Features and functions that a CRM must have

By Anaraya Albornoz

Published: May 4, 2025

Commercial management provides the clues and information that allow managers to make strategic decisions. This is why CRM features are so important. In sales management, acquiring a new customer is about 5 times more expensive than investing in retaining existing customers.

This is one of the objectives of CRM: to optimize the strategy to achieve customer retention. Let's find out what to consider when making your choice.

See all software Customer relationship management

What is CRM?

In its simplest definition, a CRM refers to all tasks related to the company's commercial activity:

Centralize communication with customers.
Automate the flow of sales.
Track the evolution of stocks.
Quickly access customer or supplier information.

A CRM that is well integrated into the sales process centralizes customer data, takes advantage of sales opportunities and improves business processes. A CRM with the right functionality drives sales actions more effectively and improves customer knowledge.

[TOP 9] CRM features

But what are the essential features of a CRM? A good CRM must meet the specific needs of your business, discover 9 key features that your customer relationship management solution must have.

1. Ergonomics

The tool must be easy to use. Any user must be able to understand how it works without prior training or simply with tutorials or online training, webinars, synthetic and clear. In short, an intuitive CRM solution .

Customer relationship management

Among the functions that a CRM system must integrate, the following are essential:

good contact management,
history of actions per customer or prospect,
customer segmentation,
the most basic webmarketing actions, such as sending e-mail campaigns.

3. Reporting and reports

Since a CRM centralizes all the information about your sales in real time, this software becomes the key tool to know and identify the most successful lines of business and the most effective campaigns.

A good CRM should include reports that synthesize all this information and have clear, simple, graphical and relevant dashboards that can be configured according to your indicators and objectives.

4. Integrations

The CRM solution must be able to integrate or retrieve information from the programs that your company already uses for other activities such as accounting, invoicing, email management, lead generation...

5. Services

In addition to contact management and sales process tracking, every good CRM includes a customer support and maintenance service. Another very important factor to take into account is the security and storage of data.

6. Support and customer service

Make sure you hire a software publisher that is available and listening. It is important to be able to count on the support of your supplier during the implementation of the new tool, as well as in case of doubts, irregularities or problems.

7. Recommendations and evaluations

Thanks to the advances in technology and the Internet, it is nowadays very easy to get an idea of the reputation of companies. It is best to hire solutions that have positive comments and evaluations from other users.

8. SaaS mode

There are basically two ways to store and use CRM software. Until a few years ago most companies used software solutionsthat had to be stored on the company's servers and/or computers. Although this type of hosting offers great advantages in terms of data security, it is an inflexible and generally limited solution. Today, companies prefer SaaS solutions (Software as a Service) or online software.

9. Collaboration

CRM tools in the cloud are much more versatile and allow you to work from anywhere, on any device, at any time. A good CRM software should allow synchronizing the information managed and integrated by the members in real time and facilitate collaboration between the different teams. In addition, if among the available options you have user rights management, you can configure each module or action to be visible/modifiable by all or only some members.

Advantages of a CRM

Centralize and share all customer data.
Structure the information and sales process for better customer management.
Maintain customer relationship history and reports.
Optimize commercial actions with more reactivity and better opportunity management.
Save time by automating recurring tasks.
Increase sales force based on prioritized customer and prospect targets.