Businesses live and die by their CRM data, using it to improve productivity, increase ROI, and develop a deeper and better understanding of customer behavior. The growing impact of AI and proliferation of cloud-based apps have had profound impact on the automation processes and CRM systems. It has changed the way CRM applications function, creating the so-called NextGen CRM systems. However, marketers still encounter roadblocks while improving their CRM capabilities.
Following are the five main challenges that stare marketers in the face.
Challenge #1: Prioritizing data
Most marketers get confused when it comes to prioritizing data based on the importance of urgency to act on the situation. With too much data on hand, they get lost in the jargon unable to determine which data needs to be looked at first, which demands immediate attention, and which can be pushed to the backseat to be deliberated on later. Information overload is the killer here.
Solution #1: AI cannot completely personalize your data. It has trouble making decisions based on opinions. Opinion-based data is what you have to take care of. To ease the process, learn to divide or fragment your content into particular silos. This helps determine the level of importance, based on which prioritization would be easier, leading to efficient decision making.
Read: Digital transformation: The promise of incredible customer experience
Challenge #2: Dealing with ambiguous or incomplete data
Dealing with dirty data has always been a concern and still remains so, despite the use of cloud-based apps or AI for CRM. No matter how sophisticated a CRM or AI model is, you cannot expect a good outcome out of the best machine learning (ML) programs with bad data input.
Solution #2: Start scrubbing data to fine-tune your marketing efforts through CRM. Get rid of duplicate or invalid entries, incomplete or unnecessary fields in data logs. Eliminating unused fields or bogus entries will help you focus on the data that matters. It becomes easier to chase quality leads rather than chasing ambiguous accounts.
Challenge #3: Failing to socially integrate
Some marketers often think that analyzing data logs and keeping the CRM model up-to-date is all that is required to keep their CRM capabilities on track. They fail to go social either because they lack sufficient time on hand or haven’t yet figured out how to integrate CRM with social CRM. Some are even wary of using social platforms and mobile strategies finding it difficult to cope with the incoming wave of queries and messages.
Solution #3: In an era where social integration has become a norm, it is very important to go social. Optimize your CRM efforts by finding out a way to efficiently manage time for going online, communicate with the customers – both current and prospective – to know more about the market and customer needs. Developing a sound social CRM and mobile strategy to stay connected will go a long way in improving your efforts to build a solid CRM base.
Read: How Machine Learning and AI can enhance the retailer interaction with customers
Challenge #4: Providing omnichannel customer experience
Another challenge that faces marketers is embracing omnichannel marketing and providing an omnichannel experience to their customers. This becomes difficult with the huge amount of data, vast array of platforms and devices, as well as the ever increasing number of customer touchpoints. Accessing data across various platforms and channels gets tedious and confusing. Marketers often find it difficult to identify a customer on a different device or channel. This ultimately translates into an average experience for customers and prospects.
Solution #4: To address this challenge, you have to prioritize on developing a technology stack that is highly optimized to integrate with your existing technology system. Investing in new tools and technology can be another option. Doing so will help in cross-platform integration of data, providing a convenient and efficient 360-degree customer view. You can then breathe a sigh of relief as automation will provide data at your fingertips, drive engaging content to deliver superior omnichannel customer experience.
Challenge #5: Developing technical expertise
Marketers aren’t technology experts. It is naturally challenging for them to know and understand how various technologies function together and how it can be used to their benefit. Having knowledge on the current technology and being able to put it together with the existing business processes are two different things. Lack of adequate knowhow and training on the way the latest tools can be used would adversely affect the confidence levels of marketers, leaving them unequipped to use those innovative tools and technologies to bridge the gap.
Solution #5: Organizations need to step in to address this challenge by organizing training and support for marketers to enhance their skills. On the other hand, marketers themselves should make every effort to understand the business objective of a tool or technology and seek help from the technology department to add a relatively new competency to their skillset.
To sum it up, getting familiar with the simple hacks to use technology to one’s advantage and choosing the right product for CRM is important to address CRM implementation issues.
Are you facing challenges in improving your CRM capabilities? Talk to our CRM experts and find out how we can help you.
