The Age of Artificial Intelligence: Are you missing out on 2020’s biggest CRM trend?

When we look at Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the possibilities of using big data to gain insights about the consumer are becoming seemingly endless. Businesses can target their ads with a new found precision and see results of their marketing efforts in real time. Here we will be looking at one of the latest applications of big data in CRM -- artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence (AI) is defined by Oxford Dictionary as the development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. Sounds promising, right?

Right! In recent years, the relationship between AI and sales has shown to be very promising. Still, Pactera Technologies and Nimdzi Insights have reported that in 2019 only 53% of businesses are using some form of AI in their operations, and even less are using AI to benefit their CRM operations specifically. With how quickly technology is developing, it can be overwhelming to keep up with all of the emerging trends in big data. However you don’t have to rethink your entire CRM model to use AI. 

Here are 3 benefits of adopting artificial intelligence into your existing CRM approach:

Predictive Analytics Will Answer Your Burning Questions 

Predictive analytics is a vital part of using AI in your CRM. Predictive analytics is when historical data combines with machine learning and statistics to predict future customer behavior. There are many questions this process can answer for you, and having the right questions to benefit your CRM is important. Start with Why, How, and What, for example - What products are most likely to go out of stock soon? How likely is a customer to make a purchase? Why does a customer make purchases at a certain time of the day? How do your current customers feel about your products/service? What else do customers who buy this usually buy? Having reliable data and answers to these questions allows for the implementation of much more effective marketing campaigns.

You’ve probably already experienced predictive analytics being used on you through online shopping. Amazon automatically suggests products you might be interested in buying based on your past searches and purchases, combined with data of customers who are deemed similar to you. And online clothing retailer ASOS currently uses customer’s past buying patterns in addition to recording every item a customer views to figure how much they will spend at ASOS in their customer lifetime, allowing for them to allocate resources and marketing offers to nurture their most valuable customers.

Customer Experience Will Improve

As discussed in predictive analytics, with AI you will have much cleaner insights into your customer’s wants and needs. This will also allow you to implement innovations in your business that will improve your customer’s experience. For example, Starbucks, a company that prides itself in personalization and customer loyalty, used AI to revamp its reward program with hopes to facilitate a deeper connection with customers. The additions to their rewards program helped to create custom messages for those using the app and also promoted products based on past preferences and location. 

There are other ways AI can improve customer experiences too, like with Chatbots. Customers can get their questions answered around the clock from this online tools. Chatbots have become extremely popular with big and small businesses because they help customers while taking some of the pressure off of customer service teams, which brings me to my next point.

You Will Save Time & Resources

Your existing CRM is most likely already using tons of data, and the amount of data being collected is only increasing. This creates the problem of weak or irrelevant data being used in your CRM, but businesses having to sort through this data manually has become very time consuming. AI can solve this problem because it’s constantly updating and detecting the errors in your data that will be filtered out - to save time and improve the quality of your metrics. 

AI can also compile customer profiles that include every single one of the customer’s interactions. These profiles can be easily searched through so you can analyze trends in a particular customer and therefore allocate resources effectively. 

Major software companies like Microsoft, Azure, Oracle, and Salesforce have produced their own AI software to help businesses with this process, and more are sure to be coming soon.

So although this macro-trend is relatively new, resources are bountiful and accessible! You can easily use AI in your CRM strategy to keep up with today’s insight driven business environment. 

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My name is Alexa Young and I am currently working towards a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing with a concentration in Business Analytics at The University of Kansas. I appreciate you taking the time to read my article, I hope it sparked some interest in using artificial intelligence to benefit businesses and consumers!