Unlocking the Power of AI in CRM: Insights from Pipeliner CRM Sales Corporation

In a recent live session on LinkedIn, Nikolaus Kimla, CEO of Pipeliner Sales Corporation, and Don Araldi, EVP of the company, delved into the transformative AI features integrated into their CRM system, Pipeliner CRM. This blog post will break down the key themes and insights from their discussion, providing actionable advice and detailed explanations to help you leverage these advancements in your CRM strategy.

Introduction to AI in CRM

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way businesses manage customer relationships. By automating routine tasks, providing deep insights, and enhancing user experience, AI-powered CRM systems like Pipeliner CRM are setting new standards in the industry. Nikolaus Kimla and Don Araldi highlighted several AI features in Pipeliner CRM designed to streamline operations and drive sales efficiency.

Key AI Features in Pipeliner CRM

1. AI-Powered Mobile App

The mobile app is a cornerstone of Pipeliner CRM’s AI capabilities, allowing users to manage their CRM on the go. Here’s a closer look at its features:

• Voice Commands and Natural Language Processing (NLP): The mobile app leverages NLP to understand and execute voice commands. This allows sales representatives to update records, schedule meetings, and retrieve information hands-free, enhancing productivity and reducing manual entry errors.
• Real-Time Data Sync: The app ensures that all data entered via mobile is instantly synchronized with the central CRM system. This real-time update feature is crucial for maintaining data accuracy and consistency across the organization.
• Contextual Insights: By analyzing user behavior and historical data, the app provides contextual insights and recommendations. For instance, it can suggest the best time to contact a lead based on past interactions, increasing the chances of a successful engagement.

2. AI Email Assistant

Email remains a critical communication tool in sales, and Pipeliner CRM’s AI email assistant is designed to optimize this channel:

• Automated Email Drafting: The AI assistant can draft emails based on predefined templates and past communication patterns. This not only saves time but also ensures that the messaging is consistent and personalized.
• Follow-Up Reminders: The assistant tracks email interactions and sets reminders for follow-ups. This feature helps sales reps stay on top of their communication, ensuring that no lead falls through the cracks.
• Sentiment Analysis: By analyzing the tone and sentiment of email responses, the AI assistant can gauge the lead’s interest level and suggest appropriate next steps. This insight is invaluable for tailoring follow-up strategies and improving engagement rates.

3. Duplication Checker

Data duplication is a common issue in CRM systems, leading to inefficiencies and inaccuracies. Pipeliner CRM’s AI-powered duplication checker addresses this problem effectively:

• Intelligent Matching Algorithms: The duplication checker uses advanced algorithms to identify and merge duplicate records. It goes beyond simple field matching, considering factors like contact history and interaction patterns to ensure accurate deduplication.
• User Alerts and Suggestions: When potential duplicates are detected, the system alerts users and provides suggestions for merging records. This proactive approach helps maintain a clean and reliable database.
• Continuous Monitoring: The duplication checker continuously monitors the CRM for new duplicates, ensuring that the database remains clean over time. This ongoing vigilance is essential for maintaining data integrity and supporting effective decision-making.

Future AI Developments in Pipeliner CRM

Nikolaus Kimla and Don Araldi also shared exciting insights into the future AI developments planned for Pipeliner CRM. Here are some highlights:

• Predictive Analytics: Future updates will focus on enhancing predictive analytics capabilities. The system will provide more accurate sales forecasts and identify potential opportunities and risks by analyzing historical data and identifying trends.
• Advanced Personalization: Pipeliner CRM aims to further personalize user experiences by leveraging AI to understand individual preferences and behaviors. This will enable more tailored recommendations and interactions, improving user satisfaction and engagement.
• Integration with Third-Party Tools: To provide a seamless experience, Pipeliner CRM plans to integrate its AI features with popular third-party tools and platforms. This will allow users to leverage AI insights across their entire tech stack, enhancing overall efficiency and effectiveness.

Actionable Advice for Leveraging AI in Your CRM Strategy

To fully harness the power of AI in your CRM strategy, consider the following tips:

1. Embrace Automation

Automate routine tasks to free up your team’s time for more strategic activities. Use AI to handle data entry, email drafting, and follow-up reminders, allowing your sales reps to focus on building relationships and closing deals.

2. Leverage Data Insights

Utilize AI-driven insights to make informed decisions. Analyze customer interactions, sentiment, and behavior to tailor your approach and improve engagement. Predictive analytics can help you identify trends and opportunities, enabling proactive decision-making.

3. Maintain Data Quality

Ensure your CRM data is accurate and up-to-date by using AI-powered tools like duplication checkers. Regularly monitor and clean your database to support effective decision-making and improve efficiency.

4. Personalize Customer Interactions

Use AI to understand individual customer preferences and behaviors. Tailor your communication and interactions to provide a personalized experience, enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

5. Stay Informed About AI Developments

Keep up with the latest AI advancements and updates in your CRM system. Regularly review new features and capabilities to ensure you leverage AI’s full potential in your CRM strategy.

Key takeaways:

Integrating AI in CRM systems like Pipeliner CRM is transforming how businesses manage customer relationships. By automating routine tasks, providing deep insights, and enhancing user experience, AI-powered CRM systems drive efficiency and effectiveness in sales operations. By embracing these advancements and following the actionable advice provided, you can unlock the full potential of AI in your CRM strategy and achieve tremendous success in your sales efforts.

Stay tuned for more updates from Pipeliner Sales Corporation as they continue to innovate and enhance their AI capabilities, bringing even more value to their customers.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist

Journey to the next frontier of Sales CRM

“AI” › It’s All About the Data

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is only as good as the data it relies upon, therefore, the adage “garbage in, garbage out” is fundamental to its effectiveness. Without accurate data, algorithms cannot produce a correct output. The data management issue is even more acute because AI requires a lot of data. Furthermore, to effectively use the power of AI with internal, limited, or private datasets requires the highest levels of data accuracy and integrity within those datasets.

Automating Repetitive Tasks:

At Pipeliner, we recognized the need to address the challenges posed by repetitive, manual work. This realization led to the development of our pioneering solution, the Automatizer — the first true automation platform for repetitive tasks.

Pipeliner CRM: Pioneering AI in Sales CRM

Pipeliner CRM has been at the forefront of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into relationship management (CRM) technology. While others were still exploring AI’s potential, Pipeliner was already transforming how sales teams operate.

Automating Repetitive Tasks:

At Pipeliner, we recognized the need to address the challenges posed by repetitive, manual work. This realization led to the development of our pioneering solution, the Automatizer—the first true automation platform for repetitive tasks. This groundbreaking innovation served as the starting point for all future advancements in artificial intelligence technology that we knew were essential to implement.

Groundbreaking AI for Sales CRM Voyager AI “Gen I”

In 2018, Pipeliner introduced Voyager AI “Gen I”, a groundbreaking feature that uses intelligent algorithms to analyze customer data and provide sales teams with valuable insights, actionable recommendations, and early warnings about sales opportunities.

Announcing › Pipeliner Voyager AI “Gen II”

In 2024, Pipeliner CRM will launch the second generation of Pipeliner Voyager AI. This includes all of the current AI and AI-enhanced capabilities within Pipeliner CRM, and new and innovative AI features that Pipeliner will add to the platform over time. Like NASA’s Voyager II space probe, which has more sophisticated capabilities and can go deeper and further than Voyager I, Pipeliner’s Voyager AI “Gen II” will take AI for Sales CRM to a whole new level.

Conclusion

As highlighted above, fundamental to unlocking the power of AI for Sales CRM is both data accuracy and automation. Without these many AI tools will be limited point solutions, and most of the platforms that boast AI components will be extremely superficial in what they can deliver.

What should a powerful CRM consist of, and how should it operate?

As we move into our ever-changing technological future, it becomes clear that CRM has become vital as the virtual engine of an enterprise, the heartbeat of your business.

The Platform

There are many CRM solutions today that are collections of applications, all from the same vendor, labeled as “platforms.” However, one thing that a truly robust CRM is not is a platform.

First, such vendors make claims for these platforms that could never be kept, such as “Get more qualified leads” and “increase sales by x%.” No piece of technology could stand up to a promise of increasing sales, including ours (we make no such claim). If it is worth its name, a CRM empowers sales teams to increase sales, but it could never increase leads or sales by itself.

Second, being a collection of applications (some number 50 or more), these platforms are attempting to be “everything for everyone” with applications for every possible need. One vendor makes a claim, “One app to replace them all.” This is not even possible, because no vendor can be an expert in all applications. This is why we have taken the “best of breed” approach, which I’ll discuss further on.

The Engine

Pipeliner does not promise to take the platform approach. Instead, Pipeliner CRM is solely and only the company’s engine, and that’s what we’re experts in. This is much like Porsche’s 3.5-liter engine, one of the best car engines in the world. Porsche took 60 years to perfect this engine, and it’s still undergoing innovation. While we haven’t been around for 60 years (no CRM can make that claim), we, too, took years to perfect. Pipeliner CRM has been under consistent development for over a decade.

We have taken this approach because of the importance of CRM. It’s an absolute truth that no company today can survive without a CRM—period. It’s similar to another application that a company cannot live without today, a complete bookkeeping application. In today’s lightning speed of commerce, no company can keep close enough accurate track of its transactions without such a bookkeeping application. At the end of the year, such an application can interface with the IRS for precise tax reporting.

Because of CRM’s importance to an enterprise, we have put all of our resources into developing a single CRM that is, like the Porsche 3.5-liter engine, as close to perfect as possible.

While it’s a marvel of engineering, the Porsche 3.5-liter engine is not a fit for every vehicle. You’d never, for example, put one into a Volkswagen Bug. Similarly, Pipeliner CRM is not a fit for every business—it is made for businesses with a dedicated B2B sales process, for midsize and larger  companies that need a sales manager with a dedicated sales team. And, like Porsche, we do it better than anyone else in our market.

Integration

As mentioned, the “platform” CRM approaches are trying to be everything to everyone. It would be like a car engine manufacturer also manufacturing the navigation, air conditioner, and sound system.

In motor vehicles, top manufacturers take the intelligent approach of “best-of-breed.” For example, Porsche installs Burmester’s high-end audio systems. Other car manufacturers, such as Lexus, utilize Bose systems. A car manufacturer has never put the serious research and development into sound systems that these others have—why try?

At Pipeliner, we have taken this same best-of-breed approach. Pipeliner CRM integrates with over 50 of a company’s most-used tried-and-true applications. We also provide two APIs so companies can integrate with their legacy applications where needed. We’re most definitely not out to reinvent the wheel.

Replacing Humans

Another seeming goal for CRM technology is the eventual replacement of humans with artificial intelligence. In the last few years, we have seen articles predicting that the salesperson would be extinct one day, replaced by such technology.

While it’s certainly fun to see portrayals of intelligent technology replacing humanity in feature films and television series, we don’t believe this can ever occur in sales—at least, in complex B2B sales, which is Pipeliner’s marketplace. AI might eventually be able to track a sale with one buyer or prospect, but in B2B, several stakeholders are often involved. For example, I was just in a meeting with one of my sales reps and three representatives from the potential buyer. AI could not possibly have kept track of all five streams of thought and consideration.

We are out to warn potential CRM buyers that they should fully investigate claims being made for AI in CRM before they invest considerable time and money into them. It is a dead-end.

AI can only support the salesperson—and for this function, it is very valuable. Our Voyager AI functionality, included in Pipeliner CRM, was developed for this purpose, and in this regard it is extremely effective.

Another seeming goal for AI is to replace human responsibility. We take the exact opposite approach and put humans in control. Not only do salespeople have their own responsibility, we provide them with the same responsibility as their sales managers. Unlike many other CRMs, Pipeliner does not hide data from salespeople—salespeople see the same data as their managers.

Empowering Salespeople

As a primary mission, we empower salespeople because the salesperson’s job is like none other in a company. A salesperson’s pay is dependent on the quantity sold. Other types of employees are paid by the hour or by the week, but rarely by production. Only a few jobs have such a risk factor.

I have pointed out for many years that a salesperson has qualities like that of an entrepreneur, because only entrepreneurs are willing to take on such risk. I call salespeople, for that reason, “entrepreneurs within the enterprise”—or a word that I coined, “salespreneurs.” Pipeliner CRM is designed to support every aspect of sales, reducing the risk factor as far as possible.

Sales requires a well-rounded understanding and education, which is another reason we believe that human salespeople will never be replaced by technology. A salesperson must understand how to read people, must learn how to interact with people, and learn to talk with them in a very different way. They must learn strategic skills.

Technology should support such skills, which is what Pipeliner CRM has been designed to do. Technology takes the place of repetitive and routine tasks so that the salesperson can concentrate on importances.

Our appointment scheduler is an example of technology we have created to support salespeople. Before its development, we utilized another calendar app from another company, paying to license this technology. Because salespeople are constantly making appointments, we realized that it made much more sense for us to program appointment scheduling into CRM so that it could seamlessly combine with workflow automation. In doing so, we created functionality far more efficient than Calendly, the app we had been employing.

Where should a salesperson be focusing attention? A salesperson—and a sales team—is there to win customers, to be competitive and create value. That value is different for every industry and even for various products and services, which is another reason technology could never replace human salespeople. Pipeliner CRM makes it possible to create value in any industry, based on human judgment.

Technical Superiority

Pipeliner CRM’s opportunity navigation is based on a heuristic, rather than an algorithm approach.

Traditional CRM systems have “decided” they know what direction a salesperson should go and what strategies they should take. These are then programmed into the CRM as known objectives, through algorithms. Pipeliner doesn’t try to use algorithms for navigation but takes the heuristic approach, as it is far more effective.

An example of a heuristic approach in sales would be developing a relationship. If a prospect responds to a salesperson’s email, the salesperson will take the next activity within the process, or the next step in the sales process. If there is no response from the prospect, the salesperson takes a different action. Each step is based on the previous step and ultimately results in a strengthening of the relationship.

Pipeliner’s technical superiority comes from the understanding that the world is radically changing. For that reason, over the last several years, we have released new functionality every single month—more frequently than any other vendor in our space. We do this because we aim to deliver the best possible tool for the sales manager and sales force, so they can keep up with today’s digital transformation.

Pipeliner will never replace salespeople. We will always create technology for the sales team to make their lives easier, but never replace them.

The Future of Sales

We see a very bright future for intelligent salespeople if they truly follow our theory and are the wealth creators and peace producers of our society.

What does that mean? We live in a networked society, the currency of which is recommendations. Therefore a salesperson’s reputation is everything. When they have created that reputation through intelligent sales and have provided real value for their customers, they will never be replaced by technology or anything else. They will be indispensable to their companies and even to society.

This series of articles will go further into detail as to why our approach is the most reasonable, effective and efficient compared to our competitors. We’ll explore how Pipeliner CRM is the only system that takes the real challenges of the sales team seriously, because we are laser-focused on the real problems that salespeople encounter from beginning to end.

Stay tuned!

Advancements in information technology and the increase in automation have created a dynamic world with changing trends. It’s essential to stay relevant, provide the most up-to-date service, and ensure effective management of customer databases to establish higher customer retention.

The most important goal for a business is to increase its market share and profitability ratios. Undoubtedly, that can only come from sustaining customers. As the industry becomes saturated with new firms, the only way to gain a competitive edge is to maintain customer loyalty.

BuildOps is an all-in-one cloud-based field service management software that can help commercial contractors achieve these goals. From field service to project management, BuildOps provides the tools and resources contractors need to streamline their operations, improve their customer service, and grow their businesses.

How Does CRM Benefit Your Business?

Using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, you can optimize your customer relationships, target different audiences, set scores, and receive alerts for an individual lead or a customer’s activity. Here are a few significant benefits of CRM software:

1. Get to Know Your Customers

A CRM system puts your salesforce, marketing, and customer outreach department ahead of your competitors. The database will include the full name, email, contact, and address of the customer and potential data for promotions, including their birthdays, language, and ethnicity. Your marketing team can leverage this data for an effective outreach; for example, reaching out to customers with a discount deal on their birthday.

2. More Opportunities to Grow Your Sales

CRM software can help you elevate and reach new sales targets by tracking potential customers’ buying patterns. Automating the business process also increases the overall output and allows the business to reach its maximum potential.

The analytics can help develop micro-plans, support the sales team, and generate more revenue for your business. Software-generated strategies also target potential customers at specific times, enabling you to increase your market share and generate higher revenue.

3. Improved Communication

A CRM system offers email templates, a database with customer information, a customizable newsletter, and promotional templates. This helps keep your customers updated about new promotional deals and business activities, making your business relevant and competitive.

Segmentation of customers and automated call databases can also improve customer experience through better customer care. Along with quick communication, a CRM system also establishes a low-cost and effective communication medium, minimizing the labor demand.

4. Increased Retention of Customers

Studies have found that healthy and frequent customer-business communication helps increase customer satisfaction and retention, and keeping an existing customer is six or seven times cheaper than getting a new one. A CRM system reminds you of appointments and follow-up emails creating a loyal customer base and ensuring the sustenance of your business.

You can enjoy all the benefits of CRM tools like Pipeliner CRM, HubSpot CRM, BIGContacts, Salesflare, Zoho CRM, Salesforce, and Pipedrive. Still, it is essential to use this software efficiently and maintain its quality. Quality assurance can only allow the highest benefit from technology, and tools like Salesforce testing can be much more effective in such cases.

Endnote

Automation and technology are the future of successful businesses. Tools like customer relationship management systems provide deeper insights into the customer database, create automated strategies, improve customer satisfaction, and help you reach new selling targets.

To maximize the returns on these low-cost systems, It is also vital to minimize errors and do regular quality checks through testing. That will help you stay consistent, achieve higher ROIs, and make your business stand out.

In a business, customers are critical assets. No loyal customer would take your brand for granted ever. To maintain a strong brand presence, you need to provide your customers with a remarkable user experience which in turn makes them refer your brand to others.

However, many businesses are taking the profound effect of social media lightly. Nowadays, people are aware of the brands through social media before brand marketing.

Ultimately, devising a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy sets a benchmark of your standards across various social platforms. Also, using the best project management software guides you in planning the schedule of the CRM strategy.

In this article, you will know the smartest approaches to enhance your CRM tactics in social media.

• A right project management software

As mentioned earlier, using the best project management software will simplify complex processes like project planning, defining deliverables, communicating with team members, risk management, and budget allocation.

When working as a team, chances of adversities are more. Still, with a suitable best project management software, you can overcome all sorts of miscommunication, thus delivering quality of work. 

• Track the customer journey

To improve CRM strategy through social media, converting the followers to clients is the predominant step. So, concentrate on tracking the customer journey, which means follow the engagement metrics, insights on likes, shares and comments.

By this, you can foster a strong bond with your existing customers and add value to their life. Accordingly, converting your one time customers as a regular user and a fan creates a permanent place among them.

To accomplish this, you need to do more than concentrating on getting “likes” on an Instagram picture. Therefore, exhibit the human side of the brand through hosting live events, giveaways, asking questions and giving a glance at the behind the scenes.

• Revert to customer complaints

Having a brand presence on social media primary task is to respond sooner to customer complaints. For instance, if you are a biodegradable coffee cup manufacturer, you need to fix issues in delivery if any arise immediately.

The best CRM strategy is to meet and greet the consumers at every step of their journey. On the downside, even negative comments arise, so kindly, don’t ignore it. Often, people complain about the brand in social media.

However, the faster you respond to the customer grievances, the more consumer’s trust builds about your brand. Best project management software will help you in organizing and analyzing customer complaints effectively. 

• Keywords & Hashtags

 Detailed analysis of the keywords and hashtags is an intelligent way to discover mentions and engagement of the customers on your brand. It even brings unexpected opportunities that are hard to locate.

Through hashtag analysis, you can identify your ideal customers on social media. To enhance this process, you can precisely track branded keywords, misspelling of your brand, and to gain new perspective track competitor’s keywords too. 

• Establish the voice of your brand

It is brilliant to establish a brand presence equally across all social media platforms. There are possibilities of your consumers dodging when one social channel is engaged while another is dead silent.

For instance, your customer engagement is significant in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to build a strong presence.

Therefore, your consistent efforts across all the social media platforms create an identity for your brand.

Conclusion

By implementing a robust social media CRM strategy, you can upscale your business intelligently. For instance, tools like Octopus CRM have good reviews for LinkedIn growth. These efforts will show up in the name of sales and engagement in your brand continuously. If you find any other CRM strategy helped you, kindly mention them in the comments.

Customer experience is where business battles are taking place in 2020. CRM has become a quintessential component of modern businesses because consumers demand full focus and maximum level of personalization.

According to the recent Frost & Sullivan study, customer experience is projected to overtake price and product as a key brand differentiator in 2020. This is far from being the only relevant report as many other studies reveal pretty much the same logic behind contemporary CRM:

• Nearly 70% of consumers and 74% of business buyers say they’ll pay more for a great experience.
• 52% of customers responded that they are extremely or somewhat likely to change brands if a company does not personalize its communication with them.
• 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company.
• To deliver on their customer experience management goals, 55% of marketers are prioritizing more effective audience segmentation and targeting.
• Almost 50% of buyers have made impulse purchases after receiving a more personalized experience.

The importance of user experience is obvious, but how can you improve the CRM strategy right away? In this post, we will show you five major CRM trends to look for in 2020.

1.    Integration of Big Data, AI, and CRM

2020 is when different technologies are going to merge and create the most powerful CRM weapon in the business arsenal. What are we talking about?

The answer is simple – we are talking about the integration of CRM platforms with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data. It’s a basic precondition for enhancing users’ experiences because you cannot accumulate and analyze enough consumer-related information otherwise.

Take Netflix for example. Namely, one of the largest media streaming services globally is merging AI and big data analytics to provide customers with immaculate and highly personalized journeys.

Using advanced AI algorithms that successfully analyze huge data volumes, Netflix is able to give users the most relevant content recommendations. As a result, the company saves more than $1 billion each year.

You don’t have to save that much, but even a small cost-reduction can help your organization to become more profitable in 2020.

2.    Voice-Powered Services Revolutionize Sales

The number of users who rely on voice assistants such as Siri or Cortana keeps growing at a steady rate year after year, which is exactly why nearly 50% of consumers are using voice for general web searches.

In such circumstances, it is natural to expect voice-powered services to revolutionize the sales processes. This is extremely important because personal assistants make online activities faster, easier, and more convenient. Companies that adapt to the new format quickly can hope to earn trust and outperform competitors in the CRM field.

Jake Gardner, a CRM officer at the college papers agency, says it’s not the only benefit because you can also expect to maximize internal efficiency in the long run: “Speech recognition tools can log calls, make conversation transcripts, and do many other activities to reduce the time needed for boring, repetitive, and manual tasks.”

3.    Niche-Oriented CRM Platforms

CRM platforms are far from being a novelty in 2020. After all, we all know the likes of Zoho, Agile CRM, Streak, HubSpot, and so on. However, developers realized that modern organizations need more than a “one size fits all” CRM solution and so they started focusing on niche-oriented customer management tools.

It’s a big leap forward because clients can now find a highly customizable CRM solution that addresses the fiercest pain points in a given niche. A great example comes from Salesforce dedicated to healthcare management, and Hellobonsai which is a product suite for freelance businesses that offers CRM, invoicing, and contract making tools.

4.    AR and VR Augment Shopping Experiences

Another very significant CRM trend comes in the form of Augmented (AR) and Virtual Realities (VR). Although not the same, the two technologies are based on similar principles and designed to augment and improve shopping experiences.

Instead of looking at the basic version of the product in the real world, a customer can enjoy additional layers of information through AR or VR tools or apps. IKEA Place represents one of the most popular pioneer projects in the AR realm.

Namely, this mobile app lets you virtually place true-to-scale 3D models in your very own space. Instead of guessing and wondering how a new piece of furniture would look like in his/her home, a buyer can make the right decision using a very simple AR-powered tool.

5.    Social Media Service Keeps Booming

Do you know that almost 70% of consumers now use social media networks like Twitter and Facebook to seek resolution for issues? This is obviously not a trend anymore, but rather a full-time necessity that your company cannot afford to neglect.

Social media service keeps booming, so it’s up to you to prepare a solid CRM strategy and make customers satisfied long-term. The tactic is even more important if you know that the majority of social followers expect businesses to reply to their comments within 60 minutes.

But you should not go for the omnichannel strategy as it will be too difficult to handle in the months and years to come. Instead, you should concentrate on the most relevant platforms and stick to the networks where your audience is usually active and engaged.

The Bottom Line

Quality products and services are more than welcome, but they can only get you so far in an attempt to win over the affection of the target audience. Customer experience is what you need to take care of in order to make the business highly productive long-term.

In this article, we discussed five major CRM trends you need to know in 2020 and beyond. Which one did you like the most? Do you plan to add some of these mechanisms in your CRM strategy? Feel free to share your ideas in the comments!

In this last article in our series on choosing a CRM solution, let’s take up evaluating the CRM vendor—the risk you’re taking, and the vendor vision.

A client company, especially a larger company, usually wants to sign up on a contract in subscribing to a CRM. They want to make sure that the vendor is going to be around, and not go out of business in a year.

Overall, I believe that such risk has been greatly reduced by the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. In the past, you didn’t subscribe to a service, you actually bought a product and installed it physically at your site. It was an on-premise solution. It wasn’t so long ago, maybe 10 years, that on-premise was the majority of all software sales worldwide. This has changed dramatically.

The production, distribution, and handling of on-premise software was very different. Vendors had to produce multiple CDs for installation, and phone-book-sized manuals so sys admins would know how to install and use the software. That was certainly a higher risk than it is today. With SaaS, a vendor lives within a Cloud ecosystem and depends on another company, the Cloud provider, to host their service. This is far more affordable for a vendor than having to either host their own service or manufacture CDs and hard-copy documentation. Now highly reliable Cloud services, such as AWS, IBM, Microsoft or Rackspace, provide an extremely stable platform. The actual software solution, then, just consists of the software itself and the support.

There is the risk, as we mentioned in a previous article in this series, of a CRM solution relying on technology that will soon be out of date and won’t be supported. But that is becoming less and less of a risk as time goes by—otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many software solutions available today.

Company History

Company longevity is certainly another indication of vendor reliability. In our own case at Pipeliner, we have a very successful history. The original team and I have been in this industry for over 25 years, and for nearly 20 of those years were also responsible for the development, programming, and hosting of a leading global banking compliance solution. We know how it’s done, so the risk factor for a company doing business with us is very low.

There is a statistic that states if a company has survived over 3 to 5 years, that the risk percentage is greatly lessened. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible for a company to still be a risk—a prime example is 100+-year-old Eastman Kodak which, while it was the original developer of the digital camera, didn’t choose to back up digital photography because of the company’s business model based in film cameras  It was certainly their loss—they eventually declared bankruptcy (although they have since recovered to some degree). But Kodak is a marked exception rather than the rule.

Vendor Vision

Company vision can be very important when selecting a vendor. Company objectives can actually affect their products, because the world today has become so specialized, and it will only become more so as time goes by.

Operating on a global scale with many languages is certainly an issue. Localization (creating your software product in the language of a certain country) is something that every software vendor has to deal with. That isn’t difficult. But it’s a totally different thing to try and create a company structure in multiple countries with different languages—now that is a challenge!

As an example, I don’t speak French, and could never run a company in France. I cannot converse in the language or read contracts. If someone doesn’t speak French, how could they lead a team in a French-speaking country? You always have to lead a team in their mother tongue.

French is probably a very good example because it’s not only spoken in France, but in several African and Caribbean countries as well. There are probably many hundred million people on Earth today speaking French. That’s quite a large market if you want to reach them. If you’re going to, though, you have to invest in the total infrastructure of marketing, the web site, all the material you send out, and leadership. The same would be the case for other languages spoken in large parts of the world, such as Chinese or German.

Even though I myself am Austrian, we at Pipeliner do not concentrate on the German-speaking market, because we have no establishment there, no offices or teams that speak the language. In fact, in the German market, they expect you to immediately have a physical office. “You’re not in Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg? Then we don’t buy from you.”

We are focused only on the English-speaking market. We have our product translated into multiple languages, but all of our marketing, our content, our online magazine SalesPOP, and our web site is in English. Why? Because we know that the English-speaking world contains way over 2.5 billion people that we can reach. It’s not just England, America, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Singapore—there are many countries that people don’t naturally think about that actually have English as their mother tongue, such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe. There is also a large part of the population in India that speaks English. Hence, that is where our focus will remain for years to come.

Choosing Your CRM Vendor

In summarizing, choosing a CRM vendor based on risk and vision is actually not a complex decision. It does require some investigation, as I’ve laid out here. There are also many online tools that make it easy to compare software solutions with each other. These are primarily based on reviews, and reviews are key—as I’ve always said, recommendations are the currency of the future. People don’t write great reviews if they aren’t happy with the product.