CRM software is the cool kid on the block, and all eyes are on its burgeoning popularity. Naturally, everyone’s curious about what direction CRM software is currently heading. What CRM trends should your company be aware of so you can be at the forefront of innovation rather than a step behind?

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CRM is a competitive, growing space. Everyone talks about providing best-in-class customer experiences, CRM strategies and solutions, and the vital role CRM plays in catapulting companies forward as marketplace demands intensify.

So how can your organization know which shiny new objects are worth pursuing?

We’ve pulled in research and asked industry experts for their take to provide insights you can apply at your own company.

David H. Deans, Senior Partner of David H. Deans & Associates, mentioned in his tech sales effectiveness article:

When we consider the shift to a flexible working model, the disruptive trend of self-directed buyer enablement, and demands for better sales enablement, the post-pandemic reality should motivate us to embrace change and resist thoughts of mediocre normality.”

He also added that the enablement benefits from CRM will evolve rapidly. More organizations use the platform to elevate their narrative further up the value chain, where a customer’s senior decision-makers seek guidance to accelerate digital business outcomes. Customers seek meaningful and substantive information tailored to their specific business situation.

Let’s see what new trends will shape CRM in the coming year.

1. Artificial Intelligence

Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, said:

In today’s business landscape, adopting an AI-first approach rooted in trust and transparency isn’t a choice, but a necessity to succeed.”

The possibilities are nearly endless when it comes to applying AI in CRM, and the market is huge. A study by MarketsandMarkets shows the global explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) market was valued at $5.1 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $16.2 billion by 2028. Also, McKinsey mentioned AI as one of its top trends in its latest trends report.

AI integration with CRM is the most prominent advancement poised to influence the industry, according to customer service expert and speaker Shep Hyken.

AI will be able to summarize the most important attributes of a customer’s relationship with the company. A salesperson or customer support agent will be able to see a summary of the customer’s buying patterns, interactions, and more.”

He added that AI should make suggestions on how to improve customer service as well as cross-sell or upsell products and services that the customer actually needs.

Let’s take a look at the key AI applications in CRM:

Marketing

• Lead Qualification: AI-powered CRM tools can automate need analysis. Chatbots and email bots help understand the exact requirements of leads and inform sales teams to improve performance and optimize sales processes.
• Sentiment Analysis: Analyze customer conversations during calls and assess their emotional state. You can increase revenue per customer by following user sentiments.

Sales

• Forecasting: Receive accurate sales forecasts with AI-powered CRMs. Detect patterns in customer data and get valuable insights about sales predictions, based on which your team can make plans and optimize processes.
• Customer Churn Reduction: By analyzing specific patterns in customer data, AI can identify the reasons for customer churn, helping you take concrete actions to reduce the churn rate.

Data

• Cleaning: Customer data includes irregularities such as anomalies, duplicates and more, causing inaccurate predictions. AI-integrated CRM systems can detect potential issues, clean duplicates, search for incomplete data and suggest actions to update old data to help you make improved decisions.
• Entry: You can automate repetitive tasks like data entry that automatically capture data from calls, messages, emails and images and enter customer data in the desired format. This allows your employees to focus on high-value tasks.

With that in mind, here are the top AI trends worth paying attention to:

Automation

Deans sees AI as a tool companies can use to more effectively manage their relationships with customers. AI will be able to “create ‘personalized agents’ that, via machine learning, discover the primary needs and wants of sellers for automated assistance,” he explained. One of the biggest benefits of AI is its capacity to take over tedious, time-consuming manual tasks. The ultimate goal, Deans said, is to use robotic automation and generative AI to enhance productivity.

A study by HubSpot shows that sales reps spend only 33% of their time actively selling. By using AI tools to do administrative tasks, they can save up to two hours per day. That’s two extra hours of focusing on customer relationships and closing deals every day. 82% of sales reps say connecting with customers is the most important as well as enjoyable part of their job. Thanks to AI automation, they can do that more effectively.

Chatbots

John Chan, Software Lab Director at ISM, pointed out that chatbots mainly aid customer service efforts. This ranges from helping users find answers to directing prospects or customers to the correct location in their search.

Looking forward, he thinks AI has significant potential to move beyond basic inquiries.

In the coming years, it may be possible for chatbots to use natural language processing, deep neural networks and conversational capabilities to comprehend consumer inquiries, while automatically providing an appropriate response.”

Chatbots also quickly reply to customer queries, offer real-time assistance and initiate proactive conversations. According to the HubSpot research mentioned above, 71% of prospects prefer doing their own research rather than speaking to a human, and 85% of sales reps say self-service tools are an effective strategy to guide buyers’ purchase decisions.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

This feature enables computers to effectively converse with customers by understanding human language. Several ways NLP can play a role in customer service are:

• Determining which requests are the highest priority.
• Classifying those requests so agents know what’s most urgent or important and can respond accordingly.
• Analyzing customer emails to better understand their sentiment.

Voice Assistants

Thanks to products like Alexa, voice assistants aren’t really new, and no one can deny their popularity. In 2022, 142 million people in the U.S. used voice assistants. That’s about half of the country’s population, and that number is expected to grow to 157.1 million by 2026. Moreover, industry leaders are optimistic about voice AI evolving as a key trend.

What we’re seeing is that trend overlapping into the CRM world. A number of products, such as Zoho CRM, already have voice assistant functionality in place, and according to Chan, advanced tools coming in the future will allow “CRM users to dictate their commands rather than manually typing in the requested information.” AI will also enable actions like recording voice meetings, creating transcripts and identifying topics or words that have a specific meaning, Chan said.

Voice assistants also help you set reminders, send messages and create reports with ease.

Hyken stated that this trend continues to improve but that “it’s not quite a perfect human-like experience, but it’s getting close. And this is especially powerful for companies and brands with customers who might speak different languages.”

The AI Reality

Like any trend, AI has shortcomings. Hyken points out one of the potential downfalls: AI can negatively impact customer experience.

Companies are becoming enamored with technology, and as a result, they get excited about it and think it’s the answer. What actually ends up happening is technology puts distance between the customer and the company as far as the connection that would cause a customer to want to come back again.”

However, if used properly, Hyken said that AI has a lot to offer:

AI will help make our employees smarter. Integration with our CRM solution will help us answer our customers’ questions better, make better recommendations, proactively answer questions they haven’t yet thought of and more. The ability to support our customers and personalize their experience will be better and more powerful than ever.”

Business consultant and IT specialist David Dozer said AI and RPA are becoming a major focus of software developers and are poised to be the dominant trend in the industry over the next few years. However, widespread use is still on the horizon.

A lot of vendors have started to talk about them and use the acronyms as buzzwords in marketing materials. Right now, there aren’t very many solutions that are using either to their full potential, but that will absolutely change in the near future. In the coming years, we should start to really see these concepts utilized.”

While a lot of hype surrounds AI, companies need to temper their enthusiasm over new technology with an understanding of its impact internally and externally, as well as realistic expectations of what software is capable of today. This will allow technology to become the catalyst for achieving the ultimate goal: serving the customer.

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2. Analytics

Considering the fast-paced business environment, making quick, smart and data-driven decisions is essential. With the help of analytics, businesses can prevent problems before they arise and adjust their strategy accordingly. It helps them track customer intent and anticipate client behavior and preferences.

CRM systems let you study historical data and use machine learning algorithms to predict future trends. This helps identify high-quality leads, optimize pricing and deliver personalized offerings to boost customer growth.

Reports support this idea and conclude that analytics and measurement dashboards are the top technology companies integrated with their CRM over the last five years. Analytics is also becoming one of the most crucial complementary fields to CRM.

AI analytics also identifies patterns in user behavior to enhance selling opportunities, as Chan explained.

AI-powered analytics help sales reps readily respond to market dynamics by providing them with real-time insights into customer preferences, sentiments and a host of other buying triggers. These insights can empower sales reps to shift from solution-related selling to insight-related selling.”

3. Omnichannel Experience

Today’s customers interact using various platforms. Having a centralized customer view by integrating different channels like social media, email, chat and phone is vital. This can help you have more focused marketing initiatives and increase productivity and client satisfaction in the long run.

According to a McKinsey survey, customers now use more than ten channels to interact with suppliers, compared to five in 2016. Two-thirds also prefer digital and remote interactions. Keep this in mind, and harness as many channels as possible.

Regarding this trend, Hyken said:

It’s time to lose the concept of omnichannel. Let’s call it any-channel. The customer doesn’t think about what channel they are using. They just want to connect when they want to connect and do so in the easiest and most convenient way possible. That could be on their mobile device, desktop or any other channel. If we can put a man on the moon and send spaceships to Mars, we should be able to create an easy and seamless communication experience between channels.”

Dozer also predicted:

[Companies will have] a deeper reliance on CRM and business systems capturing everything that is happening to provide one source of truth. When you can’t get up from your desk and go ask someone in purchasing if they have a copy of a PO on their desk, everything being in the system becomes that much more critical.”

Like Dozer mentioned, having a single source of truth helps in various ways, including:

• Managing more with fewer tools
• Creating data transparency
• Reducing silos
• Aligning all departments
• Reducing human error and data duplication
• Saving time

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4. Customer Experience

Today, businesses revolve around their customers more than ever, making customer experience (CX) a vital brand differentiator. 44.5% of organizations across the globe revealed that they perceive CX as a primary competitive factor. It’s a well-known fact that people are more likely to shop at your brand again if you provide them with good customer experiences.

People go where the best experience takes them. 38% of consumers say they will again shop with a brand they’ve had a good experience with.

Shep Hyken identified two drivers of an exceptional experience: convenience and competition. He believes that when it comes to CX, convenience is king.

The company that’s easiest to do business with is ultimately going to win.”

Because of this, the most successful CRM systems of the future will have an interface that focuses on ease of use, making data easier to access and analyze.

We may also see the use of CRM features for convenient communication between sales and customer service agents and customers. These systems will provide content that meets customer needs, ensuring focused targeting and intelligent segmentation.

Companies also need to realize their direct competition isn’t the only competition. In the world of CX, Hyken explained, people don’t have different buckets for different companies — e.g., their experience with a B2B manufacturer vs. a luxury retailer.

The service a customer has is being compared to the best service they received from anyone. Customers know what a good experience is like because they learned it from Nordstrom, Amazon and any other company that provided a rockstar experience.”

Personalization

According to Grand View Research, the hyper-personalization of customer service is a trend worth noting for 2024. Here’s Hyken’s take:

Personalization will continue to trend in the positive direction of importance. The more data we put into a CRM about the customer, the better we’ll be able to automate the personalization. Customers will get the feeling the company knows them better than ever.”

59% of customers believe businesses should use the collected data to personalize experiences. 62% say personalized recommendations are better than general ones, and 60% say they can tell when they receive personalized recommendations and find them valuable.

CRM platforms built with intelligent, real-time capabilities allow companies to move towards a more connected, customer-centric approach. The data accrued in CRMs offers actionable insights into customer behavior, needs and preferences. With this knowledge at a company’s disposal, they can put things into perspective and dig into the “whys” and “hows” to deliver relevant customer experiences.

Personalization has been a cornerstone in recent CRM developments and is here to stay. 86% of customers said they would spend more with companies that personalize their customer service.

Think about companies like Netflix or Amazon. One of the reasons they’re successful, Hyken said, is their ability to serve up personalized content, whether it’s suggested products based on a recent purchase or TV show recommendations similar to the one you just watched.

5. Social CRM

Hyken said this about social CRMs:

Today’s customers communicate with brands on multiple channels, including social media. A smart company or brand will integrate a customer’s comments, conversations, purchases and feedback on social media into its CRM.”

In recent years, social CRM has become a necessity. It has evolved from just a marketing medium to a valuable source of insights. Customers can share their experiences about a particular brand anytime with anybody. Hence, being a big name in the industry is not enough; it’s important to build a personal and authentic connection with your customers.

And this is exactly why CRM software with behavior-tracking capabilities is in demand. Incorporating social media channels within platforms allows sales teams to be in touch with customers and share real-time brand updates.

It helps understand brand perception, improve decision-making, enhance client analysis and make targeted ads for different audiences. This is especially important, considering that sponsored ads on social media attract about a third of consumers.

Many CRM systems today integrate with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, but future platforms may offer integrations with other platforms as well. Social CRM also facilitates better customer service. To illustrate, say a customer needs a problem solved. They can hop onto their preferred social media site and connect with the company via messaging or @tagging a handle dedicated to customer service issues.

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6. Mobile Accessible and Cloud-Based CRM

Mobility has long been a central component of sales activities. More than a decade ago, several experts and reports were already highlighting the importance of extending CRM systems beyond the confines of the office.

But that doesn’t mean mobility is an outdated trend. Mobile CRM has been available for the past few years but has limitations in reliability and functionality. Advancements in mobile technology and customers’ increasing need for constant connectivity show why CRM platforms must provide more mobile functionalities.

The COVID-19 pandemic also emphasized the increased need to adopt mobility, according to Dozer. He explained:

As workforces became distributed and remote almost overnight, many companies struggled to get people access to the basic systems they needed to effectively work. This means accessibility from anywhere, anyplace and anytime is going to be very important.”

56% and 54% of consumers frequently rely on mobile phones, especially smartphones, for pre-purchase research and reviews, respectively. Phones have become an integral part of the shopping experience, and if you aren’t accessing mobile-optimized web pages, you’re missing out.

Mobile CRM solutions have a lot to offer — they give sales reps quick access to customer data, make it easy to track client conversations in real time and ensure you answer queries promptly. They let you handle leads, manage tasks, update information and monitor sales activities on the go. By harnessing GPS technology and offline data synchronization, you can reach the right people at the right time.

As you evaluate your current CRM — or look at implementing your first CRM — don’t underplay the value mobility or social CRM can bring to your operations, especially in a post-pandemic world where remote work and distributed teams are more common than ever before.

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7. Security

Data breaches and privacy concerns are becoming more common. Having firewalls and antivirus software isn’t enough; customers want companies to handle their data responsibly. Especially with regulations like GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA in place, client data needs to be protected and used ethically.

CRM systems are stepping up to this challenge and updating their data security and privacy processes. Encryption, access controls and regular security audits can protect client information from unauthorized breaches.

You can also educate your teams on data security best practices for an added layer of safety. To make customers feel more secure, you can communicate your data usage policies, take explicit consent for using data, allow them to opt out of processes they don’t like and make it easy for them to erase their data upon request.

8. Easier Usage

Usability

No matter how much you invest into a CRM, it’ll be a waste if you cannot use it to its full potential. Many CRM solutions have complex interfaces and too many features that lead to poor adoption from teams. However, the tide is slowly changing.

Dozer believes the coming few years will bring about a “renaissance of simplicity, where the focus shifts back to making things easy and simple to use.”

CRM systems have grown and evolved so much over the last decade that in some cases they now mimic ERP systems in some areas. This is great on the surface, but for a salesperson who’s on the road and needs to focus on selling, or a customer service rep who’s trying to find the right information quickly, the systems have become somewhat cumbersome.”

Deans also expects usability to play a critical role.

Everyone has access to the same basic capabilities. Therefore, vendors must enable more application customization to address this value-add requirement.”

Deans believes that people will adopt the intuitive capabilities and ignore the rest.

From a vendor standpoint, this means to “never underestimate the power of a superior user experience,” he said.

And from a buyer standpoint, it means to seek out the solutions setting themselves apart by offering that next-level experience. According to Dozer:

In order to be truly effective, CRM systems must be easy to use.”

Self-Service CRM

With automation becoming synonymous with CRM, bots are completing more contact management tasks and saving time for team members. Chatbots available on platforms like Drift and HubSpot automatically guide prospects through marketing and sales pipelines. With self-service, customers can set up accounts, pay bills, troubleshoot problems and get answers to their queries faster without the help of a service rep.

Customer self-service CRM is something you should include in your 2024 customer service strategy and even more so because it’s straightforward to implement.

According to Dozer:

From a business perspective, CRM is starting to evolve and that means less about just capturing interactions and customer touches, or logging support calls. More and more customers want to be able to find the things they need without the assistance of an actual person. This means that companies are investing more in self-service customer portals and systems that give clients the tools they need to do things like look up and pay outstanding invoices, find documentation about products and log support issues.”

How does this growing expectation affect the CRM solution you may be considering? Dozer offered some insight that can help:

In order to support [self-service], it’s important that the CRM system be tightly coupled to (or a part of) the back-office ERP system. This level of self-service requires data from multiple functional areas to be available to the CRM.”

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9. Industry-Specific CRM for SMBs

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced us to WFH culture, lockdowns and massive layoffs across industries, leading to the birth of solopreneurs. These are people who want to market their ideas on their own, and interestingly enough, the new-age CRMs pretty well cater to small businesses like these.

Industry-oriented CRMs are designed with specific business needs in mind, offering specialized features. Since SMBs can enjoy CRM benefits just as companies aiming for mass market success, it’s a given that there will be CRMs for niche markets. Insurance, real estate, banking, healthcare, hospitality, call centers, construction and mortgage are some industries that have seen tailor-made CRM tools, and the trend will continue to grow in the next few years.

Vertical-specific CRMs will offer more advanced features. In fact, popular industries may soon choose from a variety of customized CRM platforms. For instance, real-estate CRMs catering to brokers and firms help manage property transactions, generate leads and monitor listings. Whereas HIPAA-compliant healthcare CRMs offer functionalities such as patient record management and patient service support while adhering to regulations.

10. Pipeline Visibility

In the 2024 State of CRM report, the top answer regarding the most crucial sales and marketing areas CRM helped optimize was pipeline visibility (37%). Forecasting and pipeline visibility (43%) were also cited as the second most important CRM activity, followed by capturing intent data and lead scoring (41%).

This data shows a clear trend of CRM vendors gearing up to provide clients with better pipeline visibility and features. These capabilities allow users to take a more centralized and data-driven approach. They also help track sales stages, forecast and report to management, enabling you to see the roadblocks coming ahead.

11. Integration

With the rise of sophisticated CRMs and niche tech tools, sales and marketing teams can have the freedom to use fewer tools than before. Businesses will create more integrations to ensure better results from the tech stack.

Hyken listed CRM integration as the top trend buyers should pay attention to right now.

Look for a solution that integrates other important software solutions. They must act ‘in concert’ with each other, as if they are one. We must have a solution that gives us what has been referred to as a ‘single pane of glass,’ meaning our team members don’t have to keep bouncing around from one program to the next.”

Along with marketing automation, customer service tools and email, analytics software and customer data platforms (CDP) are relevant integration possibilities.

Integration is something Dozer sees major potential for as well:

Most current-generation CRM systems do a good job of tracking internal sales activities. But there’s still a huge amount of external interactions that happen outside of the CRM system. There’s a wealth of information available outside the walls of the CRM application, and it will be up to the manufacturers of these apps to leverage that data so that businesses can tap into that and better serve existing customers while expanding their reach to new customers.”

As a CRM buyer or user, it’s important to consider which integrations will best support your operations. You’ll also gain value by determining how to pull in data from outside your CRM — using capabilities such as data import, APIs and SDKs, and integration tools like Zapier — and put it to work.

12. Sustainability

A recent study shows that despite inflation, 68% of consumers are willing to pay more for an environmentally friendly product. When it comes to Gen Z, a staggering 91% of them want to buy from sustainable companies. Clearly, the trend towards eco-friendly products and services is growing.

CRM solutions are also starting to pick up this trend, enabling companies to segment customers based on their sustainability preferences. It helps create targeted marketing campaigns and analyze client data better. You can also collect, store, track and build reports on clients’ sustainability data.

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Next Steps

CRM trends are like ocean breezes — the companies that stay aware of which way the wind is blowing can maneuver so they’re better positioned to sail toward success.

That doesn’t mean putting so much stock in each trend that your business ends up choosing different end goals to accommodate every wave of new development. The destination should always be the same. But tracking effectively will get you there in a faster, more efficient manner.

If these trends have made you aware of shortcomings in your organization’s CRM, or if you’re looking to upgrade so you don’t get left in the wake of more savvy companies, our free CRM comparison guide is a good starting point. It will help orient you to the features available across a range of vendors.

What CRM trends do you expect to play out in 2024 and beyond? Did we miss any? Share your insights in the comments!

SME Contributors