5 Critical CRM Trends For 2020-2021

The world of sales and customer relationship management has been changing rapidly, just like everything else around. Here are the CRM trends to get prepare for this and next year.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Mobile CRM functionality

Lucky are those who can forget about work once they cross the office door. But the reality is – many professionals keep on accomplishing tasks beyond regular 9 to 5 and from any place, also while commuting. Another thing is that even office workers aren’t necessarily in the office all the time – as the saying goes, “if your salespeople are in the office, they are not selling”. This puts a huge emphasis on mobile devices. And more CRM functionality on portable devices required by customers’ increasing need for connectivity.

A pitfall here though is security. What if a mobile phone is lost or stolen? Will it put customer data or correspondence at risk? CRM systems producers need to prepare to mitigate the risks. And employees of high-security enterprises like financial institutions or the public sector meanwhile can leverage technologies that give access to the mailbox but restrict sensitive information outside the local network.

CRM Integration with Everything

Marketers use up to 12 different sources of data for customer relationship management. And a typical employee makes 134 copy-and-paste actions each day, stats say.

In 2020, we can’t possibly waste so much time switching between apps and doing other unnecessary things. Integration is another hot trend for CRM which simplifies and streamlines the production process through the day.

CRM systems can provide much better results faster when integrated with:

• Project management software
• Storage/warehouse
• Supplier Systems and Purchase Order systems (POs)
• ERP system
• An inventory management system
• A product lifecycle management system (PLM).
• A data warehouse
• Sales orders.

You can custom develop such integrations or use an integration platform with pre-built connectors to your systems. The second option allows us to minimize the integration time and maintenance of your updated systems.

Check an example of an elaborate integrated system including Dynamics CRM of an energy service provider in Switzerland.

CRM going into the cloud

Another side of being connected 24/7 and accessing your data from any place and device means deploying the customer relationship management in the cloud.

63% of businesses already prefer cloud-hosted CRM systems over on-premise applications, and the trend is here to stay.

But what if you are stuck in the 90-s with the on-prem systems?

There are tools that help you to migrate your CRM system from on-prem to the cloud or synchronize them smoothly in real-time.

CRM and the IIoT

The Internet of Things has been giving huge revenues to those who can leverage data via CRM. But let’s take a step further to the bigger brother – the Industrial Internet of Things and automation of the processes.

IIoT devices can transfer information about performance issues and maintenance to the equipment producer. Similarly, IoT-connect CRM software can help companies proactively detect product performance issues and identify potential problems with customer satisfaction – thus providing predictive maintenance, a huge advantage for all parties involved.

Get yourself familiar with how to make sense of machine data in your CRM.

CRM security and reporting with blockchain

Financial and legal audits usually cause a lot of eye twitching to business managers. They cost a lot of money, preparation for audits require a lot of effort, and also it usually interrupts the workflow. A new solution by Connecting Software leverages blockchain to provide security for documents in CRM systems and increase trust in business. With a click of a button, you seal a document with a blockchain stamp. And any time later check if the document stayed intact or was changed – with another click of a button. The technology is simple to use – it is inbuilt in a CRM system as an add-on, and it is much cheaper than any other authenticity certificate. Similarly, the blockchain stamps protect your CRM documents against fraud and help reach compliance with the GDPR and other data protection regulations.

Take away

Time and technology are changing, so is CRM. But unlike other fickle trends, mobile connectivity, integration and cloud tech, the Internet of Things, and new ways of proving authenticity are here to stay with us in 2020 and develop even more in 2021. So make sure to keep your customer relationship management up with the flow.

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Written by Anastasia Mazur from Connecting Software, a producer of synchronization and integration software for business needs. For more stories, visit our blog.