CRM implementation can feel daunting—from choosing the right CRM to integrating it with your sales tech stack and driving adoption.
That’s why learning from real-world examples can be so valuable. By looking at how other businesses—from SaaS startups to enterprise organizations—successfully adopted and optimized their CRM systems, you can gain practical insights, avoid common pitfalls, and build confidence in your own rollout.
If you’re looking for CRM implementation case studies to inspire your strategy and help you get it right the first time, you’re in the right place.
14 CRM Case Studies
Want to get this done right (the first time)? Learn from the CRM case studies of companies that implemented a new CRM successfully to improve the customer experience, drive customer engagement, and increase revenue.
1. How Customer.io Uses Automated Handoffs to Enable Smarter Sales
Company: Customer.io
Customer.io is an established martech provider that needed a CRM to work better with both an inbound and outbound sales process. Plus, they needed it to fit well with their current tool stack and give them automated workflows.
This case study interview with Alex Patton, Director of Marketing & Operations, covers inbound + outbound workflows, automated handoffs, and productivity gains.
2. 6 Tips for Assessing Your CRM + Optimizing Workflow—from a Revenue Coach
Company/Organization: High Kick Sales
Kyle Stremme’s consulting firm, High Kick Sales, enables sales teams to create an optimized process and tech stack. This case study explores the insights Kyle gained from helping B2B and B2C companies develop their CRM systems and processes, plus details on how he helps managers analyze their current CRM and decide on a better system.
3. Implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Hotel Industry from an Organizational Culture Perspective
Company: Anonymous UK hotel chain
This study, done by the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, examined a hotel chain in the UK as it implemented a new CRM, noting what worked and what didn't about its implementation process.
They administered a questionnaire to 346 hotel chain managers and found that organizational culture readiness was one of the most determining factors in the success of a CRM implementation.
4. Choosing and Implementing a CRM for Small Business
Company: Bean Ninjas
Bean Ninjas is an accounting firm for eCommerce businesses. Their stack was fragmented (PM tool as "CRM," no built-in email). The case study shows how selecting a true CRM streamlined pipeline, email, and integrations.
Their self-written case study goes through choosing the right CRM, implementing the system into a more optimized sales workflow, technical integrations, and the end results.
5. How AAXIS Digital is Saving an Estimated $250,000 by Switching from Salesforce to the HubSpot CRM Platform
Company: AAXIS
This CRM implementation case study focuses on how an enterprise company migrated CRMs at enterprise scale, cutting license bloat and improving marketing-sales alignment with deeper automation.
The case study explores how they chose their new CRM and their accomplishments with it, including increasing marketing automation and better aligning sales and marketing. For specific Salesforce resources, check out our list of CRM implementation resources.
6. Replacing HubSpot with Close: Scaling Trufan in a CRM Reps Love
Company: Trufan
Trufan (now Surf for Brands) is a fast-growing SaaS startup with a tech-savvy target market. So, they needed a CRM that could move quickly alongside their team, helping them build well-constructed automation that could scale as they grew.
This CRM implementation case study shows how a wrong decision slowed their progress and how a new solution helped them scale faster.
7. A Successful CRM Implementation Project in a Service Company
Company: Anonymous service company from Slovenia
This academic case study by Piskar Franka and Armand Faganel examines the process a service company in Slovenia followed alongside CRM consultants to implement a new solution.
They concluded that a proper CRM implementation can improve customer relationships, achieve greater information sharing between employees, and lead to better strategic decisions. This is mostly interesting for historical purposes, as it gives some insight into the complexity involved in implementing a CRM into a larger company in 2007.
8. Hownd Cut CRM Costs by 80 percent in 2 Weeks—While Saving SMBs During COVID
Company: Hownd
Hownd works with brick-and-mortar businesses to get more foot traffic, and their mission since the start of the pandemic is to help SMBs get back on their feet and recover. They needed a CRM that would help them cut their costs to help others and help them move quickly to fill the needs of their customers.
This case study/COVID success story shows how Hownd found the right CRM for their business, cut costs, streamlined their process, and continues to help SMBs survive through hard times.
9. The Ultimate Team Effort: How the Close Sales Team Joins Forces to Build More Solid Deals
Company: Close
This unique case study is the story of our CRM software company and how we’ve implemented our CRM tool into our sales stack. It digs into the nitty-gritty of technical setups and integrations, API, and how it all works together for a smooth, profitable process.
10. Switching to HubSpot Adds up for Casio
Company: Casio
This enterprise CRM implementation case study shows how consumer electronics company Casio switched from a custom-built CRM to one that was more inclusive for their marketing and sales teams. It shows how they updated their inbound marketing process and increased their new customer sales by 26 percent.
11. The Unique Sales Process ResQ Club Uses to Power It's Mission to Zero Food Waste
Company: ResQ Club
ResQ Club, a Finnish company on a mission to make zero food waste a reality, needed a CRM solution that would help them track customers and partners and scale quickly.
This case study shows how they used Close to build their own custom processes with Custom Fields, email sequences that are personalized to different European cities, and Smart Views that keep sales reps focused on the right deals.
12. Strategic Issues in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Implementation
Company: Anonymous UK manufacturing company
This paper from 2003 by Christopher Bull from the Department of Business Information Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School discusses the effects of a strategic customer relationship management process and how it affected this manufacturing company.
The results of this study highlighted that CRM implementations frequently failed. It also referenced a study of 202 CRM projects, which concluded that only 30.7 percent of organizations said the CRM implementation improved how they sell to and service customers.
13. Why HR Covered Sales Leaders Switched to Close After a Decade of Using Salesforce
Company: HR Covered
HR Covered, a Canadian HR consulting company, spent years struggling with Salesforce and other complex CRM setups before finding Close. Their team of eight sales reps needed a unified communication system that was lightweight, cost-effective, and easy to use without endless integrations or expensive consultants.
With Close, HR Covered was able to:
- Centralize all sales communication (calls, texts, emails) in one place.
- Improve outbound and inbound sales productivity using Close’s Power Dialer and Zoom integration.
- Reduce costs by eliminating multiple add-ons and external consultants.
- Foster better collaboration with Smart Views, call coaching, and Slack integrations.
CEO Randy Nordgren highlights that Close has become their #1 growth tool, enabling them to scale faster, coach their reps more effectively, and save money by avoiding Salesforce complexity.
14. How UGURUS Doubled Sales Productivity and Halved Management Time With Close
Company: UGURUS
UGURUS, a coaching company helping 10,000 digital agency owners scale, struggled with Salesforce’s complexity and reliance on third-party tools. Despite investing thousands into engineering and consulting resources, they couldn’t get Salesforce to fit their fast-moving SMB workflow.
By switching to Close, UGURUS achieved:
- 2x sales productivity, with reps making 200–250 calls daily instead of struggling to hit 100.
- A 50 percent reduction in management time, as sales leaders could instantly review calls, set up statuses, and manage workflows without external help.
- Improved team culture, with reps collaborating more, sharing feedback, and coaching each other.
- Faster onboarding, using Close’s live listening and call coaching features to train new hires in just 3 days (down from 6).
Director of Sales Jonathan Hinshaw compares Close to "an Apple product: simple, intuitive, and built to just work," crediting the platform for giving him both a more productive sales team and a happier workplace.
Testimonials that Highlight the Benefits of CRM Implementation
What kind of benefits should you expect once you’ve implemented a new CRM? It depends on your company and current pain points. If you are considering switching to a new CRM or implementing one for the first time, here’s what real CRM users say:
1. Nick Parker, Founder at FTOCloud
“With Close, we're able to keep track of hundreds of deals and clients over multiple months while simultaneously unifying our team's communication.”
2. Tim Griffin, Founder & CEO at Cloosiv
“We didn’t start getting traction until we started using Close. I don’t know if the company would still be here if we hadn’t implemented it.”
3. Maryl Johnston, CEO at Bean Ninjas
“The real benefit of Close is less about sales admin time and more about closing more deals. Because Close makes it very easy to stay in touch with customers and allows Sales to manage their pipeline without needing a sales admin, we can now go into Close and see all the leads in a broad view.”
4. Aimee Creighton, Sales Administrator at Bean Ninjas
“The biggest win for me is the cut-down in labor time of setting up leads in our task management system (not designed for lead management) and ensuring all fields are filled out. It significantly reduced the time-intensive manual process of documenting leads. I feel like Close has completely cut that down, and everything is right there from the dashboard. I think it’s been worth the investment.”
5. Monika Tudja, Business Development Manager at Now Technologies
“I can't imagine my work-life without Close - I've been using it at my previous company and I 'demanded' implementing it on my first day at the current one. I'm useless without Close. Seriously thinking about getting an account for my personal life.”
6. Sara Archer, Director of Sales and Marketing
“Since we've started using Close, we've QUADRUPLED our average revenue per user.”
7. Sarah Haselkorn, Head of Sales at MakeSpace
“You guys [at Close] have been a HUGE part of our growth so far, and with your support I have so much confidence that our sales team is set up to scale.”
8. Duncan Burns, VeggiDome
“I am able to stay on top of my outreach, correspondence, and follow-up seamlessly AND relax enough to do a better job, knowing that I'm not missing a beat!”
9. Michael Grady, Lazarus
“This is a CRM that is all about focus with no bloat which is exactly what inside sales needs.”
10. Aubrey Lim, ThreeTrees
“My first time using a CRM. 8 months in and it's frictionless to use. My favorite features: being able to pull up colleagues' emails to a particular lead, bulk-uploading contacts, email templates.”
11. Timothy Corey, Director of Sales at Commonwealth Joe
“Close allows us to see where we should spend our time and effort. We can look at our sales for the same quarter last year and know what worked well and what didn’t -- this allows me to know where to put my energy, on what companies, and in what markets.”
Ready to Write Your Own CRM Implementation Success Story?
The right CRM helps you easily access customer information, track contacts, qualify leads, improve conversion rates, and more. If you're ready to implement a CRM, we can help.
For a successful CRM implementation, you need a clear plan to follow. That’s why we’ve given you the right resources to make a better decision. Get our CRM implementation guide here:
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