An interesting article on the latest trends & practices in CRm Software. I thought it will worth sharing with you all.
"Current trend in the CRM Vertical
Analytical CRM: Analytical CRM is fast growing component in the CRM vertical. Relevant analytical capabilities are often interwoven into applications for sales, marketing, and service. Marketing applications generally come with predictive analytics to improve segmentation and targeting, and features for measuring the effectiveness of online, offline, and search marketing campaigns.
Marketing and finance personnel also use analytics to assess the value of multi-faceted programs as a whole. Support-focused applications typically include dashboards similar to those for sales, plus capabilities to measure and analyze response times, service quality, agent performance, and the frequency of various issues.
Integrated Approach for CRM: Companies no longer regard marketing, service and sales as separate entities. Thus the integrated approach to CRM. Departments within enterprises — especially large enterprises — tend to function with collaborations. For example, feedback from a technical support center can enlighten marketers about specific services and product features clients are asking for. Reps, in their turn, want to be able to pursue these opportunities without the burden of re-entering records and contact data into a separate SFA system.
Vertical CRM : Vertical CRM solutions are one of the newest trends in the CRM industry. Need of different verticals of business are slightly different, so instead of a horizontal CRM and heavy customizations, vertical CRMs try to accommodate these differences through customization, in order to fulfill the individual needs. For instance CRM software that specifically caters to the needs of the legal, financial, management and accounting sectors.
CRM as a Service: Many CRM vendors offer Web-based tools (cloud computing) and software as a service (SaaS), which are accessed via a secure Internet connection and displayed in a Web browser. These applications are sold as subscriptions, with customers not needing to invest in purchasing and maintaining IT hardware, and subscription fees are a fraction of the cost of purchasing software outright.
Social CRM: The era of the “social customer” refers to the use of social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) by customers. This shift increases the power of customers to make purchase decisions that are informed by other parties sometimes outside of the control of the seller or seller’s network. In response, CRM will slowly have to shift focus and include social networks and user communities, podcasting, and personalization in addition to internally generated marketing, online advertising etc.. We will talk more about social CRM in the next post. Keep watching this space.
Vendor Relationship Management: Another anticipated trend is Vendor Relationship Management, or VRM, which is the customer-side counterpart of CRM. Vendors are a ignored factor as far as CRM is concerned. It is expected in future the VRM will be a part or a integrated part of CRM or VRM will evolve as a new vertical in the software industry.
Extended Relationship Management (XRM): The name itself is exciting. This trend in CRM will integrate other relationships which affect, influence or participate outside the circle of a normal CRM. Other relations in this regard may include primarily partners, employees and suppliers…as well as other secondary allies including government, press, and industry consortia.
Cheers,
B Jose Fatti Raaj
