What is a CRM? Definition for website teams

A CRM (customer relationship management system) is software that keeps one record per contact, company and deal, with the history of every interaction, so a team can see where each relationship stands.

How it works

Salesforce defines CRM as "a technology for managing all your company's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers" (Salesforce). In practice, most CRMs are built from the same parts:

• Records: contacts (people), companies (accounts) and deals (opportunities), linked to each other.
• Properties: fields on each record, such as job title, company size, lead source or deal value. Teams add their own.
• Activities: emails, calls, meetings, form submissions and chat transcripts, attached to the record in time order.
• Pipelines: the stages a deal moves through, from new lead to closed.
• Automation: rules that assign owners, send follow-ups or update fields when something changes.

Calculated values live there too. HubSpot, for example, stores each lead score as a property on the record that updates as the person meets the score's criteria (HubSpot).

Other tools connect to a CRM through its API. A chat tool, booking tool or form builder asks for access, usually with OAuth, and then creates or updates records. Some connections run the other way: the CRM or another app sends a webhook when a record changes.

Why it matters for your website

Your website produces leads: form fills, chat conversations, booked meetings. If they arrive in the CRM as a bare name and email, the person following up starts from zero. If they arrive with context, the first call starts where the visitor left off.

When you connect a website tool to your CRM, check:

• Duplicates. Does it match an existing contact by email instead of creating a second one?
• Context. Does the record get the page the visitor came from, what they asked and what they were told?
• Ownership. Is the lead assigned to the right person automatically?
• Consent. Is marketing permission recorded separately from the question they asked?

Example

A visitor chats with a website assistant, asks about SSO and annual billing, and books a demo. The CRM receives:

The rep opens the record before the call and skips the discovery questions the visitor already answered.

Related terms

• Lead scoring: a score stored on the CRM record.
• Lead qualification: deciding which records get sales time.
• Meeting booking: meetings that should land in the CRM.
• Webhook: how apps notify each other about changes.
• OAuth: how tools get permission to use your CRM.
• AI SDR: an AI agent that works leads and updates the CRM.