#FutureForward: HMRC Announces CRM Shortlist Following Extensive Consultation

When we read After leaving citizens on hold for 798 years, UK tax authority has £1B for CRM upgrade by The Register, we just knew that we had to have a look at what the options might be for HMRC.

What comes next is our new #FutureForward feature, a fictional (and hopefully amusing) look at the future. In this case a shortlist of their preferred options sometime in the future. If we’ve missed something (likely) or if you think you can do better, please do let us know in the comments or on social media.

What we do know: We are extremely glad it’s not our job to pick one for what will be a HUGE undertaking and we wish them all the best.

Following a rigorous and exhaustive procurement exercise, HM Revenue & Customs is proud to announce the systems currently under consideration for the modernisation of its customer service operations.

After careful evaluation based on price, functionality, ability to bewilder users, and general Britishness, the following technologies have been shortlisted:

Microsoft Excel
The nation’s leading CRM since 1989. Offers flexible data management, infinite opportunities for human error, and a thrilling sense of dread every time you open the wrong tab.

[Internal Review: “Ideal. Already in use by most departments. Highly scalable in the wrong direction.”]

Salesforce
A comprehensive enterprise CRM solution. Requires only 18 months of onboarding, several million pounds a year in consulting fees, and at least one human sacrifice per financial year. Plus, a large team whose sole job it is to say no to any improvement request whilst keeping the whole thing afloat with industrial strength masking tape.

[Internal Review: “Appropriate complexity. Confusing enough to maintain acceptable hold times.”]

HubSpot
An intuitive, modern CRM platform. Widely admired for marketing automation features, which HMRC could easily misuse by sending every citizen 14 identical emails about ‘urgent tax matters.’

[Internal Review: “Emails. So many emails. Beautiful.”]

Microsoft Dynamics 365
A robust option offering seamless integration with SharePoint, Outlook, and general despair. With the added benefit of a guarantee of multiple AI CoPilots that no one asked for.

[Internal Review: “Great synergy with current system outages. Feels like home.”]

Google Sheets
An innovative, cloud-based spreadsheet system allowing real-time collaboration, accidental deletion of records, millions of untitled documents and complete data chaos.

[Internal Review: “Outstanding potential for user blame.”]

SharePoint
An advanced intranet tool that can be forcibly repurposed into a CRM if you believe hard enough and don’t mind not having permission to anything you actually need and 9 hour ticket logging times.

[Internal Review: “Already partly broken. Perfect for quick rollout by 2099.”]

Trello
A simple card-based management system. Ideal for visually tracking how citizen complaints move swiftly from “New” to “Ignored” without any actual resolution.

[Internal Review: “Highly visual. Excellent for demonstrating apparent activity.”]

Notion
A flexible workspace beloved by startups and small teams. Simply an excellent choice for managing millions of customer queries once you’ve given up hope entirely.

[Internal Review: “Innovative interface. Just needs 17,000 custom fields and a warning about emotional damage.”]

Freshsales (Freshworks)
A lightweight, easy-to-use CRM platform. Likely to collapse immediately under HMRC’s need for 450 different tax sub-categories, but worth a look.

[Internal Review: “Fresh start. Fresh problems.”]

SAP Customer Experience
The heavyweight option. Implementation time estimated at 12–15 years, during which HMRC staff will receive 90 minutes of training and a single laminated FAQ sheet.

[Internal Review: “Exactly the scale of disaster we are comfortable with.”]

Additional Technologies Under Informal Consideration:

• Slack (with custom “angry thumbs down” reaction pack)
• Post-it Notes (subject to budget availability)
• 10,000 reMarkable digital writing pads (because old school is new school)

Project Timeline:

HMRC anticipates full deployment of the new CRM system by Q4 2148, subject to minor revisions, unforeseen intergalactic events, and continued governmental support.

Dave – The CRM Guy – 29 April 2025