A simple CRM for a small business.

The Dial Agency team · Updated 13 October 2026

What a CRM is for

Enquiries arrive by phone, email, website form, Facebook message and WhatsApp. Without one place to track them, some get a quote and no follow-up, some get forgotten, and nobody knows how many came in last month. A CRM is that one place.

Five stages, and no more

• New. Just arrived, nobody has spoken to them yet.
• Contacted. You replied or called. Note what they need.
• Quoted. A price or proposal went out, with the date.
• Won. They said yes. Record the value.
• Lost. They said no or went quiet. Record why, in two words.

More stages feel thorough and get ignored. Five is enough to see where enquiries get stuck.

What to record for each enquiry

Name, phone, what they want, where they came from (ads, Google, a referral), the date of each contact and the next step with its date. The "next step with a date" is the whole point: it turns a list into a to-do list.

Which tool

For up to a few dozen enquiries a month, a shared spreadsheet works. Above that, use a simple CRM with a pipeline view and reminders. Free plans from well-known tools such as HubSpot or Pipedrive are enough for most small businesses. Choose the one your team will actually open every day, not the one with the most features.

Automate the boring parts

Connect your website form so every enquiry lands in the CRM by itself. Send an automatic confirmation the moment it arrives. Set a reminder three days after each quote. This is the setup we build in our follow-up service, and it removes most of the reasons enquiries are lost.

Four numbers every Monday

• New enquiries last week, by source.
• Quotes sent and quotes still waiting for a follow-up.
• Won and lost, with the value.
• Average time from enquiry to first reply.

Ten minutes a week with these numbers tells you more than any report an agency can send you.