Relationship Management Software: What It Is and What to Look For
Relationship management software is a system in which you record, per relationship, who they are, who you know there, what has been agreed and what has happened over the years, so that everyone in the company has the same picture of that relationship. "Relationship" is broader than "client": prospects, suppliers, partners and former clients belong in it too. For an agency or consultancy that is exactly the point: most revenue comes from relationships you already know, and the difference between a follow-up engagement and silence often lies in what you still remember from the last conversation. This article explains what a relationship management tool must be able to do, how it relates to CRM and client management, what it costs and what to check before choosing.
Relationship management, client management, CRM: three words, one system
The terms are used interchangeably, and vendors mix them up too. It is the same kind of software; the difference is emphasis.
| Term | Emphasis | Typical question |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship management | The relationship over the years: history and touchpoints | "When did we last speak to this client, and about what?" |
| Client management | The client as a whole: details, agreements, current work | "What is running for this client right now, and what is outstanding?" |
| Contact management | The people: who works where, who decides | "Who is our contact there now?" |
| CRM | The umbrella term (customer relationship management) | All three |
If you are searching for "relationship management tool" or "relationship management program", you are in practice looking for what most sites call CRM. The Horixa CRM feature covers all of them under one name.
What a relationship management tool must do at minimum
Underneath, relationship management is about four things: the data, the people, the history and the link to the work. Everything a tool does on top of that is welcome, but without these four it is an address book.
| Component | What you want at minimum |
|---|---|
| Organisation details | Name, address, company and VAT registration numbers, relationship type (client, prospect, supplier) |
| Contacts | Several per organisation, with role, email and phone; who has left, who is new |
| History | Notes, calls, meetings and email chronologically on the relationship, not in someone's head |
| Link to the work | Which projects are running, which hours have been logged, which invoices are outstanding |
| Custom fields | Whatever your company specifically tracks: industry, source, account manager, contract date |
| Segmentation | Filter by type, industry or custom field for a mailing or a call round |
The first three rows are in virtually every product. The fourth, the link to projects, hours and invoices, is where the differences are, and for a professional services firm it is the most important one.
An agency needs different relationship management than a sales department
The well-known CRM products are built around a sales funnel: many leads, short cycles, and once the signature is in, the "relationship" is done and the client moves to another system. At an agency, consultancy or engineering firm it is the other way round. You have dozens to a few hundred relationships, a sales conversation takes months, and the real contact only starts after the engagement: project meetings, hours, out-of-scope work, invoices, and next year a new engagement again.
That is why the question "what do we know about this relationship?" at an agency is almost never just about contact details. It is about: how many hours did we log for this client last year, how much of that was invoiced, is anything still outstanding, and who was the project lead. A standalone relationship management tool cannot answer those questions, because the answers live in time tracking and accounting. Relationship management for agencies therefore works best as part of the system in which projects, hours and invoices also live.
What to check before choosing: six points
1. History that fills itself. Relationship management that depends on discipline ("just jot down what you discussed after every call") runs dry after three months. Choose a tool that attaches email to the relationship automatically, for example through a mailbox connection, so the timeline fills without anyone having to do anything.
2. Several contacts per organisation, with turnover. At a five-year client, three contacts have left and two new ones have arrived. A tool that knows one contact per company, or silently erases departed people, has lost precisely the history you wanted to keep.
3. The money next to it. On the relationship page you want to see what is running and what is outstanding, without switching to the invoicing package. Ask the vendor literally: do I see outstanding invoices on the relationship card?
4. Custom fields without custom development. Every agency wants to record something specific: the source of the relationship, the client's collective agreement, the contract expiry date. You must be able to add that yourself as text, number, date or dropdown, not via a quote from the vendor.
5. Import and export in plain files. You start with a client list in Excel and one day you want to get out again. Both must work with a CSV or Excel file, and an import must deduplicate, otherwise you have every client twice after the second attempt. How to clean up such a file is covered in keeping a client database.
6. Where the data lives. A relationship database is a file with personal data. Know in which country the servers are, whether there is a data processing agreement you can use without negotiation, and whether you can retrieve the data through an API if you ever switch.
What relationship management software costs
Standalone relationship management tools start around €10 to €25 per user per month; the large CRM suites run up to €50 to €100 per user per month once you want more than the entry tier. An integrated suite for professional services, with relationship management, projects, hours and invoicing in one, typically costs €20 to €30 per user per month in the Netherlands.
At Horixa, relationship management is included in every plan, including the entry plan, and not as a separate module. Start costs €109 base licence per month plus €19.95 per user per month, calculated from five users: €208.75 per month excluding VAT for a team of five. Annual billing takes 15% off. The mailbox connection that fills the history automatically is included from the Growth plan. All amounts are on pricing.
What a missed follow-up engagement costs
A calculation to put the investment in perspective. A consultancy with 60 active relationships does an average of €12,000 per engagement. If better follow-up means two relationships per year award a follow-up engagement that would otherwise have gone elsewhere, that is €24,000 in revenue. The relationship management software for the whole team costs €2,505 per year in the example above. The point is not that software creates follow-up engagements; the point is that you want a signal when a relationship has been quiet for six months, and that only works if the history lives somewhere.
Frequently asked questions
What is relationship management software? A tool in which you record, per relationship (client, prospect, supplier, partner), the details, the contacts, the history of conversations and email and the current work, so that everyone in the company has the same picture of that relationship. In practice it is the same as CRM or client management software.
What is the difference between relationship management and CRM? No substantive difference. CRM (customer relationship management) is the umbrella term; relationship management emphasises the history over the years, while CRM products have traditionally emphasised the sales funnel.
Is Excel enough for relationship management? For an address list, yes; for relationship management, no: overwriting a cell erases the history, an emailed file creates two versions of the truth, and the file knows nothing about hours and invoices. As soon as more than one person works with relationships, a system with shared history is the sensible step.
What does relationship management software cost? Standalone tools from €10 to €25 per user per month, large CRM suites up to €50 to €100. An integrated suite for professional services typically costs €20 to €30 per user per month. At Horixa, relationship management is in every plan; Start costs €109 base licence plus €19.95 per user per month, from five users.
Is relationship management software suitable for a small agency? Yes, and that is where it pays off most, because a small agency depends on a limited number of relationships. Do note the pricing rule: at Horixa the price assumes at least five users, so with three people you pay for five.
Does the software work for companies outside the Netherlands? Yes. Horixa is available in English, Dutch, German, French and Spanish, invoices in euros and sends e-invoices via Peppol. Data is hosted on servers in the Netherlands, within the EU.
Relationships, contacts, email and the projects, hours and invoices of the same client on one page? Try Horixa free for 14 days.