Building A Pseudo CRM

Sim­u­lat­ing a CRM (Cus­tom­er Rela­tion­ship Man­age­ment) sys­tem or a pseudo-CRM using plus address­ing and rules in your email cli­ent can be both a cre­at­ive and an effi­cient way to organ­ize and man­age your com­mu­nic­a­tions. Plus address­ing involves adding a “+” sym­bol and extra text to your email address to cre­ate vari­ations that can be filtered using rules. How eas­ily and the level of soph­ist­ic­a­tion achieved is depend­ent on the email cli­ent in use. If you are using Office 365 email then the expec­ted out­comes can be to a high level, thanks to Out­look, and more seam­less. Good res­ults can also be had with oth­er pop­u­lar email cli­ents such as Gmail.

 

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can achieve this:

 

Understand Plus Addressing:

 

• Most email pro­viders sup­port plus address­ing. For example, if your primary email is [email protected], you can use [email protected], [email protected], etc.
• Emails sent to these vari­ations will still be delivered to your primary email address.

 

Create Tags for Contacts or Categories:

 

• Decide on the tags or cat­egor­ies you want to use for your pseudo-CRM. For example, you might use tags like client1, client2, pro­jectA, etc.

 

Modify Your Email Address:

 

• When com­mu­nic­at­ing with con­tacts or about spe­cif­ic top­ics, use the plus address­ing to modi­fy your email address. For instance, if your email is [email protected], you might use [email protected] or [email protected]. Note: You can­not send out­go­ing mes­sages using plus address­ing. The email would have to be pro­moted as a reply to address or com­mu­nic­ated to the stake­hold­ers via suit­able chan­nel.

 

Set Up Rules in Your Email Client:

 

• Cre­ate rules or fil­ters in your email cli­ent to auto­mat­ic­ally cat­egor­ize incom­ing emails based on the mod­i­fied email address.
• For example, cre­ate a rule that moves emails sent to [email protected] to a folder labeled “Cli­ent 1” or tags them accord­ingly.

 

Use Folders or Labels:

 

• Organ­ize your inbox using folders or labels to rep­res­ent dif­fer­ent aspects of your pseudo-CRM.
• Each tag or cat­egory can have its own folder or label.

 

Automate Responses or Actions:

 

• Set up auto­mated responses or actions for spe­cif­ic tags.
• For example, you might set up an auto­mat­ic reply for emails with the tag inquiry or move emails with the tag urgent to a pri­or­ity folder.

 

Regularly Review and Update:

 

• Peri­od­ic­ally review your folders or labels and update your rules/tags as needed.
• This helps main­tain an organ­ized and effi­cient sys­tem.

 

Integrate with Tasks or Calendar:

 

• If your email cli­ent allows, integ­rate your pseudo-CRM with tasks or cal­en­dar fea­tures.
• Link emails to spe­cif­ic tasks or events for bet­ter organ­iz­a­tion.

 

Use Search and Filters:

 

• Lever­age your email cli­ent’s search and fil­ter­ing cap­ab­il­it­ies to quickly find emails based on tags or cat­egor­ies.

 

Educate Contacts:

 

• If you’re col­lab­or­at­ing with oth­ers, inform them about your tag­ging sys­tem so they can use the appro­pri­ate email address. Com­mu­nic­a­tion and hav­ing an eas­ily under­stood, doc­u­mented pro­cess is key to the adop­tion of not just our make­shift CRM but ANY sys­tem at ANY budget.

 

By imple­ment­ing these steps, you can cre­ate a cus­tom­ized and organ­ized sys­tem with­in your email cli­ent that sim­u­lates some aspects of a CRM. It’s import­ant to reg­u­larly review and adjust your sys­tem based on your evolving needs.

 

 

Getting Closer To A Dedicated CRM

 

While using plus address­ing and rules in your email cli­ent can offer a make­shift CRM sys­tem, it may not fully replace the func­tion­al­it­ies of a ded­ic­ated budget CRM ( the real thing). How­ever, you can optim­ize your sys­tem to bet­ter meet your needs. Here are some sug­ges­tions for improve­ment:

 

Detailed Tagging System:

 

1. • Cre­ate a com­pre­hens­ive tag­ging sys­tem. Use spe­cif­ic and con­sist­ent tags for dif­fer­ent types of con­tacts, pro­jects, or tasks.

 

Standardized Subject Line Format:

 

2. • Encour­age a stand­ard­ized sub­ject line format for emails. This can include pro­ject codes, cli­ent names, or keywords that can be eas­ily filtered.

 

Email Templates:

 

3. • Cre­ate and use email tem­plates for com­mon inter­ac­tions. This ensures con­sist­ency in your com­mu­nic­a­tions and makes it easi­er to track inter­ac­tions.

 

Link to External Tools:

 

4. • Integ­rate your pseudo-CRM with extern­al tools. For example, link emails to spe­cif­ic tasks in a pro­ject man­age­ment tool or con­nect them to events in your cal­en­dar.

 

Automated Follow-ups:

 

5. • Set up auto­mated fol­low-ups for spe­cif­ic tags. This can be achieved through sched­uled remind­ers or auto­mat­ic replies based on cer­tain cri­ter­ia.

 

Client History Documentation:

 

6. • Devel­op a sys­tem for doc­u­ment­ing cli­ent his­tory with­in your email cli­ent. This could include a ded­ic­ated folder or label for his­tor­ic­al com­mu­nic­a­tions.

 

Analytics and Reporting:

 

7. • While basic, some email cli­ents offer ana­lyt­ics. Explore these fea­tures to gath­er insights into your com­mu­nic­a­tion pat­terns and inter­ac­tions.

 

Task Management Integration:

 

8. • Integ­rate your email sys­tem with a task man­age­ment tool. This allows you to con­vert emails into action­able tasks, set dead­lines, and track pro­gress.

 

Collaboration Tools:

 

9. • Util­ize col­lab­or­a­tion tools with­in your email cli­ent or extern­ally. This can include shared doc­u­ments, notes, or col­lab­or­at­ive spaces for each pro­ject or cli­ent.

 

Security and Privacy Considerations:

 

• Be mind­ful of secur­ity and pri­vacy con­cerns, espe­cially when deal­ing with cli­ent inform­a­tion. Ensure that your make­shift CRM sys­tem com­plies with any rel­ev­ant reg­u­la­tions.

 

Regular Review and Optimization:

 

• Sched­ule reg­u­lar reviews to assess the effect­ive­ness of your sys­tem. Optim­ize your tag­ging sys­tem, rules, and pro­cesses based on your evolving needs.

 

Backup and Sync:

 

• Con­sider backup solu­tions for crit­ic­al cli­ent inform­a­tion and ensure syn­chron­iz­a­tion across devices if you use mul­tiple plat­forms.

 

Note: While this approach can help you man­age cli­ent inter­ac­tions and pro­jects on a budget, it’s import­ant to recog­nize its lim­it­a­tions com­pared to a ded­ic­ated CRM sys­tem. If your busi­ness grows and demands more soph­ist­ic­ated fea­tures such as:

• sales pipeline man­age­ment,
• advanced report­ing,
• or integ­ra­tions with oth­er busi­ness tools,

 

then it may be time to start eval­u­at­ing, then invest­ing in a ded­ic­ated CRM solu­tion.