Built by a Team That’s Been in the Business Trenches for Over 15 Years

Cloud Relationship Manager is a product of Host Merchant Services, a company that’s spent more than a decade helping thousands of businesses accept payments, manage operations, and grow. We didn’t build a CRM from a Silicon Valley whiteboard. We built it from years of watching real businesses lose real revenue to missed follow-ups.

We Watched Businesses Lose Leads. So, We Built a Fix!

Host Merchant Services has worked with thousands of businesses across every industry you can name—restaurants, retail, medical practices, nonprofits, contractors, fitness studios, salons, and more. We process their payments. We set up their point-of-sale systems. We help them get online and take orders.

And over the years, we noticed the same problem coming up again and again: businesses were great at getting leads, but terrible at tracking them. Inquiries came in from website forms, landing pages, and newsletter signups—and then they disappeared into inboxes, spreadsheets, or nowhere at all.

The CRMs that existed were either too expensive, too complicated, or built for enterprise sales teams with dedicated ops people. Small and mid-sized businesses didn’t need a 200-feature platform. They needed one clean board where every lead had a stage, an owner, and a next step.

That’s exactly what we built.

Cloud Relationship Manager was designed from the ground up to solve the specific problem we kept seeing: leads come in, but nobody follows up fast enough—or at all. Our tool gives businesses a visual Lead Board, stage-based tracking, team assignment, email campaigns with AI, and automation triggers to make sure every lead moves forward.

Backed by Host merchant services

A Trusted Name in Business Technology Since 2008

Host Merchant Services (HMS) is a nationally recognized payment processing and business technology company headquartered in Newark, Delaware. Since 2008, HMS has helped thousands of businesses across the United States accept payments, manage operations, and adopt the tools they need to compete. HMS isn’t just a payment processor. Over the years, the company has expanded into a full ecosystem of cloud-based business tools—each one built to solve a specific operational pain point that traditional software either ignores or overcomplicates.

Product

Cloud Job Manager

Cloud Donor Manager

Cloud Gym Manager

Cloud Rental Manager

Cloud Studio Manager

Cloud Time Manager

Cloud Booking Manager

Cloud Relationship Manager

Purpose

Job scheduling, dispatch, estimates, and invoicing for contractors and field service businesses.

Donor tracking, campaign management, and fundraising tools for
nonprofits.

Membership management, class scheduling, and workout tracking for fitness studios and gyms.

Tenant management, lease tracking, and maintenance workflows for property managers.

Class booking, memberships, and client management for yoga, dance, and fitness studios.

Time and attendance tracking, scheduling, and labor compliance for teams of all sizes.

Appointment scheduling and booking management for service-based
businesses.

Lead capture, pipeline tracking, email campaigns, and sales
automation.

Every tool in the HMS ecosystem was built because we saw businesses struggling with a specific problem—and couldn’t find affordable, simple software to solve it. Cloud Relationship Manager follows the same philosophy: solve the lead management problem without the overhead of a traditional CRM.

Leadership

Founded and led by Lou Honick.

Lou Honick — CEO & Founder, Host Merchant Services

Lou Honick didn’t come to the payments industry from a finance background. He came from technology. With deep-rooted experience in software development, web infrastructure, and systems architecture, Lou built Host Merchant Services from the ground up as a technology-first company—not just another payment processor reselling someone else’s terminals.

That technical DNA is what sets HMS apart. While most merchant services companies outsource their software and white-label other vendors’ tools, Lou and his team build their own. The entire HMS cloud software suite, from Cloud Job Manager to Cloud Relationship Manager, was designed, developed, and maintained in-house. Every product exists because Lou saw a real operational gap that businesses were struggling with and decided to engineer a solution rather than point them to a third-party tool.

Under Lou’s leadership, HMS has grown from a focused payment processing company into a full-service business technology partner. The company now serves businesses across dozens of industries, processes payments nationwide, and maintains a portfolio of cloud-based SaaS products that thousands of businesses rely on daily.

Lou remains hands-on with the technical direction of every product HMS ships—including Cloud Relationship Manager. When you use this tool, you’re using software built by a team whose CEO still reviews the architecture, pushes for simpler user experiences, and insists that every feature earns its place by solving a real problem for a real business.

What Lou’s Technical Background Means for This Product

Engineer-Led Product Decisions

Features get built because they solve documented customer problems—not because a competitor has them or a product manager dreamed them up. Lou’s engineering background means the product stays lean and functional.

In-House Development

Cloud Relationship Manager isn’t a white-labeled or repackaged tool. It’s built from scratch by HMS’s own development team, which means faster updates, tighter integrations with the HMS ecosystem, and direct accountability.

Infrastructure Expertise

HMS doesn’t just build apps—it runs the infrastructure behind them. Hosting, servers, security, and uptime are managed by the same team that built the software. That’s a level of vertical integration most SaaS startups can’t offer.

15+ Years of Business Context

Lou and the HMS team have spent over 15 years working directly with businesses on their payments, operations, and growth. Cloud Relationship Manager isn’t built on assumptions. It’s built on thousands of real conversations with real business owners about what they actually need.

Why Businesses Trust HMS

The numbers behind the company.

15+ Years in business since 2008

Thousands of Businesses served nationwide across 50+ industries

10+ Cloud Products built in-house for specific business needs

Full-Service Provider for payments, POS, software, hosting, and web design

Transparent Pricing with no hidden fees and interchange-plus model

U.S.-Based Support with real people and real answers

How We Build

The principles behind every feature.

Solve the Real Problem, Not the Imaginary One

Every feature in Cloud Relationship Manager maps to a specific pain point we’ve seen businesses deal with firsthand. We don’t add features to fill a comparison chart. If it doesn’t help you close more leads, it doesn’t ship.

Simple by Default, Powerful When You Need It

The Lead Board is dead simple on day one. But underneath, you have stage-based workflows, AI- powered email campaigns, multi-step automations, and engagement tracking. Complexity is there when you’re ready for it—not forced on you from the start.

Built for the Businesses We Actually Work With

We don’t build for hypothetical personas. We build for the restaurant owner, the contractor, the non-profit director, and the agency founder who told us they’re losing leads because their follow-up system is a sticky note and a prayer.

Speed to Contact Matters More Than Anything

Research consistently shows that the faster you respond to a lead, the more likely you are to convert it. That’s why our dashboard tracks assign time, contact time, and lead volume front and center— and why our automations are designed to eliminate delays.

You Shouldn’t Need a Consultant to Use Your CRM

If your team can’t use the tool without a two-week onboarding program, the tool is broken. Cloud Relationship Manager is designed so a new agent can log in and start working leads within minutes.

What Makes Us Different

We’re not another CRM start-up, we’re a business technology company.

Most CRMs are built by software companies that have never run a business outside of software. They build features based on what other CRMs have, price based on what the market will bear, and support based on what’s cheapest to staff.

HMS is different. We’ve been in the trenches with businesses since 2008—setting up their payment terminals, configuring their POS systems, building their websites, and helping them figure out how to get more customers through the door. Cloud Relationship Manager is the product of that experience.

When we built the Lead Board, it wasn’t because we read a product management book about pipeline visualization. It was because we’d spent years watching business owners lose track of leads in spreadsheets and email threads. When we added AI to the email campaigns, it wasn’t to check a trend box. It was because we know most small business teams don’t have a copywriter and need help writing outreach that actually sounds good.

Every decision we make comes from the same place: what do the businesses we work with actually need to close more deals?

Our Team

Built by People Who Understand Business Operations

The team behind Cloud Relationship Manager includes developers, designers, payment specialists, and business strategists—all working under one roof at Host Merchant Services.

We’re not a 500-person company with layers of management between the product team and the customer. We’re a focused group that ships fast, listens to feedback, and fixes things the same week they break.

Ready to See What 15 Years of
Business Experience Looks Like in a CRM?

Start free. No credit card. No setup fees. Just a clean Lead Board,
your first leads, and a team that’s been helping businesses like yours since 2008.

Vision

Our vision is to become a leading force in cloud relationship management by empowering businesses with innovative, secure, and scalable solutions that strengthen customer relationships and drive long-term growth. We strive to create a future where organizations can seamlessly connect, collaborate, and thrive through intelligent cloud technologies.

Lead innovation in cloud-based relationship management solutions
Enable seamless and efficient customer connectivity
Promote scalability to support business growth at every stage
Build trust through secure and reliable cloud platforms
Shape the future of digital customer relationship experiences

Mission

Our mission is to deliver cutting-edge cloud relationship management solutions that help businesses enhance customer engagement, streamline operations, and maximize value. We are committed to leveraging advanced technology, data-driven strategies, and a client-first approach to create meaningful and lasting relationships.

Provide user-friendly and efficient cloud solutions
Enhance customer experiences through data insights and automation
Maintain high standards of security and compliance
Support clients with dedicated service and continuous improvement
Drive measurable business outcomes through innovative technology

Our Key Benefits

Hear from Our Happy Clients

“Affordable, easy to use, and highly effective. This CRM helped us streamline our sales process and close more deals.”

Robert Wilson

(Founder & CEO)

“We love how simple yet powerful this tool is. It keeps our team focused and ensures no opportunity is ever missed.”

Christopher Walker

(Growth Manager)

“This CRM helped us organize our entire sales process. Everything from lead capture to follow-ups is now smooth and efficient.”

Amanda Lewis

(Business Development Manager)

“Managing leads has never been this easy. The pipeline view gives us complete clarity, and our response time has improved a lot.”

Daniel Harris

(Sales Executive)