a small business
Not every business needs a complex platform.
Think of a wedding cake business that shows its cakes on Instagram and gets two new orders a week.
If the person in charge can handle them without delays, note the dates and details in a shared sheet and know at all times which orders are pending, they probably don’t need a website or a CRM.
In that case, adding more tools could create work instead of solving a problem.
The sensible thing would be to keep a simple process and make sure the following are properly recorded:
- The customer’s details.
- The delivery date.
- The characteristics of the order.
- The agreed price.
- The status of the order.
- Pending conversations.
The need changes when the business wants to grow
The decision would be different if that same business wanted to grow and open a bakery.
Then it would have to:
- Show a wider catalogue.
- Handle more enquiries.
- Collect each customer’s preferences.
- Distinguish between people who are just browsing and interested customers.
- Record confirmed orders.
- Coordinate follow-up between several people.
Excel wouldn’t have stopped being useful overnight. What would have changed is the volume and complexity of the business.
The size of the solution should match the work that exists today and the growth the company is preparing to take on.
Digital tools for businesses: three ways to organise work
There is no single answer that works for every business. Depending on the situation, a company can take three paths.
1. Organise what already works
Sometimes it is enough to define:
- Who answers enquiries.
- Where data is stored.
- When follow-up happens.
- Who is responsible for the next step.
A spreadsheet can be enough if volume is low, the information is organised and the team keeps it up to date.
There is no point replacing a simple tool that is doing the job properly.
2. Connect existing tools
In other cases, the company can use a website, a ticketing or booking system and a CRM, as long as it is clear how information passes from one tool to another.
For example, HubSpot CRM lets you centralise contacts and opportunities. There are also specific solutions for events, appointments, quotes or training.
The problem appears when each tool works like an island and someone has to copy information between them by hand.
A useful connection should mean that:
- The data collected on the website reaches the right system.
- A booking is linked to the person who made it.
- The team can see previous conversations.
- Each opportunity has someone responsible and a next step.
- Information doesn’t have to be entered several times.
3. Build a tailored platform
Your own platform can make sense when several particular processes need to share data and the available tools force the team to repeat tasks or work in a way that doesn’t fit its activity.
This option requires more upfront definition.
Before building, you need to know:
- Who will use the system.
- What information each person needs.
- What actions each user will be able to perform.
- What should happen when a customer moves from one stage to another.
- Which existing tools are worth keeping.
- Which processes need a specific solution.
The question shouldn’t be:
“Can we build it?”
The right question is:
“What problem will it solve, and why aren’t the current tools enough?”
How to know what software your company really needs
To find out what a company needs, we can pick three recent enquiries and reconstruct their whole journey.
Review these eight questions
- Where did each person discover the business?
- Which page or channel did they reach next?
- What did they want to achieve at that moment?
- What details did the team ask for?
- What information did they have to request again?
- Where was the conversation recorded?
- Who had to take the next step?
- Was the person able to buy, book or request a proposal easily?
The answers can reveal very different problems.
Perhaps there is no page that properly explains the service. Perhaps the calendar works, but nobody follows up after the meeting. Or perhaps the team copies information from one system to another every time it makes a sale.
This diagnosis lets you invest where time is really being lost or the customer journey is interrupted.
Don’t start by asking which tool you should buy. Start by finding the exact moment the process breaks down.
Integrating business systems: joining the parts that work together
At FEIDERS we start from that journey to decide what capabilities each project needs.
In some cases a clear website and a calendar will be enough. In others it will make sense to add:
- A 360 AI Agent to handle first enquiries.
- A CRM for sales follow-up.
- A booking system to organise appointments.
- A portfolio to present previous projects.
- An area from which to manage projects and clients.
- A training platform, store or catalogue when the business needs one.
We may also conclude that the best thing is to keep an external tool the team already uses well and connect it to the rest of the process.
It isn’t about replacing everything with a new platform. It is about making sure each piece has a clear role and the information reaches the person who needs to act.
Rubén’s theatre company, Manuel’s renovation business and the cake business have very different needs. Yet they should all ask themselves the same question:
When someone shows interest, can they move forward easily, and does the team know what to do next?
If the answer is yes, perhaps nothing needs to change.
If the journey breaks down between messages, pages, quotes and spreadsheets, that is the starting point for improvement.
Tell us how your customers reach you today and what happens from the first enquiry to the sale. At FEIDERS we can help you decide which tools to keep, which to connect and what is worth building for your business.