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Most “CRM feature checklist” posts list forty things nobody uses. Here are the ten that actually change how fast your team closes deals — and what to look for in each one before you commit to a platform.

1. Round-robin lead assignment

Leads that sit in a shared inbox for even twenty minutes convert at a fraction of the rate of leads claimed instantly. A CRM should assign every new lead to a rep automatically, the moment it arrives — not rely on someone remembering to check a spreadsheet.

2. Native lead source integrations

If most of your pipeline comes from IndiaMART, JustDial or Facebook Lead Ads, manual CSV exports are a tax on every single lead. Look for direct, automatic sync — not a “we support Zapier” answer that means another tool and another monthly bill.

3. A real WhatsApp inbox, not just broadcast

WhatsApp is where Indian buyers actually reply. A CRM built for this market needs a shared team inbox on the official Meta WhatsApp Business API, with round-robin assignment on incoming replies — not just the ability to blast a template message.

4. GST-correct quotations

A quote that’s missing an HSN/SAC code or has the wrong GST slab gets sent back for correction, and that delay is often what loses the deal to a faster competitor. Quoting should be built into the CRM, versioned, and correct by default.

5. Duplicate detection

The same lead calling in from a WhatsApp enquiry, an IndiaMART message and a phone call shouldn’t become three separate records fought over by three reps. Look for matching across phone, email and source.

6. SLA timers and escalation

“We usually respond fast” isn’t a system — it’s a hope. A CRM should track response time against a target and flag or escalate anything that’s about to breach it.

7. Role-based data scoping

A rep in one branch shouldn’t be able to export the entire company’s contact list. Access should scope by branch, team or assignment, not just by a single admin/user toggle.

8. An audit trail that can’t be edited

When a deal goes sideways, “who changed the price and when” needs to be an instant answer, not a WhatsApp thread of finger-pointing. Every action should be logged and the log should be tamper-proof.

9. Dashboards built around source, not just stage

Stage-based pipeline views are table stakes. What’s harder to find — and more useful — is a breakdown by lead source, so you can see which channel is actually worth the ad spend.

10. DLT-compliant SMS

If SMS is part of your follow-up mix, the CRM needs to handle DLT registration and template approval properly. Messages sent through non-compliant routes get silently dropped by operators — you won’t even know they failed.

The pattern underneath all ten

None of these are exotic. What they have in common is that they’re specific to how Indian SMB sales teams actually work — IndiaMART and JustDial as primary lead sources, WhatsApp as the default channel, GST as a non-negotiable part of quoting. A horizontal, US-built CRM can usually bolt on approximations of most of these. Whether that’s good enough is worth checking before you sign a year of billing.

If you want to see all fourteen modules EZCRM ships with, the full features page breaks them down by workflow stage, or you can book a 30-minute demo and we’ll walk through your specific lead sources.

If you can only fix one thing in your sales process this quarter, fix response time. Study after study on inbound lead conversion finds the same pattern: a lead contacted within five minutes is dramatically more likely to convert than the same lead contacted an hour later — and by the next day, most of that opportunity is simply gone.

Why the first five minutes matter so much

An inbound lead — someone who filled a form on IndiaMART, sent a WhatsApp enquiry, or called in — is in an unusually high-intent, high-attention window. They’re actively comparing options right now. The moment that window closes, so does most of your edge. Reaching them first isn’t just a nice-to-have; for many categories it’s the deciding factor over price or product.

Where teams actually lose the five minutes

• The lead sits in an inbox. Nobody owns it until someone happens to check.
• It gets manually re-typed. A lead from IndiaMART gets copied by hand into a spreadsheet or CRM, adding minutes or hours.
• Assignment is unclear. Three reps assume someone else will call, so nobody does.
• The channel is wrong. A callback attempt fails, but nobody follows up on WhatsApp where the buyer is actually active.

What actually fixes it

Speed is a systems problem, not a willpower problem. Three things move the needle:

Automatic capture

Leads from IndiaMART, JustDial and Facebook should land in your CRM the moment they’re submitted — not after someone remembers to check three different portals.

Instant, automatic assignment

Round-robin assignment the second a lead arrives removes the “who’s calling this one” ambiguity entirely. No lead should be unowned for more than a few seconds.

Multi-channel first touch

If a call doesn’t connect, an automatic WhatsApp message on the official Business API keeps the response inside that five-minute window even when a phone call doesn’t land.

How to know if you’re actually hitting it

You need to measure it, not estimate it. An SLA timer on every lead — with escalation when it’s about to breach — turns “we’re usually pretty fast” into a number you can actually trust and improve.

This is the single highest-leverage change most Indian SMB sales teams can make, and it’s also the one most CRMs treat as an afterthought. EZCRM’s Lead Management module is built around exactly this: instant capture, instant assignment, and SLA timers that actually escalate. If you want to see how it looks against your own lead sources, book a demo.