The idea of customer relationship management (CRM) has been around since the 1970s. But back then, customer satisfaction was determined, either by annual surveys or straight up front-line asking. In more recent times, however, CRM became mostly about data management. It later evolved to include elements such as workflow automation and help sales representatives in the front line.
Today, however, CRM is set for a new transformation and one that will include customer experience. It is for this reason why, if you already have a customer relationship management solution in place, you should talk to your partners and IT department to implement the necessary changes and stay ahead of this development.
Mobile-Ready CRM
From a statistic point of view, 71% of employees spend roughly two hours per week accessing company information from mobile devices. Also, companies can attain up to 240 hours of extra work per year from employees who use mobile enterprise apps.
These numbers presented here are indicative of a trend where mobile technology is becoming the norm. Cloud-based mobile CRM is fully capable of delivering the same experience to users across all mobile devices but without endangering the security or the data being transferred. With a mobile-friendly software, customer service, marketing, and sales can better access and manage the information, allowing them to do their jobs better, faster, and in real-time.
CRM Personalization
Based on a study from 2017, 80% of consumers between the ages of 16 and 64 have said that they are more likely to do business with a company that offers a personalized experience. Likewise, 90% of them said that they find personalization appealing.
Modern CRM can now analyze customer behavior and identify the right persona. It means that the system can automatically display personalized content that's relevant to the individual and its pain points. In the not so distant future, customer relationship management systems will be able to identify prospects at different levels of the sales funnel and use personalized content to help them move down.
AI-Powered CRM for Communication
Contrary to popular belief, by 2021, AI-powered CRM will boost revenue by a whopping $1.1 trillion and result in over 800,000 new jobs, as well as an additional 2 million indirect jobs.
Together with machine learning, predictive analytics, and leveraging various technologies such as chatbots, apps, and other such conversational tools, customer relationship management software can predict and execute the next logical step. It is done without any human intervention and without the customer ever knowing that it was a machine doing all the work.
Driven by artificial intelligence, chatbots are already perfectly capable of handling multiple customers at the same time, allowing the business to be more flexible and responsive. A CRM system with an integrated chatbot can automate several repetitive tasks at once, all the while avoiding any unnecessary data loss from customer interactions.
These trends presented here are by no means exhaustive, but they do, however, show that the future of CRM will not only affect the software, itself, by the entire business environment as we know it. We can even go as far to say that the system will soon become the market core, centered on customer engagement.
Interested in learning more about the future development of CRM and how to better leverage it in your enterprise? Contact us today!