How to choose a CRM for a small business
One clarification first, because it trips up a lot of Greek business owners: a CRM is not the same thing as the “digital client register” (ψηφιακό πελατολόγιο) required by the Greek tax authority. That is a filing obligation, live since July 2025 for specific trades — garages, body shops, car rental. It is tax compliance.
A CRM is a sales tool: it keeps track of who asked you for what, when you replied, and what happened next. If you need the first thing, talk to your accountant. This article is about the second.
What it actually solves
A CRM does not bring you customers. It stops you losing the ones you already have.
The symptoms are always the same:
- Someone asked for a quote three weeks ago and nobody replied
- Two people on the team called the same customer
- A customer asks “what did we agree?” and you go hunting through email and WhatsApp
- A salesperson leaves and their contacts leave with them
Recognise two or more of those and the problem is real.
The four questions to ask before buying
1. Will the team actually use it? This is the only criterion that ends up mattering. The best CRM that nobody updates is worth less than a spreadsheet everybody does. Trial it with the people who will do the typing, not just with you.
2. Does it handle Greek properly? Not just the menus — names, accented search, greeklish, sorting. Plenty of international tools handle this badly, and you find out after you have loaded 2,000 contacts.
3. Does it connect to what you already run? Invoicing, email, calendar, online store. If anyone has to type the same details twice, the team will abandon it within months.
4. Can you get your data back out? Ask before, not after: can you export contacts and history to a file, whenever you want? If the answer is vague, that is the answer.
What to ignore
The list of 200 features. You will use five. Choose on those five.
“Now with AI”. Nearly every CRM says it. Ask what it does specifically: write the follow-up email? summarise the call? predict which deal will close? If they cannot answer with an example, it is marketing.
When a spreadsheet is still enough
Honestly: if you are one or two people, with fewer than 50 active contacts, and you remember everything — a spreadsheet is fine. A CRM will add work without solving anything.
The threshold is not company size. It is the moment the information lives in more than one head. That is when forgetting starts to cost money.
What it costs
Most charge per user per month, and the subscription is not the real expense — the migration is. Budget time for loading the data, training the team and changing the habit. That is the actual cost, and it is why half of all CRM rollouts get abandoned.
Want to work out whether you genuinely need one? Book a free 30-minute call — if a spreadsheet will do, we will say so. See also the bilingual CRM we built for Greek small businesses.