CRM in 2018: What to Expect

In 2018, two major and philosophically oppositional shifts will change the customer relationship management (CRM) industry. For one, tasks typically done by humans will be replaced by automation. And secondly, interactions with human sales representatives will need to feel less mechanical to the consumer, driven in large part by personalization and timeliness. These changes will be ushered in by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), both of which will provide sales reps with the opportunity to avoid common, labor-based tasks (i.e., cold calling and data entry) in favor of creating more personalized communications with higher-value prospects. Additionally, the intelligence gathered by software will give organizations the information they need to determine what the right message is, when it should be sent, and how the message is received by customers.