A CRM to replace Salesforce and HubSpot
CityRise sold on Salesforce, marketed on HubSpot, synced WhatsApp through a third product and built its reports by hand. We replaced all of it with one system, in phases, three months ahead of target.
- Client
- CityRise
- Discipline
- Web
- Location
- North of England
- Scope
- Bespoke CRM, portals and sales process design
- Year
- 2026
The brief
CityRise opens cityrise.co.uk in a new tab
Twenty people at CityRise across sales, marketing, lettings and operations. 75,000 contacts with their history. 600 to 800 new leads a month from property portals, Meta, website forms and purchased lists, and around 120,000 marketing emails a month to 30,000 contacts. Developers and solicitors outside the business who needed to see the same records as the staff.
Three conditions. Tracking had to work from day one. No contact could be bombarded by two teams working from two systems. And the reports had to beat Salesforce, because reports were the thing the sales team would judge it on.
What we made
What we built
A scoping document the directors could sign off, in plain English, with every feature tagged to a phase. Then the build, in slices that went live as they were finished rather than at the end.
Leads as records
Leads as records rather than a status on a person, so a repeat investor's new enquiry counts as a new lead in the reporting and the person keeps every previous conversation.
One send policy
Marketing campaigns and sales sequences share the same engine, so a contact who has heard from the business twice this week is not asked to hear from it a third time.
Rules the system enforces
CityRise's rules of engagement, written by its own sales managers, are now enforced by the database rather than anyone's memory. The neglect engine was built dark and switched on as an announced moment, which is the only way to switch on something that passes leads to someone else to nurture.
Protected sending
Bulk campaigns and one-to-one messages are kept apart, so a heavy campaign day cannot damage the reputation of the address a consultant replies from, and a problem is caught by the system before it reaches an inbox.
This is the best system we've seen and we've worked with many. You have genuinely made the process of buying off-plan developments easier for all parties.
Detail
Outcome
Core live in October against a January target. Real campaigns sent from the new engine. Consultants' mailboxes connected. Salesforce, HubSpot and the WhatsApp sync cancelled. CityRise owns the repository and sets the roadmap. Phases continue.
What went live, and when
| Phase | What went live | When |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Contacts and companies, CSV import with a dry run, bulk update, notes. One user and one module, so the data model was proven before anything sat on it | September |
| 1 | Leads as records, opportunities, the sales rules of engagement enforced by the system, a Today queue, discussion threads and notifications | September |
| 1b | Forms, embeds and website tracking across the agency's microsites, with attribution held as data | September |
| 2 | Lists, workflows, the email builder, the send engine with one policy for marketing and sales, mailbox sync, email performance reporting | October, against a January target |
