Salesforce understands the importance of a company’s relationship with the customer and is devoted to providing the best CRM technology. Learn more!
The success of any organization is largely determined by customer satisfaction with respect to the services they offer. Hence, customer relationship management (CRM) holds a central role to a company’s development and progress. Yet many organizations fail to update their CRM systems and use latest technologies, obstructing in this way the evolutionary growth of their business. Salesforce understands the importance of a company’s relationship with the customer and is devoted to providing the best CRM technology for ensuring the overall company advancement. For precisely this reason, Salesforce has conducted a survey of approximately 800 business decision makers and 1,500 employees worldwide about the current state of CRM in their business. The participants of the survey consist of executives, team managers, and individual contributors across marketing, sales, commerce, service, finance, and IT. Notably, the results have provided us with the necessary information to assist companies achieve the required company-customer relationship, through adopting a next-generation CRM platform strategy.
According to a similar survey, “Make CRM The Foundation of Your Customer-Obsessed Strategy” that was conducted in early 2020 by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Salesforce, one of the most important factors in relation to CRM technology choice for decision makers was a low total cost of ownership. However, in just one-year, new priorities emerged with 51% of decision makers considering trust in terms of security as imperative to their company while 47% highlighting the importance of work-from-anywhere connectivity. This of course is largely due to the new needs that the pandemic has brought to the surface which demand secure, flexible, and resilient systems with support improved value.
Undeniably, a positive, personalized customer experience (CX) is essential for business success. How can this be accomplished though when an organization has an average of 800 applications, hence a large amount of data to handle, while only 29%, according to the survey results, are connected? Naturally, it becomes almost impossible for the customer to be 100% pleased. While value should be the main concern of all executives, only 32% actually share this view. Nonetheless, an increase of CRM as the single source of customer information use has been noted, as the percentage of 69% of executives reveals. A further surge is expected with 72% of executives noting that they wish to improve even further the data skills of customer-facing employees within the next 12 months. For now, according to business decision makers, only 32% executives have a single source of customer truth even though 90% believe that is paramount for a company. Employees seem to share this view with 27% reporting that they have a complete single source of truth while 94% believe that it would certainly be beneficial for the company.
In order to achieve this, a centralized, scalable data and integration strategy is required. In this way, employees will have access to the right data, in the right place and format. What is also vital is that employees receive a proper training to acquire the skills to use the data in order to take the right decisions and improve daily workflow efficiency. Simultaneously, there is an increased interest in CRM users towards a digital first approach to sales, service, and marketing, which, however, is still topped by the collection of basic account information. What executives and decision makers should not be ignorant of is the potential of CRM to create a connected CX across touchpoints in every phase of the customer journey. The future of an enhanced CRM practice looks promising, with 81% of executives to expect that CRM system usage will move beyond sales, service, and support and explore its potential to the maximum, by being used throughout the entire customer lifecycles for all teams within an organization and in order to execute complete digital commerce transactions. For the time being, a large percentage of 62% already does this, and this percentage is expected to increase further in the next couple of years.
Another factor to consider is whether the company’s CRM system is well-integrated and accessible, for securing optimal customer experiences. Disappointingly, more than half executives admitted that they have difficulties with this since their CRM systems are not up to standard, impeding employees to access the necessary tools for being able to please the customers and effectively engage with them. In fact, 40% of employees declared that they have access challenges, 49% productivity challenges and 54% struggle with communication and coordination among colleagues. It is crucial, therefore, that an organization’s CRM is resilient so that employees are enabled to enhance CX, even remotely.
Cloud-based CRM systems are well-integrated and easy-to-access in order to offer more flexibility to employees and their workspace. Ultimately, such systems improve customer engagement and assist employees with their day-to-day processes. Moreover, the company becomes more resilient and its executives are ready to quickly adjust their go-to-market strategy to any unforeseen circumstances that might appear. For this reason, companies need to invest on usable and effective CRM systems for a holistic and successful approach to the entire customer journey.
If you want to upgrade your CRM system and technology in order to keep up with your customers’ needs and demands, visit NetU’s website and contact our experts for more information about Salesforce’s products and services.