CRM Trends: What are the top CRM trends to track in 2011?

1. Social media integration: No question that being able to measure the ROI and downstream benefits from click to engagement to lead to sales within your CRM and build profiles around those folks responding to your programs is of huge value and something CRM systems need to provide support for. Also, making it easier to manage and launch your social media campaigns from within your CRM is an increasing demand.

2. Order management and downstream integration: It is no longer enough for a CRM system to just handle opportunity management and savvy organizations are realizing the limits of this approach. A sales team needs fast real-time order processing, commission management built in to their CRM, rep`s need visibility in to order status, inventory availability, account payment status, service issues, true real-time revenue reporting from leads, and to have processes tied in to their CRM experience that go beyond working a lead.

3. Customer lifecycle management: The economy has highlighted the importance of being able to effectively manage not only leads but also the entire customer experience. Teams need to be able to segment their leads and customers using the most accurate timely data from one universal database and manage customer renewals, upsell, and cross-sell opportunities within the same CRM system they currently manage their leads with.

* Cloud adoption - how quickly will the industry's migration to the cloud take place, and what will this mean to more 'traditional' (i.e. on-premise, enterprise software) vendors? Salesforce.com is the clear success story but which other CRM vendors will benefit from customers shifting their CRM efforts to the cloud?

On a related note, we should also be watching the movement of customer data not just to the cloud, but integrated IN the cloud. Salesforce (again) is leading the charge with their integration of Jigsaw (appropriately enough, labeled 'Data Cloud') - there is tremendous value to be gained by companies integrating their customer and prospect data with third-party services and data, but at the same time there are huge privacy implications.

* Social CRM - there have been many words devoted to 'SCRM' in 2010, but the trend to watch for in 2011 is customer adoption. SCRM is an exciting concept, but to invest significantly we need some large-scale success stories to emerge - which companies (users, not vendors) will be the ones who prove the value of SCRM to the marketplace.

I believe that the top 3 CRM trends to take note of in the coming year are as follows:

Social Media Integration
These online social networks provide companies with a wealth of information on how their customers think, act and feel. It also offers additional points of contact to interact and strengthen relationships with customers in an informal environment.

Due to sheer popularity of online social networks, it is imperative for CRM companies to investigate its compatibility with their CRM system. Not only can companies gather what their customers think of them, they can also examine customers’ buying preferences and behavior, so to assist them with tailoring their products and services. Companies must also recognize the Lead Generation component of social networking sites. For example, if you want to know whether people are actively seeking a product or service you provide, simply go to Twitter where you can find their specific needs and requirements listed in under 140 characters.

Voice-Enabled Software
The next plausible development is most likely Voice-Enabled Software. Most CRM vendors offer mobile access to their system, allowing companies to continually update their database while on the go. However, what if salespeople were equipped with the ability to interact with the CRM using nothing but their voice and their mobile?

This incredible advancement would entail the CRM to first authenticate the user’s voice through their mobile, which would then allow for them to update their system account by verbally instructing it to do so. The other side of it would be for the CRM to readily read out the user’s schedule, appointments, to-dos and so forth through their phone.

CRM Service Packages
The majority of CRM systems offer the same functionality, the same intuitive features, and it goes without notice that some do it better than others. However, in order to really stand apart from the rest, CRM vendors will need to switch their product-oriented focus, to a more service-based approach.

Instead of simply selling a product, CRM vendors need to sell a complete CRM package, consisting of the creation of a thorough strategy, needs and expectatons analysis and value-added services. The impact of doing so is that of establishing a long-term partnership with their clients and ensuring that their system’s features are being optimized to the utmost degree.

I think CRM providers are going to have their work cut out for them in 2011. Yeah buddy. Demands of inbound and outbound marketing campaigns, sales and marketing integration and new inputs like social media (or adaptive media, as SM expert Leslie Poston author of "Twitter for Dummies" calls it) will reshape how CRM gets used in many orgs.

When I talk to B2B customers I hear from many of them that they've outgrown traditional CRM systems, or they've just not been able to realize sustainable returns from them. Smart CRM providers will have to find ways to help their clients stretch existing platforms to meet the demands of new marketing and sales initiatives along with finding ways to measure and track that value through the value chain.

Add to that recent emphasis from the service side of many businesses who are realizing that they need to revamp and integrate how they manage customer relationships. They are looking for ways to step out of the liability role and become revenue a generation component to the business. As such, all new metrics and communications channels will need to be built that align with a customer centric strategy rather than an internal silo centric strategy.

So if I were investing in CRM provider stock, I'd look for ones that are taking a more holistic view of customer experience, demonstrating the ability to help sales, service and marketing align in a single seamless customer experience based strategy; ones that are leveraging the vast client psychographic data points made available through adaptive media channels to provide a strategic advantage; ones that provide ways to track and illustrate the success of initiatives from the client's perspective.

This is going to be fun!

Don F Perkins

Predictions for the Customer Relationship Management Function of the Future

The role of CRM needs to change dramatically from Customer Relationship Management to Customer Optimization (CO).

1.CRM must change from a database that people use to a driving force that both protects loyal customers and through the use of analytics determines their value and what they want and when they will want it.
a. Currently CRM is a database that other functions in the company use. CRM collects and holds customer data and other functions like marketing, loyalty programs, etc. access this data and use it as needed to fulfill their roles and needs.
b. CO must become a proactive and highly analytical core resource that manages and approves all areas of a company that impact customers
c. CO must predict the complete future expected lifecycles of customers along all the separate dimensions of their behavior

2. A new Customer Optimization role will emerge in companies that truly understand and embrace the value of customer centric operations.
a. Customers are the most valuable asset for any company and they need a corporate department whose role is to optimize their lifetime value to the organization – not just collect their data.
b. CO must assure that all interactions with customers are for things the customer is expected to actually want or be interested in learning about, and that there are not too many interactions. Only the interactions that are best for the company (which would be those that build lifetime loyalty from the customer) are allowed to reach the customer.

3. CO must be given the resources needed to accomplish these tasks as soon as possible. Current corporate priorities are wrong.
a. Nothing is more important than truly understanding and predicting the needs and value of a customer over their entire lifetime. The best loyalty program (by current standards) or the best marketing campaign or the best products will still not optimize profits unless the company understands what the customer wants and when they want it.
b. Funding needs to be diverted from these other functions to catch CO up to where it needs to be. The fastest engine and best transmission in the world are wastes of money if the tires are bald and in danger of blowing out if driven to fast.

We cannot delay this journey. Customers are getting too smart and we are falling too far behind. We cannot stand frozen in fear and complain that we do not know how to begin and that no one has done this yet. Competitors will start to do this. The only question to answer is how far behind your competition can you afford to fall and how that will affect your relationships with your customers – and how long it will take you to catch up.

my top 3 CRM trends for 2011:

1. channel and social media integration
In 2011 we will see companies putting more effort into the integration of all channels ( email, chat, phone, communities, blogs, facebook,...) into óne single platform. Vendors such as salesforce.com clealy show that this direction is the one to follow for companies in order to fully exploit the opportunities in either sales or service.

2. (real-time)- customer value based segmentation
Companies need to focus on valuable customers; There is an increasing need to focus marketing and sales spendings. Cost efficiency and sales/marketing effectiveness will drive more investments in (real-time) multichannel campaign management starting from lead management till churn prevention. Implementation of these processes will need relevant tools/systems as well a solid implementation in the organisation.

3. Customer engagement/Customer experience

Different words and expressions all showing in the same direction. More listening and incorporationg the customer in company processes. Dell with Dell2ideas, platforms such getsatisfaction or innocentive all show that companies can hugely benefit from active customer insight/input in the processes.

1. Unified CRM communications

Witness Microsofts new Lync platform driving new levels of mobility, remote working and customer interaction. When combined with powerful and insightful customer information, the ability to transform a business and its effectiveness should reach new levels.

2. Cloud CRM

This is the year that CRM and ERP will truly become a Cloud computing opportunity. Technology, hosting standards, broadband availability and an acceptance that its finally OK to NOT own your own IT factory will drive CRM onto the Cloud.

3. Mobile CRM

I think 2011 will be the year when CRM finally hits the mobile device. With the take off of Apples iPAD and a fresh wave of applications to support mobile and offline working finally hitting the pockets of millions of information workers. Mobile CRM which has always been a "maybe someday" will finally become a "yes, let's do it"

One of the most impactful trends in CRM in the upcoming year would have to be integration of social. This has already started to happen. However, for successful execution, social can not be an add-on -- rather, it has to be fully integrated into the CRM platform and business processes. In other words, it's not enough to just have a Twitter search in a separate tab without tying it back to the contact record. Simply adding a Twitter handle to the contact record is also not enough to qualify as Social CRM. It has to flow through every process, and relevant communications have to be captured in the record, so that everyone in the organization can be on the same virtual page.

Filtering and analysis are going to continue to be huge trend as well, as the volumes of social media are going to keep increasing, and we will keep on searching for signal within all that noise. When listening to social media and tracking streams of industry pundits, customers, partners, etc -- filtering is paramount. Predictive analytics also need to help you understand customer behaviors en masse and individually. Being able to predict churn, as well as purchase triggers, can help prepare your organization to respond to the social customer.

Privacy is going to continue to get mindshare in 2011. Businesses and consumers will continue to define the boundaries of what data is OK to collect, for how long it's OK to keep, and in what ways can it be accessed and referenced with other data. Platforms like Facebook that collect and sell social data will also walk the line between businesses wanting to use this information and consumers wanting to protect it.

In addition to what's already mentioned I believe the Focus Community should follow in 2011:
- CRM customer satisfaction and loyalty. These metrics can't lie about overall system+support quality, are universal and very difficult to manipulate. Very useful yet almost impossible to collect and check outside community.
- Cloud-based CRM platforms adoption and development. It is obvious, that those vendors who will win sympathies of development community, will get better chances on product development. CRM community should know the leaders.