Lead sources are plural, and none of them is a tidy form
Your enquiries will not arrive through one channel. Check that a CRM can take a marketplace enquiry, a web form, a missed call and a WhatsApp message and put all four into the same queue with an owner and a timestamp. If any one of those channels needs a manual copy-paste, that is the channel your team will silently drop.
Telecalling is a real job function here
Most Indian small businesses employ people whose day is calls, not meetings. That means a built-in dialler, call recording against the lead, disposition codes and a call list that reorders itself matter far more than an elegant deal board. Score any candidate on what a telecaller's screen looks like, not on what a director's dashboard looks like.
Language decides who your team can sell to
A customer in Nashik and a customer in Madurai may both be reached in the language they are comfortable in by two different executives on your floor. Notes will be written in a mix of English and transliterated Hindi, Marathi or Tamil. A CRM that mangles that text or forces a single template language quietly narrows your addressable market.
Outbound messaging has a compliance step
If you send transactional or promotional SMS to Indian numbers, your sender IDs and message templates need to be registered on the DLT platform under the framework set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, and that registration is your obligation as the sender. Ask any vendor how templates are handled before you build a campaign around messaging, not after your first batch fails to deliver.
GST details belong on the customer record
The GSTIN, the legal name, the state and the billing address determine how you invoice and how the place of supply is treated. Holding those on the customer record rather than in an accountant's separate file removes a recurring source of credit notes and re-issued invoices, particularly for businesses selling across state lines.
