Supporting customer experience through enterprise CRM

According to Forrester, we’re in the “Age of the Customer”. Enterprise CRM offers a technological approach to delivering a better customer experience, but it must be supported by strategic goals as well. Where is the enterprise CRM market headed?A recently-released Forrester report on CRM suites has shown that despite their widespread adoption, the organizations spending the time and effort to implement them don’t have clear customer relationship strategies.

Forrester defines CRM as: “The business processes and supporting technologies that support the key activities of: targeting, acquiring, retaining, understanding, and collaborating with customers.”

Customer experience is now recognized as a key differentiator amongst competing organizations. Enterprise CRM software aims to deliver on the customer experience challenge, giving the organization a better view of who its customers are, and – more crucially – streamlining the customer experience itself across touchpoints such as websites and self-service channels.

The survey found that half of the 556 North American and European organizations surveyed had put in place some form of CRM software, with the widely-held goals of being better able to understand and connect with their customers.

In this post from CMSwire.com, author David Roe identifies what he sees as emerging trends in the CRM space:

Aspiration to Strategy – Enterprises are finally beginning to define their CRM strategies. Those strategies cover: Outlining the desired customer experience, activity and decision making, funding decisions and project prioritization, and CRM becoming a function of management.
The Experience Ecosystem – Increasing tendency to examine customer experiences in terms of every single interaction through every employee in a given enterprise, along with every external fact that impacts on customer decisions.
Solutions Converge – Forrester is predicting the convergence of all customer related technologies, from e-Commerce platforms to content management platforms, along with site search, personalization and customer service.
Taming Processes – Poorly managed customer facing processes are being revamped, especially those that impact directly on customers like customer on-boarding, order administration, loan processing, incident management, customer service and investigations.
Mobile Applications – Interest in mobile CRM is red hot and will continue to be over the coming years. Despite investment in CRM, many mobile employees still do not have the necessary data to have on the road. Virtually all vendors have mobile CRM options; it is now for companies to invest.
Social Customer Engagement – Enterprises are using more social CRM as the advantages become clearer and the products become better built and easier to manage.
Big Data – With the amount of data now available to enterprises, it is only a matter of time before all enterprises are looking at Big Data management software, particularly Big Data analytics.
Agile CRM – Like every other technology space, CRM is now looking at best ways to become more agile. Keeping in mind that agility refers to the ability to respond to changing environments, agility is a key requisite when dealing with a wide customer base.
Voice of the Customer (VoC) – Enterprises are increasingly trying to hear the Voice of the Customer, which is quickly becoming the harbinger of business culture changes. More customer feedback through social sentiment is showing enterprises how their decisions are impacting on customers.