Can You Build Your Own CRM Platform? Yes... But

So, you’ve learned all about CRMs and how they can help your business.

You are now ready to take the plunge and might be wondering: what if I build my own CRM system?

How would that work? What are the pros and cons of building your own CRM solution?

Let’s break it all down

What is a CRM?

While the letter CRMs stand for Customer Relationship Management, when talking about a CRM we often refer to a CRM platform or solution.

One of the basic functions of CRMs is to capture, sort and store your customer’s data. As a result, a notebook or excel sheet with your customer data could technically be a CRM.

However, these are only so useful. If you want to fully take advantage of CRMs you probably want to use an advanced software solution.

Want to learn more about CRMs? Check our guide on what CRMs are and how they can help your business.

Advantages of building your own CRM

Building your own CRM software solution might sound quite intimidating.

But comes with multiple benefits, including:

• Your CRM will be tailor-made to your business needs
• Complete control over CRM features and how they work
• Complete control over CRM UI and UX
• You get to dictate what new features are prioritized over time
• You can create custom integrations with internal business tools

By building your own CRM solution, you have total control over every element of your CRM solution. From major product features to UX details.

If you’re keen on having full control over your CRM software solution, this might the way to go.

Disadvantages of building your own CRM

If you’re still hesitant about building your own CRM solution for your business, there’s plenty of reasons to be.

After all, building your own CRM solution comes with multiple challenges

• Building a CRM can be incredibly expensive. From operational costs to hiring software engineers and more.
• It’s also time-consuming. Depending on your resources, building a working version of your CRM can take months of years.
• Bugs, bugs, bugs. A new software solution will usually be riddled with bugs and errors that need to be worked through as you build your tool.
• You are responsible for every outage and major error that might occur with your CRM. You will have to prepare for sudden changes in your resource allocation to tackle these outages and major errors.
• Ongoing costs. The costs of CRMs don’t end when you’re done building it. Ongoing updates and upkeep will also have to be accounted for.

Building your own CRM is a huge undertaking and it comes with many challenges.

Take it from us, we built our own CRM.

Out-of-the-box CRM Solutions

An alternative to building your own CRM solution is to use an out-of-the-box offering.

There are multiple companies out there that have gone through the trials and tribulations of building a CRM solution. Many of these can also be customized to fit your business needs.

Some of the benefits of these solutions include:

• Fully built solution right-off-the-gate makes implementation easier and faster
• Cost-effective solution compared to building your own solution
• Bugs and errors are tackled by the CRM vendor and do not take up your resources
• Lower ongoing costs as you do not have to take of ongoing maintenance and new features
• CRM solutions can be customized to fit your business needs
• You can test drive multiple offerings before settling down with one option

CRMs are not only cheaper and easier to implement but are also much more reliable as they have been used by several other businesses already.

Closing Thoughts

At this point, you might be wondering, what’s the best CRM solution for my business?

The truth is that it depends. After all, every business has different business needs.

We obviously recommend Moment, our fully-featured free CRM solution with live chat, email and browser recording integrations. Best of all, you can start using Moment now with our free tier.