Devising an effective customer relationship management (CRM) system is essential to grow and strengthen your business. Many companies and organizations rely on their CRM system to calculate sales metrics, but without putting yourself in the shoes of your customer it's unlikely you will be happy with the results. There are several trends that are said to emerge in 2016, let's take a look at a few:
1. Emotion - The Temkin Group has predicted that emotion will play a big role in the way businesses will connect with their customers in 2016. Their study found customers that connect on an emotional level have a higher loyalty rate. These customers are more likely to be repeat customers, give recommendations and be more forgiving when their customer expiernece is not up to their standards. The study compared the connection between the three main elements of an experience which included success, effort and emotion.
After conducting research across 20 industries, it remained consistent that consumers who give high emotion ratings continued to be loyal. There is expected to be a drastic increase in the number of companies who explore the emotional side of the customer experience. In order to fulfil the emotional expiernece you wish to provide, each company must identify the type of emotion they want their customers to feel. Do you want your customer to feel happy, calm, positive, secure? Being able to determine this will help design the right user expiernece.
2. Small Data- There has been an extreme focus on Big Data for quite some time, but what about Small Data? Big Data often increases the understanding for a company regarding macro trends for a specific industry or brand. Meanwhile, companies often forget about the inherent value of small data but that is said to change in 2016. Instead of pulling metrics solely from Big Data, consider digging into the aggregation of data that exist within internal CRM, PRM, ERP, and SCM systems.
If you deeply investigate within these systems you can find extremely valuable information that can not only help you secure leads but retain your current customer base. Small Data provides more personal information such as order purchase history and demographic analysis. This type of data enables the consumer to track customer trends and help with product recommendations. The more you can personalize the user experience the better.
3.Increase in Social- We are expected to see many more CRM providers add social media features. Many companies already track customer interaction on their own time, but providing a specific feature for this need will help businesses learn more about the consumer behavior. This will also play a huge role to increase the ability to personalize each customer's expiernece.
4.Mobile CRM- As mobile has already made significant headway in several areas, CRM apps are said to be on the rise in 2016. The easier it is to track your metrics anytime, anywhere, the better it will be for a company. Real time data is invaluable and necessary to continue to execute a powerful customer experience strategy. Mobile CRM will help stay up to date with prospects, keep in touch with sales representatives and remain connected throughout the day. The data provided through a mobile app will enable users to act quickly and make decisions on the go. The mobile app route may not be as advanced as a desktop version, but will serve as an advantage making the system easier to understand and navigate.
5.Full force on Integration- CRM expert Katie Hollar from Capterra believes "It's increasingly important that your CRM be able to seamlessly integrate with your ecommerce platform, your marketing automation software, your analytics software, your accounting system, the list goes on and on." Instead of spending endless time downloading and uploading CSV data from one system to the next, it will be expected that this function will be fully integrated into many CRM systems. This will supply a more efficient system that will increase the functionality of several platforms.
With all the advancements set in place for CRM systems for 2016, it will be interesting to see how this will affect sales for businesses across multiple industries. Keep your eyes peeled!
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