What Does CRM Have in Store for Next Year?
Two factors are essential for manufacturing or distribution growth: modern technology and customer relationships. With enterprise technology changing at a rapid pace and customers becoming more discerning, outdated software and poor customer experiences won’t cut it in the new year.
Modern technology and customer relationships go hand-in-hand, particularly in the case of customer relationship management (CRM) software. CRM provides a full view of your contacts and automates sales and other front-office operations, giving your business the visibility and productivity to grow your revenue. In 2020, CRM will become even more advanced to support industry and consumer demands. We’ll explain how by unpacking the CRM trends for 2020.
Channel-Less Customer Experiences
Taking a customer-centric approach to running your business is going to be more important than ever in 2020. 84% of customers value experience as much as the actual product or service. For modern consumers, a great experience means a high degree of personalization across multiple channels. Therefore, more CRM vendors are designing their solutions to support channel-less (or channel agnostic) customer engagement. A channel-less approach is all about providing a consistent, personalized relationship regardless of which channels someone uses.
CRM software allows the front office to track interactions and communication across any channel. Microsoft Dynamics 365, for example, came out with an omni-channel engagement hub that includes an SMS channel, live chat and insights to help service agents. Sales reps will always know when a lead last got in touch with them or downloaded a document, so they can provide relevant messaging in the channel of the lead’s choice. With your software handling all the channels, your business can provide the one-on-one attention that consumers desire.
A key part of the channel-less customer experience is social CRM. Social media allows sales and marketing teams to interact with people in real time. Bringing CRM and social media together lets you get a full view of your relationships and conversations to refine customer journeys. It also helps you understand brand sentiment. For service reps, social media could serve as another channel where customers can reach out for support. Taking a channel-less approach with CRM will be a key brand differentiator in 2020.
User-Friendly CRM
CRM has become a key component of sales departments, replacing spreadsheets and post-its as the primary method of recording data. But not every sales rep has taken to the software. About a quarter of sales professionals still aren’t using CRM to close deals. In 2020, CRM vendors will be pursuing innovative tactics to improve the user experience.
As AI increasingly becomes a norm in our IT environments, CRM will continue adopting the technology to make their solutions friendlier for users. AI adds greater automation capabilities to CRM platforms, so sales reps can concentrate on interacting with customers instead of updating and interpreting data. AI also provides forecasts and recommendations to help sales teams make their next move in the buyer’s journey.
Furthermore, 2020 will introduce us to CRM chatbots and voice assistants like Salesforce’s Einstein Voice. These programs use natural language processing (NLP) to let users speak directly to their systems to receive reminders, insights and notifications to boost their productivity.
Mobile CRM is also predicted to grow in 2020. Since sales reps are always on the go, mobility is critical for allowing them to easily access crucial data points. This will let your sales team view and edit reports, dashboards and databases in real time while they’re meeting with a potential client. Since CRM with mobile capabilities have the highest adoption rates, this functionality will only grow stronger in the coming years.
Wrap Up
CRM has a lot in store for next year. New and improved features are on the way to improve customer experiences and sales productivity.
At Datix, we know it can be tough to keep up with all the different CRM solutions and trends. As a certified partner of both Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and Salesforce, Datix can help you select, implement and manage the right CRM for your organization. Do you need Dynamics’ seamless integration with other Microsoft products or Salesforce’s advanced AI capabilities? We’ll work with you to evaluate your options and implement a solution that aligns with your unique manufacturing or distribution needs. Plus, using Unity, we can integration your CRM with Epicor ERP.
Let CRM help you grow your business in 2020. To learn more, contact Datix today!
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