By Samiur Rahman, Blogger, Lava Protocols
The Future of CRM
With a surge of innovation in digital technology, it is becoming increasingly easier for companies to cater to a wide array of customers at the click of a button. Gone are the days where companies used to keep journals using notepads, list down important information on spreadsheets, and keep alarms for each and every work schedule. To keep up with the dynamic trend, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is the go-to option for most businesses.
CRMs are used to analyze customers and understand their demands so that businesses can offer the right products to the right people, at the right time, and at the right place. With cloud-based CRMs, companies are now able to interpret customer’s data in real-time and can take the best course of action for maximum efficiency. With new updates coming every other month, let us dive into the CRM trends that will shine in 2021.
- Age of Customer Experience – Right off the bat, this trend is here to stay for as long as customers exist. The idea is simple – businesses are becoming more and more dynamic with their offerings and the best way to stay ahead of the curve is to give your customers a delightful experience that they can remember and that keeps them coming back for more. Salesforce’s “State Of the Connected” report that surveyed 80,000 customers across 16 nations and was published last year, says 84% of customers feel the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services. Moreover, acquiring new customers is relatively more expensive compared to customer retention; why not go the extra mile and ensure their satisfaction?
- Self-service portal – A lot of agents manually submit hard copies of thousands of applications and documents. In so many clients, the traditional method of gathering data has become insufficient. Consolidating and validating data from hand-written documents for many hours winds up with lost data and inaccuracies. Secondly, the manual payment system has also proved to be ineffective as transactions take place in many areas of business, and that can seem like a tedious thing to keep track of. To combat this issue, going digital with cloud services has been the go-to option for many well-performing businesses. Employees can update all their work through a simplified UI dashboard and all the relevant stakeholders of the company can have access to it. Be it financial documents or papers regarding operations, everything can be accessed from anywhere with the tap of a button.
- Artificial Intelligence – CRMs are responsible for computing countless data for enabling a smoother customer experience. Various departments, whether it be sales, marketing, finance, etc. of different organizations can get access to the information acquired through CRM software and craft winning strategies for their businesses. A.I. can enhance the performance of CRMs by automating the process of understanding consumer behavior in real-time and finding possible routes for organizations to offer the right products and services.
- Mobile CRM – If the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that we humans must adapt to any changes. And one of the biggest changes people had to deal with during this outbreak is to stay at home. But businesses must go on – everything had to be done from outside of our usual office space. This meant remote working from different areas around the world. Indeed, social distancing has connected us in other ways and it is safe to say that the crisis has pushed the human race forward. At the tap of a screen, business personnel can open different applications to conduct their businesses online. The same is being done for CRM software. Expect this trend to improve as we dive deeper into 2021.
- CRM in social channels – Both organic and paid social media marketing has been huge over the last couple of years and it is growing at an accelerating rate. In fact, some of the biggest businesses that make record-breaking profits are social media platforms such as Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and so forth – social media is here to dominate. It is evident that almost all of your target customers use some form of social media and so it is important for your business to have a presence in those online channels. With the update of CRMs, users can now integrate the software to a variety of social media platforms and connect with the audience by gaining their insights. Marketing analytics is one of the most hyped-up topics for any business as it gives businesses the relevant insights to understand consumer behavior. Surely, this year will see an enhancement of CRM within the social channels.
- IoT and CRM – Internet of Things, a collection of devices, and CRM, a collection of data, when integrated together can become a match made in heaven for market segmentation. Organizations can reap the following benefits after combining these two game-changers:
- Personalization on an advanced level
- Greater customer satisfaction
- Higher chance of customer retention
- Shorter response time
- Access to individualized CX
- Tailor made marketing campaigns
- Identify the nitty-gritty issues with product performance
- Real-time data to CRM software to empower companies through growing sale, and product/service promotion
Embrace The Future
With changes in technology, CRM software will definitely not lag behind. The aforementioned trends are going to be big during 2021 and organizations should remain vigilant while crafting strategies and keep the pointers in mind. With Salesforce, businesses will not have to worry about being second in the race of customer relationship management.
Lava Protocols is an authorized Salesforce Partner. Looking for CRM? Drop us an email to schedule your demo: hello@lavaprotocols.com.