Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is the heartbeat of any modern business. It holds your client data, tracks your sales pipeline, and manages your communication. However, for many Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in London, the CRM market presents a frustrating choice.
On one hand, you have the "spreadsheet chaos"—trying to run a growing company on Excel, which is prone to errors and version conflicts. On the other hand, you have the "enterprise giants" like Salesforce, HubSpot, or Zoho. These platforms are powerful, but they often come with eye-watering monthly subscription fees and a steep learning curve.
There is a third option that smarter businesses are turning to: Custom CRM Software. At Custom Coded Websites, we build bespoke CRM solutions using Python and Django that fit your business like a Savile Row suit. Here is why building your own tool might be the most profitable decision you make this year.
1. The Problem with "Off-the-Shelf" (The Feature Bloat)
When you buy a subscription to a major CRM, you are paying for a tool designed to work for everyone—from a global bank to a local bakery. As a result, it is packed with thousands of features.
The reality? You probably use less than 10% of them. Yet, you are paying for 100%. A custom CRM is lean. We build only the features you need. If you don't need a ticketing system, we don't build it. This makes the interface cleaner, the software faster, and your team’s training time significantly shorter.
2. Escaping the "Per-User" Tax
Most commercial CRMs charge on a "per seat" basis. If you have a team of 20 people in your Shoreditch office, that monthly bill can spiral into thousands of pounds quickly. As you grow and hire more staff, your "success tax" increases.
The Custom Advantage: With a custom-coded CRM, you own the software. You do not pay extra for adding new users. Whether you have 5 employees or 500, your software costs remain stable, allowing you to scale your team without worrying about licensing fees eating your margins.
3. Workflow Alignment: Don't Change Your Process
With generic software, you often have to change your internal processes to match the limitations of the tool. You find yourself saying, "The system won't let us do it that way."
With custom software, the tool bends to fit you. Do you have a specific way of qualifying leads? Do you need a unique approval process for quotes over £10,000? We code your specific business logic directly into the system. This ensures that the software enforces your best practices, rather than you fighting against the software.
4. Seamless Integration with Your Website
A CRM shouldn't live in a silo. It needs to talk to your website. Because we specialise in full-stack Django development, we can integrate your custom CRM directly with your customer-facing site.
Imagine this workflow:
- A potential client fills out a "Get a Quote" form on your website.
- The data lands instantly in your custom CRM.
- The system automatically checks the postcode to assign it to the correct London sales rep.
- Based on the service selected, the system generates a draft PDF quote and emails it to the client immediately.
This level of automation is difficult and expensive to patch together with third-party tools like Zapier, but it is standard procedure in a custom build.
5. Data Sovereignty and GDPR
Data privacy is a massive concern in the UK. When you use a US-based SaaS platform, you are often storing your customer data on servers you don't control, subject to changing terms of service.
With a custom solution, you have total control over your data. You decide where it is hosted (e.g., UK-based AWS servers), who has access to it, and how it is encrypted. This makes complying with strict GDPR regulations much simpler and safer.
Conclusion
A CRM should be an asset that accelerates your sales, not a monthly liability that confuses your staff. If you are tired of wrestling with complex, expensive software that wasn't built for you, it is time to build your own.
Invest in software that works as hard as you do.
Contact Custom Coded Websites to discuss building a CRM tailored to your business.