Tool Governance
Manage CRM tool selection, permissions, change control, and data quality operations.
A CRM tool binds customer data, habits, workflow, and reporting. Tool selection matters, but governance matters more over time.
Selection Criteria
| Criterion | Question |
|---|---|
| Data model | Can it represent our customer structure naturally? |
| Process | Can it support stages, SLA, tasks, and approvals? |
| Automation | Can it handle conditions, exceptions, and failure alerts? |
| Analytics | Can it produce the KPI views we need reliably? |
| Integration | Can it connect website, billing, product usage, and support data? |
| Permissions | Can access control match teams and roles? |
| Operating cost | Can we sustain admin, maintenance, and licenses? |
Permission Principles
- Customer privacy and contract data should use least privilege.
- Field creation, deletion, and automation changes belong to CRM Owner/Admin.
- Bulk import/export needs separate permission.
- AI features that send customer data externally need review and logging.
- Offboarding and role changes require periodic access review.
Change Flow
Change Request Template
| Item | Content |
|---|---|
| Request | New field, automation, dashboard, or permission change |
| Purpose | Which operating problem it solves |
| Impact | Objects, teams, automations, reports |
| Data impact | Existing values, required status, reporting impact |
| Rollback | How to recover if it fails |
| Success metric | What should improve after the change |
Avoid
- Temporary fields that are never removed.
- Team-specific fields with the same meaning.
- Dashboard calculations with no documentation.
- Customer-visible automation changes without review.
- Tool migration without data cleanup.