Large enterprises and multinational companies have been using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to engage their customers. They’ve been used by mobile telephone companies, internet service providers, and even cable companies to engage their customers and upsell some of their add-on products. CRM systems enable the sales teams to use customer databases while interacting with customers.
With the influx of new technology and digital innovations, industry observers are expecting changes in the way CRM systems will be used. You might want to check the CRM implementation process to know more. Here are some of the forecasted trends on how CRM will grow and change in the coming years.
- CRM Systems Are Adopting Artificial Intelligence (AI)
More companies will adopt and integrate artificial intelligence into their CRM systems. AI is bound to affect all industries and every aspect of human and social life.
A survey of global multinational corporations found out that around 14% of their CIOs have already deployed and integrated AI systems and capabilities into their existing technology infrastructure and applications stack. AI is also expected to penetrate CRM systems in the coming years. AI is particularly useful to enhancing CRM systems. It can sort and filter the incoming connections and engagements of CRM systems. This significantly improves the quality and personalization of CRM engagements that have been enhanced by AI.
- Lower Barriers To Use Of CRM Systems
CRM systems are becoming more ubiquitous as more companies embrace the era of digital transformation and digitization. Online surveys of sales professionals found out that more than two-thirds of those surveyed use a CRM system to enhance their sales efforts and campaigns. Almost every one of those surveyed (a very high 97%) believes that using technology in sales is ‘very important.’
The use of CRMs has become commonplace as more sales professionals believe that they need CRM technology and tools to improve the customer experience and enhance their selling capabilities. It also helps that CRM systems have become more affordable and quite easy to use. They’re also not that difficult to learn and implement even in small business settings since they’re easy to use.
These factors have lowered the barriers to adopting and integrating CRM systems into their current sales campaigns and efforts. The result would be that more and more companies can be expected to join the trend of adopting and implementing CRM systems.
- The Rise Of Social CRM
Something happened in the past decade and most companies were almost taken by surprise by the turn of events. That something is that the business community woke up one day and simply found out that social media platforms have already become a powerful marketplace for selling, marketing platform, and channel for advertising products and services. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that social media has become one of the busiest marketplace channels in the last ten years.
The reason for this is that social media platforms contain networked communities and groups. The individual users are interconnected with each other within the same social media platform as well as through other media. This means that they have active and live means of communicating with each other using the same social media platform.
The opportunity here is for companies to integrate data sources from their social media channels with their CRM systems. By connecting their social media channels with their CRM systems, sales professionals can find some opportunities to market and sell their products.
For example, social media comments may contain feedback information on what they think of the products they bought. They also use social media crowdsourcing to ask for product recommendations. By mining these feedbacks and recommendations, social media channels can enrich the intelligence of CRM systems.
- CRM Systems With Automation Features
Another trend is that companies have been investing in automation systems. They’re trying to look for ways to automate every aspect of their business operations and processes that can be automated. These are all part of their continuous improvement (CI) efforts. Automation has proven to contribute immensely to increasing the efficiency of business operations and processes and lowering the incidences of errors.
With this trend, more companies are expected to look for CRM systems with automation features. CRM systems developers have already taken notice of this emerging trend and most of them are now investing in research and development on how to incorporate automation systems, features, and functionalities in their applications.
An example of automation that’s already being applied across different industries is the use of chatbots to interact with customers and users. This is a very powerful tool to sort out the simple customer service issues from the complex and compound ones.
Chatbots can deal with simple issues and resolve them quickly. This reduces the load of human customer service workers who may then focus on complex issues that chatbots can’t resolve. Sales organizations can exploit this powerful tool so they can sort out sales inquiries and potential leads. They can, for instance, use chatbots for those who are about to buy and separate those inquiries who still want to know more about the products before they decide to purchase.
- Companies Will Integrate Voice UI With CRM Systems
As more people become comfortable and familiar, and maybe even dependent on technology, people would want to be able to interact with CRM systems using platforms that support voice and conversational user interface (UI). People simply love to talk over the phone. They enjoy talking and speaking rather than typing chat messages or sending out emails.
Perhaps the explanation is that speaking and talking are the natural modes by which humans communicate with each other. Writing notes only came by when humans invented writing instruments and materials. This is validated by an online survey of users of tech applications. Of those who use different tech platforms and apps, 94% said they find communications technology that allows them to speak rather than chat or write quite easy and enjoyable to use.
Sales also involve a lot of voice communications in sales prospecting, presentations, negotiations, and closing. CRM systems can be expected to follow this trend of integrating voice systems and technology into their own.
Conclusion
CRM systems are going through another period of transformation. They were deployed to great advantage by sales organizations in the past decade to multiply their sales campaigns and efforts. Advances in technology and digital innovations are creating further opportunities to enhance the capabilities of CRM systems. There are also opportunities to integrate CRM systems with these new technologies. The above mentioned were some of the forecasted trends in the coming years.
