6 Technology Upgrades Needed to Keep Your CRM Ahead of The Curve in 2019

In the global economy, that is increasingly mobile-centered, the key to differentiation and growth for any business is a seamless customer experience at every touch point. It is now the time to move past traditional CRM Softwares to a customer engagement platform that allows access to customer engagement across multiple channels.

CRM software today provides sophisticated customer insights that can give your business a competitive edge. Understanding how technology has transformed CRM provides an interesting insight on what CRM software suits your business, or how you can trace the technological evolution of CRM by looking at how a small business company today may adapt CRM strategy at various stage of growth.

While we often hear of new technology developments that will supposedly revolutionize CRM, it’s less often discussed how marketers can make practical use of them and the basic objective remains the same. A good customer relationship management platform can enhance customer satisfaction and lead to increased sales and revenue.

Acquire new customers
Retain existing customers
Increase customer engagement
Increase revenue

Biggest technology trends that will influence CRM software development in the near future

Social CRM

A recent survey of consumer behavior conducted by J.D. Power shows that 67 percent of consumers interact with businesses’ social media accounts. The rise of social media has changed the marketing and customer relations landscape tremendously, compelling a strategic shift from transactional relationships to ones that are more personal and interactive. CRM has had to adapt accordingly, ensuring that each customer feels that he or she is being specifically targeted for certain products at the right time.

2. IoT and augmented reality

As customer interactions move online and traditional ways of interpreting customer emotions such as body language and tone are less available, businesses require new ways of predicting and evaluating customer’s state of mind.

Augmented reality (AR) and IoT can drive this. With the increased amount of data and analytics that IoT devices provide, businesses can overlay augmented reality to improve the support that they provide customers.

As of now, if there’s an issue, customers typically spend a lot if time figuring out the issue online, FAQs, phone calls and that leads to frustration. But by understanding devices using IoT, augmented reality can be used in real time to visually show customers how to resolve their issues.

Bridge the gap between physical assets and digital infrastructure.
Help maintain machines in remote locations, low visibility, high temperature, and other hazardous conditions.
Benefit businesses across verticals, especially manufacturing, healthcare, and retail.

3. Artificial Intelligence

CRM has used databases to achieve its goals in a simpler way. However, until now, this information management has been focused mainly on collecting, storing and providing data at the request of clients; leaving aside the processes of extraction, analysis, and interpretation, which give true value to the information received.

Coupled with the ever-increasing volumes of data that organizations must handle; it’s easy to see why CRM needs the support of AI to adapt to the era of digital transformation.

Benefits of AI and CRM combination:

Data Management: AI will help automate repetitive tasks that consume time. Activities like data input and retrieval, updating forecasts and determining call lists will be handled by AI.
Virtual Assistant: Integrating AI into CRM will help them serve as virtual assistants for employees, allowing them to be productive.

Improved Segmentation, Lead Customization and Prioritizing hot leads: Algorithms will take over to segment audience by gender, location, purchase history, web behavior, and other attributes.

4. Mobile CRM

As mobile devices gain popularity in every business domain, mobile CRM is one more trend to watch for in 2019. CRM like Bulbul enable sales employees to access customer data and customer accounts at their convenience from mobile devices. A mobile CRM provides a lot of benefits. For example, Mobility strengthens interdepartmental communication. With a mobile CRM, employees can more easily communicate with colleagues at the office and send documents and messages it can let sales teams attend client meetings with real-time client data at the ready.

5. Data Enriched CRM

Regardless of the size of your business, there is no substitute for an error-free and updated customer database when it comes to customer management. However, maintaining the quality of CRM (customer relationship management) data is a task that becomes somewhat daunting for marketers. Modern CRM systems are expected to leverage customer data to provide actionable analytics-based insights to drive optimal customer experiences. With the flow of data from these advanced company-wide data management systems, this is now possible.

6. Easy to Implement

CRM is dominated by SaaS subscription models that reside on the cloud. The industry has been experiencing a surge in the adoption of cloud-based CRM platforms as it has several advantages. Best CRM solutions enable users to maintain inter-departmental communication between marketing, sales, and customer service. This allows companies to efficiently manage customer experience across channels.

No matter how advanced the CRM system without users actively using it, any CRM initiative could be a failure. So, the CRM of the future should be easy to use and implement across functions. And that seems to be the biggest challenge facing the future of CRM.

Final thoughts

Technology is rapidly advancing, AI, IOT, and Omnichannel experiences are playing an important role in CRM advancement. It is a transformation that is worth keeping a close eye on. It is vital for businesses to stay updated and evolve with advancements to stay competitive in the business.
As new technologies emerge and develop, they are likely to shape CRM implementation in a number of interesting ways. A good customer relationship management platform can greatly enhance customer satisfaction and lead to increased sales and revenue.

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