Questions on Including Pre-Sales and CRM Alternatives in User Journey Mapping

Nicoleta K.

·Feb 05, 2026 04:49 PM·

Hi everyone, I’m working on a user journey and have a few questions:

1.
Pre-sales inclusion: Do you think it’s important to include the pre-sales phase in a user journey map? Are there other critical stages you’d recommend?
2.
Client presentation: What’s the most effective way to present a user journey to clients, especially when dealing with:
3.
Multiple markets
4.
Offline-to-digital transitions (some markets need offline journey mapping before digitalization)
5.
CRM alternatives: Does anyone have experience with AI agents or tech stacks that could replace traditional CRMs?

Thank you in advance! 🙏🙏

5 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Damian O.
·
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I will chime in on #5 because I have a lot of these conversations with clients. Traditional CRM's will not be replaced for Enterprise buyers any time soon. There are specialized CRM's that are industry specific that work for some of those industries (real estate, insurance, etc). But the big CRM's can also do that with customization. Attio is the only one that I truly see as the next-gen CRM, but again - enterprise will be hard to upend. Everything that Attio does, can be developed on top of HubSpot or Salesforce.
Nicoleta K.
·
·
Hi Damian O. I completely agree with your point. I’m working with a client who keeps rejecting CRM implementation, which creates a major challenge for their marketing teams when it comes to proving ROI. the situation is:
Operating across multiple markets, some of which are entirely offline
Significant blind spots in lead tracking due to the distributor model markets can’t prove lead attribution once hand-off happens
Marketing teams are struggling to demonstrate value without visibility into the full funnel
I’m currently mapping the user journey and exploring creative solutions to help their market teams address these blind spots. Specifically looking at AI agents or lightweight tech stacks that could bridge the gap without requiring full CRM adoption and Strategies to transition offline journeys to digital incrementally Have you encountered similar situations where organizations resist CRM but still need lead visibility? Would love to hear if you’ve found workarounds that worked.
Damian O.
·
·
This is not official advise because it's very wrong - but it's a good strategy to give your client a "what's worse". If they don't want a CRM, they can just do this in a spreadsheet. They will hate it, and then you do a CRM upsell
👍1
Nicoleta K.
·
·
Hi Damian O. I plan to show them how many leads they loose because of not having CRM, but they use spreadsheet in their multi markets and there some with significant leak in ROI since the data stay with the distributors.
Peter D.
·
·
Hi Nicoleta, yes defo critical to include the presales phase. As you know it's the ~90/10 rule - at most only 10% of the TAM will be in the buying window but that doesnt mean you should pause the other 90%, buecause if you do you'll miss their consideration window. the question then becomes how to engage them. One way is to capture intent signals, perpaps in a passive way, to understand/infer their intent/reqs. And yes they defo need a CRM!

Questions on Including Pre-Sales and CRM Alternatives in User Journey Mapping | RevGenius

Damian O.
·
·
I will chime in on #5 because I have a lot of these conversations with clients. Traditional CRM's will not be replaced for Enterprise buyers any time soon. There are specialized CRM's that are industry specific that work for some of those industries (real estate, insurance, etc). But the big CRM's can also do that with customization. Attio is the only one that I truly see as the next-gen CRM, but again - enterprise will be hard to upend. Everything that Attio does, can be developed on top of HubSpot or Salesforce.
Nicoleta K.
·
·
Hi Damian O. I completely agree with your point. I’m working with a client who keeps rejecting CRM implementation, which creates a major challenge for their marketing teams when it comes to proving ROI. the situation is:
Operating across multiple markets, some of which are entirely offline
Significant blind spots in lead tracking due to the distributor model markets can’t prove lead attribution once hand-off happens
Marketing teams are struggling to demonstrate value without visibility into the full funnel
I’m currently mapping the user journey and exploring creative solutions to help their market teams address these blind spots. Specifically looking at AI agents or lightweight tech stacks that could bridge the gap without requiring full CRM adoption and Strategies to transition offline journeys to digital incrementally Have you encountered similar situations where organizations resist CRM but still need lead visibility? Would love to hear if you’ve found workarounds that worked.
Damian O.
·
·
This is not official advise because it's very wrong - but it's a good strategy to give your client a "what's worse". If they don't want a CRM, they can just do this in a spreadsheet. They will hate it, and then you do a CRM upsell
👍1
Nicoleta K.
·
·
Hi Damian O. I plan to show them how many leads they loose because of not having CRM, but they use spreadsheet in their multi markets and there some with significant leak in ROI since the data stay with the distributors.
Peter D.
·
·
Hi Nicoleta, yes defo critical to include the presales phase. As you know it's the ~90/10 rule - at most only 10% of the TAM will be in the buying window but that doesnt mean you should pause the other 90%, buecause if you do you'll miss their consideration window. the question then becomes how to engage them. One way is to capture intent signals, perpaps in a passive way, to understand/infer their intent/reqs. And yes they defo need a CRM!