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CRM Software Trends from 2018 and What’s in Store for 2019

By Jake Michaels

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software has been on the rise for years, moving from 17 billion dollars in revenue in 2013 to over 24 billion in 2018 (Statista). Companies are realizing the benefits of using CRM software, especially in the small to midsize markets and in all industries across the board.

In our first series of statistics posts we’re focusing on CRM software as an industry. As we move into 2019, we’d like to reflect on this year’s trends in the CRM software space.

According to a recent report pulled by B2Community.com, 91% of companies with 10 or more employees have a CRM – CRM Magazine and 64.2% of companies rate CRM tools as impactful or very impactful – LinkedIn.

 

CRM in 2019

We were lucky enough to connect with customer service and experience expert, and Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations, Shep Hyken. He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession. Shep was generous enough to provide feedback based on his experience for current trends in CRM and what he thinks the industry will look like in 2019.

In our interview, Shep stated, “CRM software just keeps getting better. It’s helping to get the right information to the right people to better serve employees. AI (artificial intelligence) will integrate with CRM to better analyze the data and help companies deliver a better customer experience.”

He also comments on companies looking to implement CRM going into 2019, “If you haven’t done so already, why? CRM software is as essential to a business as accounting software. Understanding your customers, their buying habits, history with your company and more are essential to giving customers the experience they deserve.”

To get a deeper understanding, we’ve pulled a few statistics and trends from Software Advice’s report, 2018 Trends on CRM.

 

2018 Trends from Software Advice:

  • CRM is becoming as much about gaining new customers as it is about managing and tracking existing customers.

  • About a third of buyers want email marketing and sales pipeline/funnel monitoring, and a quarter want reporting/analytics functionality and specific integrations with other platforms—this is slightly more advanced functionality.

  • Buyers are coming from a wide variety of industry segments. Perhaps the most noticeable finding from this data is that no single industry accounts for a majority of CRM buyers.

  • However, 45% of buyers are in either the real estate, consulting or insurance markets. The fact that these three industry segments account for almost half of CRM buyers is not inconsequential.

  • Buyers from industries other than real estate, consulting and insurance should not settle for products that are designed for those markets and must be sure to find a vendor that provides the features and functionalities that fit their own industry-specific needs.

  • CRM efforts should focus on new customers as well as current ones and should bring together sales and marketing departments.

  • An increasing level of technical literacy among SMB buyers means that buyers are better prepared to know the specific functions and features their organization requires; you should be prepared to have the same level of knowledge if you want to be competitive.

  • CRM buyers who are not in the real estate, consulting or insurance markets need to make their industry-specific needs clear to vendors.

 

Conclusion:

CRM software is helping businesses improve their sales and marketing efforts, while enhancing the entire customer experience in all types of industries. Tools like customer journey mapping are giving businesses the ability to better personalize the end-to-end customer journey based on their engagement with touchpoints, like if they’ve read an email or clicked a link from one of your campaigns.

Due to the demand for more integrated software solutions, CRM systems today are offering full reporting and analytics for every aspect of your business. These reports include sales funnels and opportunities from leads, marketing KPIs with email reads & clicks, and full website tracking, to name just a few.

A major trend going into 2019 is showing that CRM is becoming an integrated tool to manage sales, marketing, and operations for any sized business. These platforms are integrating features used for email marketing, customer journey mapping, sales pipeline management, and company reporting. CRM is becoming more than just a sales tool and is being used across all departments throughout an organization to better connect, engage, and convert.

With this much data, companies are seeing incredible improvements in ROI and customer experience by implementing an integrated CRM. Leveraging all the tools available with an integrated CRM solution allows businesses to track customer and lead interactions, and much more, from a single database.

Have you started looking into cost-effective CRM solutions yet? Get started by requesting a free live demo of GreenRope’s Complete CRM, and see what you can accomplish with these tools at your fingertips!

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About Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations, Shep Hyken:

Shep is a customer service and experience expert and the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations.  He is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for lifetime achievement in the speaking profession.

Shep works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of Moments of Magic®The Loyal CustomerThe Cult of the CustomerThe Amazement Revolution, Amaze Every Customer Every Time and Be Amazing or Go Home. He is also the creator of The Customer Focus, a customer service training program which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset. 

 

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