Although being ever-present in CRM, customer data analytics, customer engagement and experience are likely become even more important in 2015.
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The age of the customer created by Forrester Research is the concept that has given customers more empowered than ever in their relationships with companies because they can access information and products and services such as company websites, live chat, social media,… over the Internet. Through that, consumers are more able to dictate how they want to communicate with companies, when and where and which information they want to have.
Danny Estrada, an expert in CRM field said that the above shift in the role of customers has made three trends in CRM even more significant. And Estrada outlined 3 themes that define CRM in 2015: data analytics, customer engagement and customer experience.
Actionable data. Estrada said that data-driven decision making will become more essential in 2015. “If your data not talking to you, you need to find out how to be aware of information and what you need to do with it,” Estrada said. “That’s the reason why analytics becomes so important. You need to work with the data and manipulate it. Data will definitely be more actionable in 2015.”
Customer engagement. Estrada said finding the ways to cooperate with customers through the channel they choose and engage them in the brand is the next key theme. How well companies engage with customers may become a competitive differentiator, he said.
Customer experience. The Final theme, Estrada said that ensuring customers have a strong experience will be a key theme in 2015. This is also about creating expectations that a company can follow through on.
“If customer experience doesn’t fall in line with customer expectation,” there are going to be problems, Estrada said. “Customers are much less patient these days,” he said. “If I do something on the Web and get on the phone, I’m assuming that someone on the phone has the information from when I was on the Web. If those things don’t start to line up, I start questioning my loyalty.
Ultimately, companies have to focus on data and engagement with customers to build a better service experience, Estrada said.
“Speed is the new currency in business,” Estrada said. “Having the right information at the right time to make actionable decisions; having that information the way you need to have it to be successful.”