CRM Implementations are now Customer Experience Driven

In the past CRM implementations were focused mainly around process and functionality, however in 2013 a CRM solution is being used as a vehicle to improve customer experience. The focus is to use CRM as a collaboration tool which would help your team internal communication about a customer (between marketing sales and other client facing units) and in turn improve the overall experience of the customers. When organizations treated CRM implementations to be an ad hoc operation and not as a formally constructed corporate initiative, we noticed most of the CRM initiatives failed. Instead of considering them purely from an IT dominant point of view it is required to consider CRM initiatives from a business strategy point of view as well. With the availability of numerous digital platforms, customers live in a world of abundant options and their expectations have reached the epitome of quality experiences. These numerous digital platforms provide a plethora of information. Thus the integration of customer data from all the data sources becomes critical. Being able to orchestrate data about email, social media, events, projects, tickets, surveys, website visits, conversions, etc. – will be a key focus of all CRM solutions. Moreover, the next generation CRM will focus on understanding, mapping and aligning to customer digital behavior. If organizations were able to have a unified view of how a customer is interacting with their brand across all digital channels with an accurate record of their activities updated real-time as they connect, communicate, consume content and engage; they will be able to created better customer experiences. Social media optimization will be another important focus for CRM Solutions, with facebook and linkedIn emerging as meaningful marketing platforms organizations are enhancing their efforts to create more and more shareable content. Today’s buyers trust other buyers more than the sellers. Customer experience and brand loyalty takes a back seat if an unhappy customer spreads the bad word amongst millions of other socially networked consumers. This is redefining the way that software vendors are building up their enterprise applications. Many are offering an integrated applications portfolio including CRM supported by real-time analytics, dispatched in an intuitive and useable format to the point of interaction. This business intelligence puts context-sensitive information in the hands the customer facing individual who needs to engage with the customer and potentially on any device. The predictions say that SAS usage will explode in 2013. Providers deploying their software platform via Cloud will be providing a far more robust, reliable and economical solution to their clients, than the traditional physical installation. Although we see most of the CRMs are increasingly migrating to the cloud but sensitive financial prospect and customer information, usually housed in ERP systems, are most likely to remain on premise. Thus data integration between cloud and on-premise systems will be a strong focus area in 2013. There is likely to be a growth in hybrid environments. This is the era of transformation, as more and more companies are defining customer management strategies and articulating a customer management strategy defined in customers’ terms that can be used to guide organizational improvement efforts the focus of all CRM implementations has shifted from technology focused approached to a customer experience driven approach.