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CRM and Website in One: Why Small Businesses Are Better Off Together

SB
Sam Ball
5 min read
In short: Most small businesses run their website and their CRM as two separate tools that barely talk to each other: a site on one platform, customer records on another, and a gap in between where enquiries get lost. Keeping both in one platform means the website feeds straight into your customer records, there is nothing to integrate, and you pay one bill instead of two. It is simpler, less leaky, and usually cheaper than buying both separately.

Here is a setup that will feel familiar. Your website lives on one platform (Wix, WordPress, Shopify, something a web designer built). Your customer information lives somewhere else: a CRM, a pile of spreadsheets, your inbox, your head. The two have nothing to do with each other. Every enquiry that comes through the site has to be copied over by hand, if it gets copied at all.

That gap is quietly costing you. This is the case for keeping the two in one place.

The usual setup, and why it leaks

A website and a CRM do two halves of the same job. The website brings people in. The CRM is meant to make sure none of them slip away. When they are separate tools, the handover between those two halves is done by a person, manually, which means it often does not happen at all.

An enquiry arrives through the contact form. It sends an email. The email sits in an inbox. Someone means to add it to the CRM later. Later never comes, and a potential customer goes cold. Multiply that across every busy week and you have got a steady leak you cannot even see, because the lead never made it into a system that would have flagged it.

What 'in one' actually changes

When your website and your customer records are the same platform, the handover disappears, because there is nothing to hand over:

  • Enquiries land straight in your customer records. No copying, no inbox limbo, nothing falling through the gap.
  • You see the whole picture of a customer in one place: what they asked about, what you quoted, where things stand.
  • There is nothing to integrate. Separate tools need a connector to talk to each other, which you pay for, set up, and fix when it breaks. One platform has no seam.
  • One bill, one login, one thing to learn, instead of two of everything.

It is the difference between a business that runs on one joined-up system and one held together with manual copying and good intentions.

The cost usually favours one platform too

The separate-tools route is rarely the cheaper one once you add it up. You are paying for a website platform and a CRM, and most CRMs charge per user, so the bill grows with your team. A small business can easily end up paying more for two disconnected tools than for one platform that does both.

That is the model behind Jeanus: a CRM and a full website in one, from £49 a month with unlimited users, rather than two subscriptions and a connector between them.

Built for how you actually work

The other quiet advantage of one platform is fit. A generic CRM bolted to a generic website builder gives you two tools, neither built for your line of work. A platform designed around a specific way of working can join the website and the records around your actual business: trade accounts for a merchant, projects for an agency, candidates for a recruiter. See how Jeanus works for wholesale, agencies, recruitment, products, or services.

So before you renew a website plan and a separate CRM for another year, it is worth asking whether you are paying twice for a job one joined-up system could do better, and for less.

Want your website and your customers in one place?
See how Jeanus brings them together.
See featuresView pricing
About the author: Sam Ball, Director and Founder of Pixel and Shovel, makers of Jeanus, the CRM and website platform for small businesses. Background: over a decade in wholesale and distribution before building tools for the sector.

Quick questions

Do I need a separate website and CRM?
You need both jobs done, but not necessarily as two separate tools. Running them in one platform means your website and your customer data are joined up, enquiries land straight in your records, and you pay one bill instead of two. Separate tools mean double entry, integration work and a gap where leads get lost.
Is an all-in-one CRM and website cheaper than separate tools?
Usually, yes. A website platform plus a separate CRM (often priced per seat) typically costs more than one platform that does both. Jeanus includes a website and a CRM together from £49 a month with unlimited users.
Can my website feed enquiries into my CRM automatically?
When the two are one platform, yes, automatically and with no integration to build or maintain. When they are separate tools, you either pay for a connector, build one, or copy details across by hand.
What is the downside of using separate tools?
Double data entry, leads slipping through the gap between systems, two subscriptions, two logins, and the ongoing cost and fragility of keeping an integration working. For a small team, that adds up to real time and money.

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