CRM stands for customer relationship management. It is both a practice (organising how you look after customers and prospects) and the software that supports it. A CRM stores who your customers are, what they have bought, what they asked about and how you have communicated with them, so everyone in your business can see the same picture.
Signs you need a CRM
For many Indian small businesses, the first “CRM” is a mix of a phone contact list, WhatsApp groups and an Excel sheet. You have outgrown that set-up when:
- two salespeople call the same lead without knowing it;
- customer details sit on a staff member’s personal phone;
- you cannot quickly find everyone who bought a product last Diwali;
- a customer asks you to stop messaging them and you cannot be sure every list is updated;
- you want to send different offers to different cities or languages but have no reliable way to select them.
What a CRM does
Stores contact information
Names, email addresses, mobile numbers in +91 format, company details, and any fields you need. Mailpro’s contact management lets you create your own fields.
Records history
Purchases, enquiries, campaign opens and clicks, and form submissions build up into a history you can act on.
Groups and segments
You can group contacts by region, language, product interest or stage in the buying process, then target each group with segmentation.
Drives communication
The real value comes when the CRM feeds your outreach: personalised newsletters, reminders and follow-ups based on what each customer has done.
CRM and the DPDP Act
India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 gives people the right to know what data you hold, to have it corrected or erased, and to withdraw consent. It also expects you to keep data only as long as you need it. Scattered spreadsheets and phones make these obligations very hard to meet. A central CRM makes them practical, as long as you record consent alongside each contact.
Types of CRM
- Operational: manages day-to-day sales, marketing and service activities.
- Analytical: studies customer data to find patterns, such as which segments buy most during the festive season.
- Collaborative: shares customer information between teams, for example sales and support.
Small businesses usually need a practical mix of the first two, not an enterprise system.
Where Mailpro fits
Mailpro combines contact management with email, SMS, forms and surveys, which covers what many Indian SMEs need from a CRM without the cost of a large sales platform. Contacts can come in from online forms, imports or integrations, and you can create newsletters for any segment directly. Data is hosted in Switzerland, outside US jurisdiction.
See how it works in practice on our CRM for businesses in India page.