Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms have become the digital command centers powering customer engagement across enterprises. CRM harnesses data to provide actionable insights that help sales, marketing and service teams boost productivity and revenue.
In fact, research shows over 80% of organizations leverage CRM to accelerate growth:
With customer interactions and data volumes growing exponentially in today‘s digital-first business landscape, it is essential for companies to capitalize on emerging innovations in CRM technology.
Implementing modern capabilities in areas like artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and data integration can help teams work smarter, deliver highly personalized engagement and anticipate customer needs better.
In this comprehensive guide, we will analyze the top 10 CRM trends that forward-thinking businesses should focus on implementing in 2024 and beyond.
The Top 10 CRM Tech Trends For 2024
1. AI-Powered Automation
Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption is fueling automation across CRM processes like customer support, document processing, campaign management and compliance:
AI-driven capabilities in CRM platforms help teams save time on manual research and quickly determine optimal customer engagement strategies by:
- Updating records automatically based on interactions
- Delivering personalized recommendations for next best actions
- Predictive lead scoring to qualify new prospects
- Automating customer support via conversational AI
- Analyzing customer churn risks with predictive models
- Automating document handling processes like contract analysis
According to leading research firms like Gartner, IDC and Forrester, over 75% of enterprise software offerings will incorporate some form of AI capabilities by 2025. AI is certainly revolutionizing automation in CRM.
For instance, Salesforce Einstein delivers AI-powered insights for sales, customer service, marketing and other CRM processes. HubSpot also utilizes machine learning across its suite to automate data capture, deliver recommendations and customize content.
As AI models become more advanced in 2024, businesses will be able to capitalize on more complex process automation using CRM platforms.
2. Low-Code Platforms
Leading CRM vendors offer low-code platforms that empower non-technical employees to build custom apps, workflows and reports quickly without coding skills.
According to Gartner, over 80% of application development activity will shift from formal IT teams to business operations powered by low-code:
Source: [Mendix, Gartner]()
Low-code development capabilities integrated into CRM systems have many benefits:
Agility – Custom tools and updates can be rolled out 10x faster by business teams compared to relying on complex IT projects.
Context – Frontline employees have clearer insights into required customizations for their workflows.
Cost – Low-code saves over 50% in application development costs over traditional coding.
For instance, financial services major GreenState Credit Union was able to build over 50 custom applications on the Salesforce Platform to transform loan underwriting, teller operations and other processes with niche needs.
The growing maturity of low-code platforms will drive massive productivity gains through 2024 and beyond.
3. Smarter Voice Assistants
Voice-based user interfaces integrated with CRM platforms are making customer data access and updates easier.
Over 50% of enterprise software apps will offer voice integration alongside traditional keyboard/mouse inputs by 2025 according to IDC.
Voice eliminates typing and allows hands-free navigation of records. For example, SugarCRM users can simply ask "What‘s John Smith‘s latest support case for the product defect he reported last month?" to instantly get details.
Natural language processing (NLP) has also advanced considerably enabling assistants to understand context, industry terminology and handle multi-turn conversations. Users can speak requests to analyze records rather than pulling reports manually.
As speech recognition, NLP and conversational analytics keep improving, voice will permeate CRM and other business systems by 2025 transforming workplace productivity.
4. Intelligent Customer Chatbots
AI-powered customer service chatbots integrated with CRM platforms can handle high-volume repetitive inquiries efficiently while offering 24/7 availability:
Source: Grand View Research
Sophisticated chatbots today can:
- Serve customers around the clock across regions
- Understand conversations and context
- Access integrated databases to share order status, account details etc.
- Seamlessly hand-over chats to human agents when needed
For example, leading retailer Lowe‘s offers an AI-powered chat assistant that helps customers with order tracking, product questions and recommendations. It can understand 500+ intents covering wide scenarios. The bot offered a 60% deflection rate saving over 130K hours of human support time per year.
As speech recognition and NLP mature, chatbots are becoming integral for enterprises to manage inquiry volumes and optimize support costs.
5. Gamification Drives Engagement
Gamification incentivizes CRM user activity by applying gaming concepts like points, badges, leaderboards and rewards programs. Experts projection over 50% of enterprises will gamify certain workflows by 2025.
For example, Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM offers Gamification through its built-in Gamification Service:
Gamification tactics like goal-based rewards can motivate sales and service teams to drive better performance – whether it‘s achieving revenue targets, case resolution times or customer satisfaction scores.
User adoption across self-service tools and training platforms also sees significant uplift from gamification due to engaging user experiences.
While executing gamification needs careful design considering scenarios and audiences, it holds immense potential to drive CRM productivity.
6. Omnichannel Social CRM
Consumers today extensively interact with brands on social channels. Unifying social media capabilities into CRM platforms is revolutionizing digital engagement.
According to surveys, over 60% of digital marketing leaders rate integrated social CRM capabilities like social publishing, monitoring and analytics as "very effective" for driving customer reach and revenue:
Integrated CRM suites from leading vendors like Salesforce, Hubspot and Zoho enable seamless social media management including:
- Listening to brand mentions or comments
- Publishing content updates and targeted ads
- Monitoring campaign analytics and engagement
- Unified workflows to convert leads generated on social
With 7 in 10 consumers expecting consistent experiences across social/web/mobile channels, having integrated social CRM capabilities is crucial for sales and marketing.
7. Enterprise Mobility
Smartphones and devices have become the preferred medium for business activity across regions. Over 75% of CRM platform capabilities will be mobile-accessible by 2025 forecasts IDC.
Having enterprise mobile apps tightly integrated with core CRM suites allows field employees secure access on-the-go via phones or tablets.
Key benefits of mobile CRM apps include:
- Checking customer records during meetings
- Updating deal status from events
- Processing orders remotely
- Adding service notes and photos onsite
- Approving requests in-transit
- Geotagging records, photos during field visits
Vendors like Salesforce, Microsoft and Oracle offer robust mobility solutions alongside core CRM suites. These help field teams keep productivity uninterrupted while meeting clients or assessing installations across locations.
Contextual inputs like images, locations and approvals during field activity will drive the next wave of mobile CRM.
8. Proactive Data Security
With cyber attacks and data leaks extracting over $1 trillion annually in damages globally, data security is non-negotiable, especially for sensitive CRM systems storing customer data.
Addressing vulnerabilities proactively is crucial via comprehensive audits across factors like:
- Authentication mechanisms
- Data access controls
- Encryption policies
- Network security posture
- Permission & administrative oversight
- Third-party integrations
Salesforce, SAP and other enterprise software vendors have established strict protocols and dedicated security teams to safeguard customer data.
They also undertake regular audits and testing to guarantee regulatory compliance and resilience against emerging cyber threats.
Undertaking continuous auditing and hardening measures will help companies fix risks early across CRM suites managing crucial customer data.
9. Guaranteed Offline Access
Modern CRM systems ensure field teams stay productive at all times – regardless of network availability and connectivityblindspots.
Offline synchronization mechanisms let mobile apps establish persistent connectivity across devices and work seamlessly by:
- Caching critical data on devices
- Allowing uninterrupted data capture while offline
- Queueing usage and updates for syncing
- Bidirectional sync with core CRM databases
Vendors like HubSpot CRM and SugarCRM prioritize robust support for offline usage scenarios across sales and service via dedicated apps, ensuring 24/7 field productivity.
Gartner estimates that 60% of field operations will mandate offline access across deployed software apps to keep remote teams constantly effective.
10. Shared Calendars & Reminders
Modern CRM platforms like Salesforce, Zoho and Hubspot have integrated calendars with support for shared events – whether it‘s meetings, calls, or task due dates.
Benefits of consolidated CRM calendar views include:
- Coordinating customer meetings across teams – Scheduling follow-ups and appointments
- Setting due dates for case resolution
- Managing attendance and meeting confirmations
- Tracking task completion status
Shared calendar visibility fosters better alignment between sales, service and marketing teams around serving customers.
Calendar integrations also auto-sync booking invites from email to appropriate records like accounts, contacts or cases driving adoption.
As remote and hybrid work proliferates, shared calendar solutions will be integral for successful CRM platforms.
Emerging CRM Innovations
While the top trends highlighted will disrupt businesses in 2024, the pace of innovation across customer data, automation and engagement shows no signs of slowing.
Additional innovations set to shape the CRM landscape over the next 2-3 years include:
Customer Revenue Optimization (CRO)
Customer revenue optimization expands beyond sales relationships taking a holistic view of maximizing revenue from existing customer bases.
CRO platforms integrate data across sales, marketing, finance and service systems using analytics to model lifetime value and optimize spending on engagement as well as pricing.
CRM majors like Salesforce now offer CRO-focused solutions like Salesforce Revenue Cloud that help continuously evolve engagement strategies across high-value customers.
Virtual + Augmented Reality
Immersive mediums like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) drive more experiential customer engagement online and in-store.
Retailers already offer VR store previews for web visitors to virtually navigate products more interactively from home. AR applications let customers visualize products in their actual living spaces before buying online.
As headsets and glasses advance, sales associates could also leverage AR overlays real-time during in-person consultations to showcase relevant products/information tailored to customer context.
VR and AR innovations will make customer experiences social and interactive driven by CRM data.
Blockchain Mechanisms
Blockchain establishes immutable records across transactions that are public, authentic and decentralized without centralized control.
Although early, blockchain integration for CRM systems can increase transparency and integrity assurances across recorded deals, contracts and data exchange with other parties.
Blockchains also help establish irrefutable audit trails alleviating disputes. Data decentralization also limits risks from localized system outages or manipulation.
While scalability and stability improvements are still needed, ongoing blockchain R&D from SAP, Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle signal future potential bridging CRM systems.
Dark Data Discovery and Analysis
A typical enterprise accumulates vast volumes of unstructured data across engagement channels, purchase transactions, technical operations and partner ecosystem workflows daily.
However, significant amounts remain undiscovered across unmapped SaaS platform repositories, unprocessed recordings, unused databases and other ungoverned zones – termed dark data.
Sophisticated analytics powered by AI/ML algorithms can shine light into these dark zones – mining untapped signals from engagement data to customer support calls.
As analytics and storage scale cost-effectively, dark data represents the next frontier for Customer Intelligence vendors to explore.
Expert Analysis: Capitalizing on CRM Innovation
As a pioneering technologist and practitioner driving enterprise CRM success worldwide, the influx of disruptive innovations from AI to experiences presents incredible opportunities alongside complex challenges for digital leaders.
Here are my key recommendations for capitalizing on the CRM revolution over this decade:
Take a Platform-First Approach
As technologies converge across analytics, automation and engagement, evaluating CRM software as an isolated system fails to harness innovation synergies.
Instead digital leaders need to adopt platform thinking – where foundational CRM capabilities flexibly integrate new innovations from predictive intelligence to experiential engagement.
Prioritize platforms offering composable architecture, open ecosystem and unified data flows to future-proof CRM maturity.
Commit to Continuous Improvement
Given the pace of change, modern CRM demands continuous innovation via new capabilities and optimizations much like humans never stop learning.
Digital leaders need to instill a culture of continual improvement across technology, workflows and skills development to stay ahead.
Allocate resources expressly towards a multi-year roadmap that aligns CRM enhancements to emerging use cases quarterly.
Invest in User Enablement
Sophisticated CRM technology needs capable practitioners fully equipped with the right expertise and tools to extract power.
Successful adoption requires extensive enablement driving software proficiency and best practice alignment for sales, service and marketing teams interfacing daily with platforms managing mission-critical customer data.
Plan for role-based coaching, training and certification milestones when introducing platform updates.
As CRM systems get infused with groundbreaking innovation across data, interfaces and intelligence over 2024, choosing adaptable platforms led by customer-centric vendors is vital to accelerate competitive advantage. CRM will increasingly represent the epicenter rending customer experiences into fuel that propels business growth.
To learn more about advanced CRM platform selection advisory tuned to your specific industry drivers, success metrics and use case priorities connect with me here.