Every module. Every setting. Every workflow. Written so you can either read cover to cover or dip in when you hit a specific question.
Cover to cover in under 30 minutes.
Each self-contained, jump to what you need.
CRM, comms, money, ops, automation, analytics.
info@unavoidablecrm.com - Andrew reads every email.
Every chapter stands alone. If you already know contacts and pipeline, skip straight to Communications on page 6.
The 30 seconds between logging in and being productive.
From unavoidablecrm.com/login, enter your email and password. If your account has two-factor authentication enabled, you will be prompted for a code from your authenticator app. Sessions expire after 30 minutes of inactivity for security. Tick "Keep me signed in for 30 days" to persist the session on a device you own.
The homepage of the CRM is the dashboard. It shows: today's KPIs (revenue synced, bookings today, calls answered, AI handled), the booking lifecycle across your pipeline stages, your recent bookings and fresh enquiries. Each widget is clickable and takes you to the detail view.
Personalised view. The dashboard adapts to your industry preset. A tour operator sees "travellers on file". A trades business sees "jobs booked". A clinic sees "appointments scheduled". Change your preset under Settings - Industry.
The left-hand sidebar is your primary navigation. It groups modules into sections: Getting Started, Sales & CRM, Marketing, Operations, Communications, Reports and Account. Items you have access to and are enabled for your tenant appear. Items you do not are hidden.
Owners with access to multiple companies see a tenant switcher in the top bar. Every action you take applies to the currently-selected tenant. The tenant indicator (top left of the sidebar) always shows which tenant you are viewing.
Owner-only feature. Regular users only see their own company. Cross-tenant switching is restricted to Owners.
The search bar at the top of every page (or Cmd+K on Mac, Ctrl+K on Windows) is a global search. Type a contact name, deal, quote number or invoice reference. Jumping to any record is 3 keystrokes away.
The bedrock. Every interaction lives against a contact.
Three ways: manually one at a time (Contacts - New), bulk CSV upload (Contacts - Import), or through an integration (Mailchimp, WooCommerce, HubSpot, Pipedrive - see Settings - Imports). All imports are idempotent - re-running does not create duplicates, existing contacts are matched by email.
Standard fields: first name, last name, email, phone, mobile, company, job title, address, notes. Custom fields are configurable per tenant under Settings - Custom fields. Add fields like "boiler make", "policy number" or "referral source" to fit your business.
Tags are the fastest way to segment. Apply as many as needed. Use tags to power sequences ("new lead", "customer", "quoted"), filter reports, and gate module visibility. Tags are colour-coded and searchable.
Every SMS, email, call, quote, invoice, booking and note against a contact is logged in reverse chronological order on their timeline. Nothing needs to be manually recorded - the CRM captures it automatically as it happens.
GDPR built in. Every contact record shows consent state (marketing opt-in, terms accepted, when). Right-to-be-forgotten deletes cascade through all related records. Data export produces a full JSON dossier of everything held on that person.
Select multiple contacts from any list view (checkbox), then apply: tag, send SMS/email, add to sequence, export, delete. Bulk sends respect opt-out settings and rate limits automatically.
Where you track how much money is heading your way.
A deal is a potential sale attached to a contact. Every deal has: a value (in your currency), a stage (Enquiry, Quoted, Won, etc.), a close date, an owner (the salesperson) and any number of related quotes, invoices and notes.
Configure your stages under Settings - Pipeline. Common patterns: for trades (Enquiry - Site visit - Quoted - Booked - Complete), for agencies (New lead - Proposal - Negotiation - Won), for clinics (Enquiry - Consultation - Confirmed - Attended). Add, remove, rename and colour any stage.
Sidebar - Pipeline. Drag deals between columns as they progress. The board updates in real time. The top of each column shows total deal value and count.
Quick win. On the Kanban board, click any deal card for a preview drawer without leaving the page. Fewer clicks means fewer distractions.
Automatically move a deal to "Quoted" when a quote is sent. Automatically move to "Won" when a quote is accepted. Automatically move to "Lost" if no reply after 30 days. Configure these under Settings - Automation - Deal rules.
Reports - Pipeline forecast. Shows expected revenue by month based on deal values weighted by probability at each stage. A deal at "Enquiry" contributes 10%, "Quoted" 40%, "Negotiation" 70%, "Won" 100%. Probabilities are editable per tenant.
When a customer refers you to someone else, log it in the referral sidebar. The referrer earns points (configurable reward), the new contact is tagged as "referred by [name]" for personalisation, and both records are linked so you can measure referral conversion.
Every channel your customers use. In one place.
Unavoidable CRM does not resell SMS. You bring your own Twilio account. That means: no markup, transparent per-message pricing, direct billing from Twilio. Costs typically 3p per UK SMS, 4-6c per US SMS.
twilio.com - create account, buy a phone number, note your Account SID and Auth Token.
Settings - Integrations - Twilio. Paste SID, token, and pick your phone number from the dropdown.
From any contact record, click SMS. Character count and cost preview shown as you type.
Same model as SMS. You bring Postmark. Set up your domain in Postmark for DKIM and DMARC alignment (critical for deliverability). Then paste the Server Token into Settings - Integrations - Postmark.
Deliverability check. After connecting, send a test email to check-auth@verifier.port25.com. You should get back a full auth report showing SPF pass, DKIM pass, DMARC alignment. Anything less means something in DNS is wrong.
Two-way messaging inside the contact record. Setup: Settings - Integrations - WhatsApp - Connect. Uses Twilio's WhatsApp API. Approved templates required for outbound-outside-24hr business rule. Full history synced across the team.
Every phone call, answered. Every voicemail avoided.
Powered by Retell, on your own Retell account. Answers the phone as your business, in British English, with your context (opening hours, services, prices, staff names, escalation rules). Takes the caller's name, number, email and what they need, creates the contact and queues a follow-up text and email. Arranges a call back from you when a caller asks for a person.
retellai.com - create an account, then copy the API key with the webhook badge (Settings - API Keys). Pay as you go: about 13p a minute on the recommended set-up, so 100 minutes is roughly £13.
In Retell create a Single Prompt agent with a British voice. Buy a UK number in Retell, import your Twilio number, or forward your existing number to it, and set the number's inbound agent.
AI Receptionist page - Connection details: paste your key, agent ID and number, fill in your knowledge base, then click Update and publish agent. Ring the number to test. Full guide: unavoidablecrm.com/ai-receptionist-setup.
What happens on a real call. A customer rings your number. Retell answers in your chosen voice, handles the FAQs from your knowledge base and takes their details. When the call ends the CRM logs it with a transcript and summary, adds or updates the contact, and starts the follow-up sequence.
Run AI calling campaigns from the Outbound calling page. Calls go out from your Retell number using your own script, and every result (answered, interested, callback, do not call) is logged on the contact. Anyone who asks not to be called again is opted out automatically.
Compliance note. UK, EU, Canada and Australia require one-party consent for call recording. US varies by state. Configure your compliance notice under Settings - Compliance - Call recording.
One inbox for everything. One template library across every channel.
Sidebar - Inbox. Combines: unread SMS, unread email, unread WhatsApp, missed calls with voicemail transcript, receptionist enquiries needing follow-up, form submissions. Each item has a "reply" button that opens the right composer for the channel.
Filter by: channel (SMS only, email only), owner (yours, mine, unassigned), priority (hot, cold), tag (customer, prospect). Save any filter as a view.
Reply times matter. Speed to first reply is one of the top three drivers of conversion. Target: reply to any hot enquiry within 60 seconds.
Sidebar - Templates. Reusable message snippets across SMS, email and WhatsApp. Support placeholders like {first_name}, {company}, {last_quote_value}, {booking_date}.
Email templates support full HTML with drag-and-drop editor. Insert your logo, brand colours, buttons, images. Preview on desktop and mobile before sending. Templates can be personal or shared.
SMS supports MMS (image attachments) via Twilio. Email supports any file up to 25MB. WhatsApp supports images, documents, audio. All attachments are stored securely and expire per your retention policy.
Send As allows an admin to send from another user's account. The recipient sees it from the team member, but the audit log records who actually sent it. Useful when someone is on holiday.
The lifecycle from "how much?" to money in your bank.
Sidebar - Quotes - New. Attach to a contact (or create one on the fly). Add line items with description, quantity, unit price and optional VAT/tax. Save as draft or send. Recipient gets a branded quote page with your logo, colours and terms.
Every quote sent has a green "Accept and pay" button. When clicked, the customer sees your pricing broken down, accepts the terms, and pays via Stripe (card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, direct debit for UK). No emails back-and-forth.
Deposits and part-payments. Configure quotes to require a 25%, 50% or fixed deposit before accept. The rest bills automatically when work starts, completes, or on any custom milestone.
If a quote goes unanswered, autochase kicks in. Configurable per template - default is a gentle reminder after 3 days, a firmer nudge after 7 days, a "we will assume you are not proceeding" note after 14 days.
Under Settings - Quote templates, build reusable templates with your standard line items pre-populated.
Send-and-forget. Invoice number auto-increments (configurable format under Settings). VAT-compliant for UK/EU. Payment reminder sequence built in. Overdue invoices flag red on your dashboard.
Quote vs invoice. A quote is a proposal (customer decides whether to proceed). An invoice is a demand for payment (work already agreed).
Every payment method your customers want. Instant settlement.
Settings - Integrations - Stripe - Connect. OAuth flow - takes 30 seconds. Once connected, every quote and invoice has a live Pay button. Payments hit your Stripe balance the next working day.
When a card payment fails, most tools give up. We do not. Automatic retry logic: retry on day 3, 5, 8, then a final on day 14. Between retries, we email the customer with a one-click "update card" link. Recovers 40-60% of failed payments that would otherwise be written off.
Real numbers. A typical service business processes 100 payments a month. 4-6% typically fail. Our dunning recovers roughly half of those. If your ARPU is 150 GBP, that's about 450 GBP/mo in recovered revenue.
Split a large invoice into instalments (2, 3, 4, 6 or 12 monthly payments). Customer signs up once with their card, monthly charges automatic. Late payment triggers dunning.
From any paid invoice, click Refund. Choose full or partial. Reason (optional but recommended). Refund processes through Stripe. Fully audit-logged.
Reports - Payments. Every payment received, refund issued, and settlement date. Export as CSV for your accountant, or connect directly to Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent.
Let customers book you without emailing.
Every tenant gets a public booking page at unavoidablecrm.com/book/[your-slug]. Customers pick a service, pick a time, enter their details, book. Confirmation and reminders automatic. The booking creates a contact record if new, and appears in your calendar in seconds.
Settings - Booking services. Each service has: name, description, duration, price, location type (in-person, video, phone), buffer before and after, availability rules. Different services can have different availability.
Settings - Working hours. Set your default availability by day of week. Override for specific dates (public holidays, half days). Block out custom periods. The public booking page respects all of it and only shows slots you are actually available.
Settings - Integrations - Google Calendar - Connect. Two-way sync. Bookings made on your public page appear in Google Calendar. Events created in Google Calendar block time on your booking page.
Automatic reminder sequences before every booking. Configurable per service: SMS 24 hours before, email 2 hours before, follow-up 1 hour after with review request. Reduces no-shows by 30-50%.
Payment on booking. Optionally require a deposit or full payment at booking time. Customer pays via Stripe as part of the booking flow. Reduces flakes by another 20%.
For trades and mobile teams. Everything the engineer needs, on the road.
From a booking or a deal, click "Create job". Job has: customer, site address, assigned engineer(s), scheduled date and time, service required, quoted value, notes. Every job is trackable on the pipeline (Scheduled - En route - On site - Complete - Invoiced).
Assign an engineer to a job. They get a text with a unique link. Opening the link on their phone shows: customer contact, site address (with a "get directions" button that opens Maps), the job brief, previous history for that site, ability to update status, and upload site photos.
Modules - Route Optimisation. Enter your engineer(s) and today's jobs. The algorithm sequences them for minimum drive time. Sends each engineer their optimised route via text link. Reduces fuel and mileage by 15-30% on a typical day.
Multi-day routing. If a job cannot fit today, the optimiser suggests moving it to tomorrow (if within the promised SLA) rather than making an engineer drive across town.
Engineers can upload before/after photos from their phone via the mobile link. Photos automatically attach to the job record and are visible on the customer timeline.
For regulated trades (gas, electrical, F-gas, PAT), generate compliance certificates directly from a completed job. Certificate PDFs are stored against the job, emailed to the customer, and reportable for audits.
When an engineer marks a job "Complete", the CRM prompts to invoice. Line items pre-populated from the quote. Send in one click.
For teams of 2-30 engineers, the dispatcher view shows all engineers on one Gantt-style board. Drag jobs between engineers. See who is overloaded, who has capacity.
The reason you own a CRM. Set it and it works while you sleep.
A sequence is a multi-step drip campaign that triggers off an event and progresses each contact through steps over time. Steps can be: send SMS, send email, send WhatsApp, wait N days, add tag, remove tag, move deal to stage, create task.
Sidebar - Sequences - New. Pick a trigger (contact added, tag applied, deal stage change, form submitted, quote sent, no reply in N days). Add steps by dragging blocks onto the canvas. Test with a dummy contact before going live.
Every sequence has stop-on-reply on by default. If the contact replies to any step, the sequence pauses. They are handed to a human. This is critical - nobody wants to receive an automated "still interested?" message after they have already booked.
Conditional branching. Add "if" conditions. Example: after 3 days, if the contact clicked the quote link, send them the "any questions?" email. If they did not click, send them the "hey, did this land?" SMS.
On any step, click "A/B test". Duplicate the message and edit the copy. The CRM randomly splits contacts 50/50 between the two variants and tracks open rate, click rate and conversion rate. After 100+ contacts through each arm, the winner is auto-promoted.
The numbers. Every one of them.
Your daily glance. Configurable widgets: KPI cards (revenue, bookings, conversion), the booking lifecycle Kanban, recent bookings, fresh enquiries, sequence performance, this month's pipeline value. Drag to reorder.
Reports - MRR. For subscription businesses. Track: current MRR, new MRR this month, churned MRR, expansion MRR (upgrades), contraction MRR (downgrades), net movement. Chart shows the last 12 months at a glance.
Reports - Pipeline. Weighted expected revenue by month based on deal stage and probability. Shows: current quarter, next quarter, worst case (60% of weighted), best case (all deals close). Compare to your target - see the gap in real time.
Forecasts you can trust. Weighted probabilities are learned from your own historical close rates, not made up. If Enquiry stage historically closes 12% of the time, that is the number used.
Reports - Funnels. Track any journey through your pipeline. Default funnel: Enquiry - Quoted - Won. Show conversion rate at each stage, average time in stage, drop-off reasons.
Reports - Cohorts. Group customers by month acquired. Show retention, expansion and lifetime value over time. Identify which cohorts churn fastest and why.
Reports - Custom. Build any report from scratch: pick fields, filters, groupings, chart type. Save. Share with your team. Schedule to email daily/weekly. Export as CSV or PDF.
Every contact tracks where they came from: referrer URL, UTM parameters, referral, campaign. Answer "which channel is driving my best customers" with real data, not gut.
Configure once, benefit forever.
Settings - Users. Roles: Owner (full access, billing, tenant switching), Admin (everything except billing and users), Sales (contacts, pipeline, quotes, invoices, comms), Support (contacts, comms, inbox only), Custom (build your own permission set). Invite by email. 2FA available.
For teams of 5+: group users into Teams (Sales, Support, Field). Assign deals and enquiries to teams rather than individuals. Deal routing rules can pick "any available Sales rep" to distribute leads fairly.
Settings - Custom fields. Add fields to contacts, deals, quotes, invoices. Field types: text, number, date, dropdown, tickbox, currency, URL. Custom fields appear everywhere the standard fields do: sortable, filterable, reportable.
Settings - Industry. Picking a preset (Trades, Clinic, Tour Operator, Agency, etc.) auto-configures: sidebar labels ("customers" vs "travellers" vs "patients"), default pipeline stages, common quote templates, default services. You can override any of it.
Settings - Imports. CSV upload, Mailchimp connect, HubSpot connect, Pipedrive connect. Idempotent - existing contacts matched by email are skipped. Field mapping wizard for CSVs.
Your data. Your ownership. Your safety net.
Your data is your data. Full stop. Export any time under Settings - Data - Export. Full JSON dump of contacts, deals, quotes, invoices, communications, notes, everything. No lock-in.
Built in, not bolted on. Every contact has a consent state (marketing opt-in, terms accepted, timestamps). Right-to-be-forgotten deletes cascade through all related records. Data export produces the full dossier held on any individual.
A full backup of your data is taken every night, encrypted with AES-256 and kept for 14 days. If you ever need something restored, email info@unavoidablecrm.com and we will help.
Where your data lives. UK-hosted at BitHoarders data centres. Optional EU or US hosting for tenants that need data residency in a specific region.
Passwords: bcrypt hashed, minimum 8 characters. Sessions: HttpOnly Secure SameSite cookies, 30-minute idle timeout. Rate limiting: 5 failed logins locks the account for 15 minutes. 2FA: TOTP available for any user.
Feature requests. If something is missing, tell us. Every feature Unavoidable CRM has today was requested by a customer. Email info@unavoidablecrm.com with your ask. Popular requests ship within a fortnight.
End of manual. unavoidablecrm.com/docs - always the latest version.