How to Ask Your CRM Questions Like You'd Ask a Colleague

Think about the last time you asked a colleague "hey, what's the deal with that Globex contract?" You got a verbal summary in 10 seconds. Now think about the last time you tried to get the same information out of your CRM. Multiple clicks, wrong filters, giving up and asking someone anyway.

The problem isn't that CRMs lack information. It's that the question-asking interface is terrible. DenchClaw replaces the filter UI with a conversation. Here's the mental model shift, 20 questions you can ask right now, and how to combine queries with action.

The Mental Model Shift#

When you use a traditional CRM, you think in terms of navigation: go to contacts, filter by company, sort by last activity, export, look at the spreadsheet. It's a series of interface operations.

When you use DenchClaw, you think in terms of questions: what do I actually want to know? Then you ask it.

The shift is subtle but it changes your relationship with your data. Instead of getting whatever the interface makes easy to surface, you get the answer to what you actually wanted to know. It sounds simple, but it's a fundamentally different experience.

The key is trusting that plain English works. You don't need to translate your question into CRM-speak. "Who are my hottest leads right now?" is a valid query. "What should I work on today?" is a valid query. Ask the question you'd actually ask a colleague.

20 Questions You Can Ask DenchClaw Right Now#

Here's a practical list organized by use case. These all work as-is:

Pipeline and deals:

1. "What deals are closing this month?"
2. "Show me deals that have been stalled for more than 2 weeks"
3. "What's the total value of my open pipeline?"
4. "Which deal should I prioritize — what's the highest-value deal in the proposal stage?"
5. "Show me all deals I haven't updated this week"

Contact management: 6. "Who haven't I contacted in 30 days?" 7. "Show me contacts I added at [conference name]" 8. "Find all contacts at companies with more than 100 employees" 9. "Who do I have a meeting with tomorrow?" 10. "Show me contacts tagged as 'warm lead'"

Follow-up and reminders: 11. "What follow-ups are due today?" 12. "Who did I promise to send something to and haven't yet?" 13. "Show me contacts with no next action set" 14. "Who have I been meaning to follow up with?" (this surfaces contacts with past follow-up dates that have passed) 15. "What happened with the [company] deal — give me a summary"

Analytics and patterns: 16. "How many deals did I close last quarter?" 17. "What's my average deal size?" 18. "Which companies have I had the most conversations with?" 19. "Where are my leads coming from?" 20. "How long does it typically take me to close a deal from first contact?"

None of these require you to know the field names, click through menus, or build a filter. You just ask.

Follow-Up Questions: Drilling Down Without Starting Over#

One of the most useful patterns is the follow-up question. You ask something broad, get an answer, and then narrow down without starting the query over.

Here's an example:

You: "Show me all open deals"
[Sees 31 deals]

You: "Now just the enterprise ones"
[Sees 12 enterprise deals]

You: "Which of those haven't been updated in the last week?"
[Sees 4 deals]

You: "Give me a summary of each one"
[Gets a brief status for each of the 4 deals]

You've gone from 31 deals to 4 targeted ones with actionable summaries, in four natural questions. The alternative in a traditional CRM would be: apply enterprise filter, then apply last-activity filter, then click into each deal individually to check the status. Minutes vs. seconds.

This follow-up pattern also works across different object types:

You: "Show me companies in the fintech space"
You: "Which of those have open deals?"
You: "Who's my contact at each of those companies?"

You're navigating your data through conversation rather than navigation.

Combining Questions with Action#

The real productivity unlock is combining a query with an action in a single request:

Query + draft:

• "Show me deals that have been stalled for 2 weeks and draft a brief check-in email for each one"
• "Who haven't I contacted in a month? For each, draft a one-sentence reach-out"

Query + update:

• "Show me deals in the proposal stage and move any that are over 30 days old to 'at risk'"
• "Find contacts I met at SaaStr and add the tag 'conference-2026' to all of them"

Query + remind:

• "Show me contacts with no follow-up date and set reminders for all of them in one week"
• "Who did I have calls with this week? Set follow-ups for anyone I said I'd get back to"

Query + create:

• "Which deals closed last month? Create a follow-up task for each to check in after 30 days"

These combined requests are where DenchClaw starts to feel less like software and more like having a very efficient assistant. One sentence covers what would normally take 10-15 manual CRM actions.

Question Patterns That Work Best#

Based on how DenchClaw processes natural language, here are the patterns that get the most reliable results:

Specific time windows: "In the last 30 days" beats "recently." "This quarter" beats "lately." Specific ranges produce deterministic results.

Named fields: If you've named a field "Source" and the value is "LinkedIn," asking about "LinkedIn source" is more reliable than "contacts from LinkedIn" (which might search name/description fields too).

Action + object: "Show me deals..." "Find contacts..." "List companies..." Starting with the action and object type reduces ambiguity.

Status + filter: "Open deals over $10K" and "warm leads from Q1" both combine a status/category with a filter condition — a reliable pattern.

"Give me a summary of": This phrasing triggers the context-aware summary mode rather than a raw data dump, which is useful for getting a narrative overview of a deal or contact.

When to Use Chat vs. the Web UI#

The chat interface (Telegram, WhatsApp, iMessage) is best for:

• Quick lookups ("what's their phone number?")
• On-the-go queries from your phone
• Combining queries with actions
• Getting summaries and narratives
• Logging notes and updates

The web UI is better for:

• Browsing and exploring your data visually
• Editing multiple records at once
• Viewing and managing pipeline in a board/list view
• Setting up complex field configurations
• Importing/exporting data

Think of the chat interface as a fast command line for your CRM — great for getting to specific information quickly. The web UI is the visual explorer — better when you're not sure exactly what you're looking for.

Both surfaces access the same DuckDB data, so you can switch between them freely. Start a query in Telegram on your phone, then open the web UI on your laptop to edit the results.

Frequently Asked Questions#

What if I ask a question DenchClaw doesn't understand? DenchClaw will tell you when it's not sure what you're asking and prompt for clarification. It won't silently return wrong results. If a query is genuinely ambiguous, it'll ask one clarifying question and then proceed.

Can I ask DenchClaw questions about things outside the CRM, like "who is this company" or "what does this person do"? Yes. DenchClaw can access web search for context questions. If you ask "what does Acme Corp do?" and they're in your CRM, it'll combine the CRM data with a quick web lookup. This is useful for refreshing your memory on a contact's business before a call.

How does "show me stalled deals" work without defining what 'stalled' means? DenchClaw has sensible defaults: "stalled" typically means a deal in a non-terminal stage that hasn't been updated in more than 14 days. But you can configure this — tell DenchClaw "in this workspace, a stalled deal is one that hasn't moved in 21 days" and it'll remember that definition.

Can I ask questions that span both contacts and deals? Absolutely. "Show me contacts at companies with open deals over $50K" is a cross-object query and works fine. DenchClaw understands the relationships between contacts, companies, and deals in your CRM schema.

Is there a limit to how complex the questions can be? In practice, questions with more than 3-4 distinct conditions start requiring more careful phrasing to get right on the first try. For very complex queries, it's sometimes easier to ask them in two steps: first get the larger set, then filter it further with a follow-up question.

Ready to try DenchClaw? Install in one command: npx denchclaw. Full setup guide →