Breaking down the top trends in CRM
Accessible UX
Think back to the last time you trained a new employee to use your CRM. You probably had to make more than a few excuses for the poor design and may have even told the trainee to ignore certain functions of the user experience (UX) that were, frankly, unusable.
As CRMs continue to evolve, the engineers who make them are becoming increasingly aware of accessibility issues and are working hard to give companies a platform that is accessible for all. This puts managers in a great position to make more diverse hires, as they know that their systems are ready to support all employees.
As a manager looking to tap into accessible UX developments in your CRM, it’s worth taking the time to train yourself first. Hence, you understand the best practices for web accessibility. You can do this by enrolling in web accessibility training courses that teach you and your employees how to use and maintain your CRM according to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Sustainable Design
Sustainability is a hot trend in marketing, and CRM service providers are investing their energy into sustainable website design. This is increasingly important as customers become more aware of their environmental spending.
You might not realize it, but websites themselves can harm the environment — a recent study even found that the internet’s total carbon footprint exceeded 830 tons of CO2 per year.
To overcome this massive carbon dump, CRM providers optimize their offering by minimizing the number of navigational features on their sites and leveraging browser caching, which reduces the file load size for each page of stored information.
Increased Use of AI
The deep learning systems at the foundation of AI software are becoming more sophisticated and quicker to react to than ever before. This means that CRMs no longer rely upon humans to scan and interpret data. Instead, AI-powered CRMs can analyze and present massive amounts of data in a split second.
The increased use of AI means that everyone from sales to customer support can gather the data they need in a fraction of the typical time and find meaningful data amongst the piles of cold or dead leads, which usually clog a CRM.
Social CRMs
Traditionally, working through a CRM feels like you’re working in a silo by yourself. Occasionally, another employee might make a mistake that affected “your” CRM, but typically you wouldn’t see other folks working away alongside you on the same CRM.
However, social CRMs change how businesses work and utilize social media channels like Twitter and Facebook to create two-way interactions between companies and potential customers.
Through social CRMs, businesses can better view their potential customers. Data collected and shared via social media can be more valuable than the data stored in traditional CRMs. Sales consultants can tailor their approach and work more efficiently to determine whether or not a lead is worth pursuing.
IoT Technology
The increased use of automation in CRM means that more data can be used effectively. For example, just a few years ago, it may have been interesting to gather information from wearable health monitors. Still, it probably wouldn’t have improved your relationship with that customer or made any real impact on your ROI.
With AI, which can churn massive amounts of data to discover insights, increased utilization of the Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the hottest CRM trends. All business areas can use the IoT to make more accurate predictions, as IoT technology like home monitors can influence everything from cost efficiencies to supply chain management.
Takeaway: key CRM trends
Increased automation seems to be the north star guiding the future of CRMs. Changes in data laws, new technology, and high social media usage have opened up the potential for businesses to find and analyze data that would have been unusable in a pre-AI world.
As a business looking for the best CRM, you should seriously consider working with a provider embedding sophisticated but user-friendly AI into the operations. This will keep your processes up to date and give you insights that competitors have not yet found.
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