Cloud-Based CRM
A cloud-based CRM is customer relationship management software hosted by the provider and used through a browser or app on subscription, with no local servers. It manages contacts, pipeline and follow-up, but stops at the point an order is won.
A cloud-based CRM is customer relationship management software hosted on the provider's servers and used through a browser or mobile app, rather than installed on hardware the business owns. The company buys a subscription instead of a server, updates arrive without an IT project, and anyone with a login sees the same records from any location.
What a cloud CRM covers
The core is contact and account records, pipeline stages, logged conversations, tasks and reminders, and reporting on what is in play and what closed. Most add basic automation on top: a reminder when a quotation has gone unanswered, an alert when an opportunity changes stage, a notification when an account has not been contacted for a set period. For a team of more than two or three sellers this is the practical alternative to a shared spreadsheet and an inbox that only one person can read.
Where a CRM stops
A CRM is built around the opportunity, and the opportunity closes when the order is won. What follows is a different set of records: a priced quotation with line detail, supplier purchase orders against it, stock allocated or ordered in, a job with dates and an owner, delivery notes, then the invoice and whatever the job actually cost. None of that has a natural home in pipeline software, so it usually ends up in spreadsheets and the accounting package, split across two systems that do not agree.
That is the point at which businesses that quote, buy and invoice tend to add an operational platform alongside the CRM, or move both onto one system. The trade-off between those two options, and what each keeps, is set out in how Zigaflow compares with CRM systems.
Judge a CRM by what happens after the win
Most CRM evaluations test the pipeline view, which every product does well. The more useful test is to follow one won deal through to a paid invoice and count how many systems the record has to be re-keyed into. That number is what the CRM cannot fix on its own.
What hosting changes in practice
Two things follow from the provider holding the data rather than the business. The first is that availability and backup become contract terms rather than IT tasks, so the questions worth asking at purchase are the uptime commitment, where the data is stored, and how long backups are retained. The second is exit: check before signing what the export produces and in what format, because a CRM that exports contacts but not the conversation history against them is expensive to leave.
Neither question is answered by the demo, and both are cheaper to ask in the first week than in the third year.
For the step before the pipeline, see lead generation; Zigaflow's leads capture inbound enquiries and carry them into a quotation on the same record.