What is a CRM?

Also known as CRM (Customer Relationship Management), a CRM solution is an all-in-one platform that centralises, organises, and manages all interactions between your organisation and your users, members, clients, donors, businesses, and students.

More than just a tool, your CRM is a partner that helps you work more efficiently every day.

Discover what a CRM can do for you, its benefits, and key tips to help you find the solution best suited to your needs!

Transform the Way You Engage with Your Users, Members, Partners, or Clients

Want to better meet your users’ expectations? Strengthen member loyalty in your association? Retain your customers? Or simplify the student journey in your higher education institution?

There are countless reasons to adopt a Customer Relationship Management solution.

A CRM platform helps you manage all interactions with your stakeholders. Fully customisable, connectable with many of your existing tools and apps, and accessible from any connected device, it centralises all key contact information (personal details, interaction history, preferences, requests, transactions…) into a single, organised view.

Every authorised team member can access and update this information in just a few clicks.

But a CRM is much more than a database — it offers a wide range of features to help you automate repetitive tasks, track project progress, optimise your communication campaigns, personalise your outreach, and monitor your operations in real time.

Whatever your structure or sector, a CRM is an essential strategic tool to strengthen stakeholder relationships, streamline your processes, and boost operational efficiency.

Why Use a CRM?

Collect and Centralise Your Data More Effectively

A CRM solution streamlines interactions with users, members, clients, and partners by bringing all their key information into a single, organised platform. Every department gains a reliable, up-to-date view of these records at any time.

Example:
You work for a professional association and lack visibility over your membership data. Each department keeps its own Excel file, causing duplicates, errors, and wasted time. With a CRM, all member data (contact details, payment records, interaction history…) is centralised in one place, updated in real time, and accessible to your whole team — eliminating redundancy and errors.

Simplify Tracking of Your Actions and Interactions

Whatever your activity, rigorous follow-up of stakeholder interactions is essential to ensure nothing is missed. A CRM platform gives you visibility over the full lifecycle of each relationship, from first contact to final exchange.

Example:
You run an SME and realise your sales follow-up process isn’t efficient. Without a CRM, some customer interactions are missed, and opportunities slip through the cracks. With a CRM, you can track every lead through custom dashboards showing their status (new, in progress, closed…), team actions, and planned follow-ups. You can even configure automated payment reminders or after-sales service workflows to keep everything on track.

Manage Your Campaigns and Events with Ease

A CRM makes it easy to plan, manage, and measure the impact of communication campaigns and events. It helps you coordinate teams, automate repetitive tasks (sending invitations, scheduling reminders), and monitor outcomes.

Example:
You regularly organise official meetings in your public administration but struggle to coordinate departments and track registrations. With a CRM, you can centralise guest lists, send invitations and reminders automatically, and track attendance in one clear dashboard — for smoother management. Your CRM can also manage your communication campaigns (in compliance with Canadian privacy regulations) and generate statistics to guide future decisions.

Optimise Your User Journeys

A CRM helps you map every key step in your user, client, or student journey across all channels, identifying pain points and ensuring smooth, personalised experiences at every stage.

Example:
You manage a higher education institution and struggle with student tracking (internship requests, research contracts…). A CRM lets you map the entire student journey — from application through enrolment, academic monitoring, internships, all the way to graduation. This allows you to offer tailored support and strengthens your connection with students and future alumni.

Manage Your Resources More Efficiently

A CRM provides a clear overview of human, material, and financial resources. With built-in tracking and analytics tools, it helps you prioritise actions, anticipate constraints, and allocate resources more efficiently.

Example:
In the public sector, tighter budgets complicate project management. A CRM helps you identify funding opportunities, available grants, and potential partners, while coordinating current partnerships, tracking expenses, and forecasting future needs.

Get Fast, Secure Access to Information

A CRM ensures that every authorised team member can securely access the data they need — no matter where they are. This is essential if your teams work in hybrid mode or frequently travel.

Example:
You work for a public-sector organisation and struggle to access up-to-date information on your users. With a CRM, your staff can see all records — claims, past requests, and interaction history — instantly. This means faster case resolution, better coordination between services, and improved citizen satisfaction.

Strengthen Loyalty and Relationships

By centralising data and tracking every interaction, a CRM helps you anticipate needs and send targeted, personalised communications. This builds trust, deepens engagement, and develops long-lasting relationships.

Example:
You manage a foundation and find it challenging to keep donors engaged year after year. A CRM lets you segment donors by giving habits (amount, frequency) and send tailored campaigns, automated reminders, and personalised thank-you messages. This helps maintain consistent contributions and strengthens donor relationships.

Simplify Membership Management

Whether you manage an association, club, or loyalty programme, a CRM helps you track memberships in real time, personalise communications, and automate renewal reminders and payment requests.

Example:
You manage a professional association and often see discrepancies between expected membership revenue and what’s collected. A CRM allows you to automate reminders for renewals and payments, while providing reporting tools to anticipate member needs and reduce missed payments.

Streamline Committees and Mandate Management

In associations, public, or professional organisations, a CRM helps you track meetings, commission work, and decisions for a smooth, traceable process.

Example:
You work for a professional association and struggle to bring together all stakeholders for meetings and keep actions on schedule. A CRM can record each member’s contributions, send automatic meeting reminders, and generate decision-tracking reports — ensuring accountability and follow-up.

Gain Full Control Over Your Organisation

A CRM gives you a real-time view of key metrics, helping you track performance, identify improvements, and coordinate teams. Automated reporting and task management help you make faster, more informed decisions.

Example:
Each December, you spend hours pulling data for your annual report. With a CRM, you can consolidate data instantly, generate dashboards, and create detailed reports in a few clicks.

Why Choose a CRM? More Than a Tool: a Strategic Lever

A CRM centralises your data, automates processes, strengthens stakeholder relationships, and improves decision-making. Whether you work in a professional association, higher education, public sector, foundation, or private company, a CRM helps you reach your goals faster.

How to Choose the Right CRM

Step 1: Select CRM Tools Tailored to Your Industry

The first step is to ensure the CRM you choose is designed for your specific industry.

The ideal solution must offer features aligned with your professional needs to automate complex tasks, simplify workflows, facilitate team collaboration, and stay flexible enough to support both current and future goals.

A good CRM should not only improve customer relationship management, but also enhance your overall performance by adapting to your growth.

Step 2: Define Your CRM Requirements

To choose the right CRM, you must clearly define your needs. Identify your objectives — whether that’s centralising data currently scattered across multiple files, improving sales processes, or optimising workflows. It’s a good idea to detail these requirements in a CRM project brief. This document will guide you in evaluating the relevance of each solution and help the software provider better understand your priorities. This preparation is essential to ensure the chosen CRM integrates seamlessly into your operations and supports your goals.

Step 3: Compare Usability, Flexibility, and Value for Money

Once you’ve shortlisted CRM solutions, compare their usability — a key factor for fast adoption. Prioritise scalable CRMs that can grow with your needs and business development. Naturally, cost-effectiveness is another crucial factor. While some open-source or generic CRMs may seem inexpensive, they may fall short in meeting specific requirements and hide additional costs (maintenance, adjustments).

On the other hand, CRM solutions designed specifically for your industry offer the best balance — combining relevant features, customisation, and long-term strategic value.

The Main Types of CRM on the Market

There are three main types of CRM, each serving a specific need: operational, analytical, and collaborative.

• Operational CRM
  Designed to optimise day-to-day tasks, particularly those linked to managing customer relationships. It automates emails, marketing and communication campaigns, and tracks interactions.
• Analytical CRM
  Focused on data analysis and insights. It offers dashboards and reporting tools to give you a clear overview of your activity and help measure performance.
• Collaborative CRM
  Aims to improve communication, information sharing, and teamwork across your organisation.

Eudonet’s CRM solution combines all three approaches, offering a comprehensive tool designed for modern organisations. It simplifies workflows, boosts productivity, and frees your teams from repetitive tasks. You can track key metrics at a glance with custom dashboards, making informed decisions easier. And collaborative features help keep teams aligned and coordinated — even remotely.

The 3 Immediate Benefits of Eudonet CRM

A Solution Designed for You and With You

Enjoy a better user experience with an all-in-one CRM that unifies your database and business processes.

100% Customisable, 100% Connected

A CRM built to reflect your organisation and evolve as your needs change, with add-ons available via the Eudostore.

Your Data Hosted in France

A fully French CRM, built on expertise trusted by over 2,000 projects.

What Is a SaaS CRM Solution?

A SaaS (Software as a Service) CRM retains all the features of a traditional CRM — data management, task automation, relationship tracking — but with a different deployment model. In SaaS mode, the software is hosted on secure servers and accessible online at any time, from any connected device. There is no need for on-site infrastructure installation.

A SaaS CRM stands out for:

• Flexibility: scalable storage capacity that adapts to your changing needs.
• Operational simplicity: technical management (updates, security, maintenance) is handled by the provider, so you can focus on your core mission.
• Lower costs: no additional installation or maintenance fees, everything is included in the subscription.

What Makes Eudonet’s SaaS CRM Different?

At Eudonet, we combine CRM expertise with the benefits of a SaaS platform. You get an intuitive, secure, regularly updated solution — with zero technical overhead.

Our cloud architecture ensures full access, anywhere, anytime, with a simple internet connection. The solution is designed to adapt to your specific needs while remaining scalable to support your organisation’s growth.

Tailored to the requirements of sectors such as higher education, local authorities, associations, and private businesses, Eudonet offers features that match your industry’s challenges.

This flexibility makes Eudonet more than just a CRM — it’s a comprehensive solution that simplifies relationship management and gives you access to powerful, user-friendly technology designed to amplify your success.