I co-anchored (w. Bob Stutz) delivered our comprehensive views of 2023 for the CRM space, co-hosted by Brent Leary & Paul Greenberg, after a series of thoughtful predictions and discussions by notable vendors, analysts, and practitioners. My overall takeaway…
Vendors – Focus should be to ensure their clients are successful in becoming more effective and efficient. Pull back from the ambiguous customer-centricity conversations.
Analysts – Need to help clients navigate their fears and chart a path forward into uncertain times. The industry is already preparing for a modest and longer recession than the pullback from Covid. In my conversations and analysis, there are more discomforts and restlessness about the time to recovery. Set them up to be better position to leapfrog with new concepts in 2024.
Practioners – Aid in navigating the rhetoric and double down on the adoption and utilization for clients. They’ll have the tough job of ensuring how to maximize success for their clients to meet their goals and sustain through headwinds.
Special cut with my commentary….
Full conversation…
https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:7004550406169128960/
… more thoughts …
- Arresting the fears and painting a turnaround picture. Customers want plain and genuine conversation.
- Customers elevating (or keeping) their job, GSD
- Partners (partners) and M&A to value-add pipeline and revenue streams. Mid-tier is going to go after the enterprise.
- Appreciate the aspiration, but with budget cutting and global growth slowing, CRM will return to retention and market share capture in 2023
- Largely CRM overall has lost its ability to be a competitive advantage. It needs to find it again. Rethink the major elements of the platform.
- CX needs to have a clear objective northstar. Right now, explore space vs. lets land on the moon
- More Training (ops) Increase utilization –
— The best way to win an RFP is to help write it … so how to develop your ICP w/ messaging and execute well & adapt. - Spending time reviewing maintenance budgets. Wow. The costs are becoming immense. Transformation might be cheaper.
- As an individual, Less (but more relevant) data is more.
- CRM is a control room
- Vendors… customers want a relationship with a person, not just a brand.
- AI use case will be found, and rampant value/growth under existing and newcomer platforms will move strong.
- Customer at center of the conversation is becoming rhetoric without actionable plans… folks are still struggling to have customers see that value.
- Growing, optimizing, and harnessing the entire ecosystem (employees, partners, advocates, and customers) are the vendor’s asset. The more cohesiveness occurs then the more resilient the company…