CRM: choosing it, filling it and keeping it alive

A CRM is often chosen in an afternoon, from a demo, and regretted for years: licences that climb with every hire, sales reps who never fill it in, data you can no longer get out. All three problems share one cause: the tool was chosen before anyone decided what it had to do.

This guide opens our CRM and customer data section. It follows the order of a real project: choose the scope, count the cost, migrate the data, get the tool adopted, connect it to everything else. Each section links to the article that goes deeper. If your choice is already made, our CRM offer installs Twenty, Dolibarr or Odoo on your infrastructure and trains your team, at a fixed price.

What is a CRM, and where does it stop?

The line that matters is the invoice. As long as you track contacts and deals, a pure CRM is enough. When you want the quote, the invoice, the payment and sometimes the stock in one place, you enter ERP territory. There is no right answer in itself: there are the processes you want to cover.

That is why we work with three solutions, on three overlapping scopes: Twenty, a pure CRM, for teams of 3 to 30 people who manage their sales; Dolibarr, a lightweight ERP, for 5 to 50 people who want quotes, invoices and stock in one place; Odoo, a full ERP, from around twenty people. The full grid is in Twenty, Dolibarr or Odoo: which one for your team?.

How much does a CRM really cost?

The per-user, per-month price is just one line. Over three years you must add the onboarding that is sometimes mandatory, the higher edition a feature you need requires, AI credits and support. A free CRM hosted on your own server has no per-seat licence, but it has setup and operating costs. The calculation method, line by line, is in CRM pricing: the real cost over three years.

For Odoo, whose pricing mixes licence, hosting and integration, we ran the numbers separately in How much does Odoo really cost?. And for why we recommend an open CRM, the reasons are in Modern open CRM: 12 reasons to switch in 2027.

How do you migrate data without bringing the mess along?

Migration is when you discover the real state of your data: duplicates, fields filled in three different ways, contacts with no company. Bringing them over as they are installs the mess in the new tool.

1. 01Choose what to bring.

   Not all history has value; open deals and active clients do.

2. 02Map the fields.

   Each field of the old tool has a place in the new one, or does not.

3. 03Clean before importing.

   Duplicates resolved on a reliable key, value lists reduced to a few choices.

4. 04Import in dependency order.

   Companies before contacts, contacts before deals.

5. 05Migrate the history separately.

   Emails, notes and attachments do not come out with the standard export.

The full walkthrough, from HubSpot, is in Migrating from HubSpot to an open source CRM in seven steps. The clean-up, and above all the rules that stop the mess from coming back, are in Cleaning your CRM data.

Why don’t sales reps fill in the CRM?

Because it asks more of them than it gives back: double entry, mandatory fields they see no use for, vocabulary that is not theirs. An adopted CRM does the opposite: it prepares the rep’s work (today’s follow-up, the history before a call) and asks only for what helps sell. Causes and fixes are in CRM: why sales reps don’t fill it in.

Two automations often tip adoption:

• Emails attached automatically to the client record, configured mailbox by mailbox so nothing is overexposed: CRM and email: syncing without oversharing.
• Follow-ups prepared by the machine, written by the rep: the date, the unanswered quote and the context arrive on their own, the words stay the rep’s. See Sales follow-ups: automate them, keep the human tone.

How do you connect the CRM to the rest of the company?

An isolated CRM turns back into an address book. Connected, it becomes the hub of the client relationship. Three connections matter most.

1. The inbound request. It is recorded in the CRM before any notification, assigned by a written rule and triggers an alert if nobody answers: Inbound request: from the form to the right salesperson.
2. Billing and support. A single customer view shows deals, invoices and tickets on one screen, with each tool remaining the master of its data: Single customer view. In France, e-invoicing also changes what your software must do: France’s e-invoicing mandate.
3. AI. A CRM that publishes an MCP server can be queried in plain language from the assistant of your choice. Start read-only and approve every write: Talking to your CRM in natural language.

An open CRM can even serve beyond client relationships: properties, projects or equipment become objects in their own right, read by your website. We do this for a real estate portal, and explain it in Twenty beyond the CRM and Managing listings and mandates in a CRM.

What does GDPR say about CRM data?

A CRM is a file of personal data, and GDPR applies in full. France’s data protection authority, the CNIL, suggests retention periods (three years after the last contact for a prospect, three years after the end of the relationship for a client), and an erasure request must be answered within a month, including in exports and connected tools. Details in CRM and GDPR: retention periods and the right to erasure. When AI enters the CRM, another limit applies: it can prepare a decision that affects a person, rarely make it alone. See Automated decisions: can AI decide on its own?.

Where to start

1. 01List the processes to cover.

   Sales only, or quotes, invoices and stock too: that decides between CRM and ERP.

2. 02Count the cost over three years.

   Licences, setup, operation, for each serious option.

3. 03Take stock of the data.

   Where it lives, in what state, what is worth bringing.

4. 04Ask the sales reps what would help them.

   The CRM must give them time back in the first week.

5. 05Connect one thing at a time.

   Inbound requests first, then billing, then AI.

If you want support, our CRM offer starts with a selection workshop between Twenty, Dolibarr and Odoo, then installs and trains, at a fixed price. For a first question, write to us.

Frequently asked questions