IoT and CRM, the buzz words of the 21st century, are now a reality and would soon bring the great industrial revolution across the world. With the advancements in technology and the internet, it’s not only humans who are connected via the internet, but also the devices which are getting connected through this marvel technology.
IoT(internet of things) as a game-changer is becoming a crucial technology in different industries and integrating innovative ways to bring success to an organization.
As per a report by Gartner, there will be around 20 billion IoT devices by 2020.
IoT and CRM
IoT is the connection of the devices via internet while CRM is the collection of customer’s data through data mining, giving useful insight into the customer behavior for segmenting the market and targeting the campaign effectively. With the empowerment by IoT, CRM helps to manage relationships with the customer and facilitates in achieving the goal of an organization.
As per another report by Gartner, CRM will be the heart of the digital initiatives for many years to come.
Who mainly benefits from CRM?
- Small businesses looking for rapid growth: CRM can take off the burden from the IT management team by automating the business process. It further helps the employees to keep the focus on the critical areas which needs human intervention.
- Top industry leaders looking for large scale solutions: It simplifies and improves the complex engagements with a customer. Some of the top-level executives like CEOs, CIOs, CMOs require advanced tools to streamline the business and technical process of an organization and with a wide range of CRM tools it can be scaled to meet the requirements of any organization.
It should be acknowledged that with IoT, CRM can evolve to a much developed and advanced version of the technology. The combination can help in making sense of the past enterprise data, and connecting it with the real-time data through the “devices.” The combined technology can help all the departments across the organization, be it sales, marketing, or customer service.
Find out some of the best results which businesses can achieve through this integration:
1. Optimized customer service:
Have you ever thought of, fixing the errors before the customer notices it!!!!
No product in the market is entirely error-free. For a marketer, it is a nightmare when a customer complains about their product and that too on a widely-used social media platform. It can hurt a company’s reputation as negative publicity spreads fast like the wildfire of Amazon. This scenario can be easily evaded with predictive analysis, and with the right integration of CRM and IoT. It helps to push away the major lapses, which can demotivate a customer in purchasing further services or products of the same brand.
Majority of the manufacturers are already reaping the benefits of connecting their CRM with the IoT devices. As they are partly responsible if a product does not provide the service as per the expectations of a customer, they can make the product 100% efficient with the right collection of the customer data and the product specifications needed by the customer.
Customer service as one of the essential support to generate high revenue for the organization needs an advanced version of the technology, which helps to understand the customer with the right information. IoT with CRM is a perfect guide in this circumstance as it is the right combination of technology and customer relationship management process of the organization.
As businesses vie up for the same customer, the one providing the best and optimized customer service will be surely a winner in this race.
2. Increased sales:
The consumer market has evolved over the years, and customers are highly valuing service over others, before making the final decision. An efficient service, which involves providing precise solutions to the business challenges of the customers at the right time, significantly improvises the business process and increase sales.
An increasing number of organizations are leveraging IoT technology to increase sales opportunities.
3. Next-generation CX: Customer experience (CX) is the sum of the customer journey throughout the business cycle with your organization. IoT and CRM pave the path for the next-generation CX as the IoT related data which provide predictive analysis enables proactive support leading to some of the best customer experiences. By using customer information on the location, preference, status, and others, the problem can be predicted and resolved at the right time.
4. Omnichannel in-store experience: CRM and IoT can provide an immersive and omnichannel in-store experience. Store owners can know what the customer is looking for, what are his preferences, etc. It would also help in suggesting the products which the customer might purchase.
5. Customer retention: As CRM provides the complete customer data, it can help in better understanding of your customers. The IoT data and customer data build up a unique combination in streamlining the marketing approach and targeting the existing customer. The whole process helps to retain the existing customer, a challenge in the current market scenario.
What are the benefits of IoT and CRM integration?
It influences customer engagement to a great extent and provides:
- A higher degree of personalization
- Molding of the marketing process
- Helping to change the prices as per the demand
- Higher revenue and sales for the organization
- Increased customer satisfaction
Conclusion:
As an organization, one can discover advanced ways of connecting with the customers, when IoT and CRM are enabled to work together as a connected enterprise.
IoT is the new channel which holds great promise for CRM. The small and mid-sized businesses, along with the large enterprises equally, could reap the benefits of this amalgamation. The interaction of the devices with intelligent systems opens up a complete new world for delivering personalized services and exceptional support.
