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A CRM System for Bulgarian Companies: From Excel to Automation

By Egor Semenov

“CRM” sounds like something for corporations with sales departments of hundreds of people. The reality is different — a CRM system is simply an organised way to manage your customer relationships. Almost every business with more than 20 customers needs one.

The problem with Excel

Many Bulgarian companies manage their customers in Excel. It works — until:

  • Two colleagues edit the file at the same time and data gets lost
  • A salesperson leaves and takes “their” contacts with them
  • You can't tell which customer didn't get a follow-up email after the meeting
  • You have no idea which deals are close to closing and which are falling apart

Off-the-shelf vs custom CRM

There are dozens of CRM platforms on the market — Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive. They are good, but they have limits for a small Bulgarian business:

Off-the-shelf tools:

  • Monthly subscriptions that grow with every user
  • An English interface or a poor translation
  • A structure designed for Western market models
  • Your data sits on someone else's servers

A custom CRM:

  • A one-off investment, no monthly fees
  • Mirrors your exact sales process
  • In Bulgarian, built for your specific needs
  • The data is yours, on a server of your choice

What a typical SME CRM includes

When we build a CRM for a small or medium-sized business, we usually develop:

  • A contact database with the full communication history
  • A deal pipeline — every deal visualised by stage
  • Tasks and reminders — no customer is forgotten
  • Reports — who sells, what sells and how fast
  • Email integration — correspondence is attached to the customer record

A real example

A construction company was working with 3 different Excel files and WhatsApp to communicate with customers. After deploying a custom CRM:

  • Time to prepare a quote dropped from 45 to 15 minutes
  • The deal close rate rose by 18% in 6 months
  • Not a single follow-up was missed

Next step

If you manage customers in Excel or rely on your salespeople's memory, you probably already feel the problem. Get in touch for a free consultation — we'll show you what the system looks like before you decide whether you want us to build it.

Learn more about how we build custom software and how the project can be funded by an EU programme.