Search "CRM" and you'll find software built for office-based sales teams: lead scoring, drip campaigns, pipeline analytics, integrations with tools you've never heard of. That's not what a window fitting business needs.
But you do need something. Customer details scattered across your phone contacts, WhatsApp threads, and old emails isn't a system. It's a liability waiting to cause problems.
What "CRM" actually means for fitters
Strip away the jargon and a CRM is just a customer list with history attached. For a fitting business, that means:
- Customer records. Name, address, phone, email. Basic stuff, but in one place - not spread across your phone and your fitters' phones.
- Job history. What work you've done for them, when, and any notes. When Mrs. Patterson calls about her kitchen window, you can see you fitted her front bay windows five years ago.
- Quote tracking. Which customers have outstanding quotes, how long they've been waiting, who needs a follow-up call.
- Notes and context. The Hendersons pay slowly. The access at number 42 is tricky. Mr. Davies is fussy about clean-up. Information that helps you do the job better.
That's it. No lead scoring. No marketing automation. Just organised information about the people you work for.
Why generic CRMs don't fit
Traditional CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot are built for businesses with dedicated sales teams, long sales cycles, and thousands of leads to manage. They're powerful, but that power comes with complexity you don't need and will never use.
More importantly, they're not built for field work. Your fitters need customer info on site, from their phones, without logging into a desktop app. They need to see job history while standing in someone's kitchen, not back at the office.
A CRM that requires training, constant maintenance, or a laptop isn't a CRM for tradespeople. It's a CRM you'll abandon within three months.
How FitterPal handles customer management
FitterPal isn't marketed as a CRM, but it does everything a fitting business needs from one.
Every customer has a record: contact details, address, and every job you've done for them. Open a customer and you see their full history - quotes, completed work, photos, notes. When they call, you know exactly who they are and what you've done for them.
Because jobs are linked to customers, you're not maintaining two separate systems. Create a job, attach it to a customer, and the history builds itself. No double-entry, no syncing, no maintenance.
Your fitters see the same information on their phones. They can check customer details on site, see notes about access or preferences, and add updates that everyone can see. The customer record travels with the team.
The repeat business angle
Here's where proper customer records pay off: repeat and referral work.
You fitted someone's front windows three years ago. Now they want the back done. If you have their record, you can see what you quoted last time, what was installed, any notes about the property. You're not starting from scratch - you're continuing a relationship.
Or they refer you to their neighbour. "You did my friend's windows at number 12." With a proper customer list, you can look that up, see what you did, and reference it in the conversation. It shows you're organised and you remember your customers.
None of this works if customer information is scattered across phones, emails, and memory.
Skip the enterprise CRM
You don't need software designed for 50-person sales teams. You need a customer list that's linked to your jobs, accessible from anywhere, and simple enough that you'll actually use it.
FitterPal gives you customer management built into job management - because for fitting businesses, they're the same thing. Every job has a customer. Every customer has a history. No extra system, no extra complexity.
Book a demo today where we can show you how effective our CRM is for managing your fitting business.
Book a demo today where we can show you how effective our CRM is for managing your fitting business.
