Customer Relationship Management with IOT and AI

The problem is constantly evolving and the context needs to be maintained.

How to Extend the Capability of a CRM system Through AI and IoT?

Tripti Rai -January 15, 2021 in CustomerThink

Customers’ needs and expectations are in a continually evolving mode. A wide range of technologies and channels are entering the customers buying routes, bringing with themselves a rise in touchpoints, transactions, events, and interactions – all getting incorporated into a new, advanced Customer Relationship Management software.

Custom Relationship Management solutions have come far in the two decades they have been in existence. Right from being a contact database where the customer information is stored to becoming a key source of business intelligence aligned with the customer lifecycle. This evolution journey is only getting stronger with the inclusion of new technologies in the market – like Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things.

In this article, we are going to delve into the many ways AI and IoT make the process of managing customer relationships through software a business-benefitting journey.  ... " 

Where Blockchain Will be Delivered

Starting to see this trend, since the data involved is already in ERP and CRM.

Gartner: Blockchain will be nothing more than an add-on for ERP, CRM software

The distributed ledger technology has already become highly fragmented, making it difficult for companies to push ahead with real-world uses. On top of that, Gartner expects that fragmentation to collapse into no more than four dominant standards in the next few years. .... ' 
     
By Lucas Mearian in ComputerWorld

Salesforce Will do AI with Einstein

Been much rumor about what Salesforce would do with AI style capabilities for customer management.    Now their solution, Einstein, has been announced.   Individual conversational assistance? Bot observation of activity?  Or platform integrated intelligence.    When I hear AI now I think about its value approach and integration with current process.  And what the risk of its use might be in context

Salesforce Aims to Revolutionize CRM with AI-Powered Einstein By Virginia Backaitis

Salesforce officially unveiled its artificial intelligence (AI) capability called Einstein yesterday — just hours before Oracle kicked off OpenWorld.

Constellation Research analyst Doug Henschen said it was no coincidence that Salesforce made a point of introducing its AI capabilities just ahead of Oracle's big user conference. 

"And likewise, it's no coincidence that we'll hear AI announcements from Oracle this year. Its work has been stealthy while Salesforce has very publicaly been loading up on machine learning and AI-related acquisitions,” he said.

Salesforce promises Einstein will forever change customer relationship management (CRM). It is a lofty goal, but one but that doesn’t seem unattainable: Salesforce has both purchased and hired the technology and the people needed to make it happen. 

Salesforce: We Have the Smartest CRM: 
John Ball, General Manager, Salesforce Einstein, told reporters at a virtual press conference last Thursday that the company has created “the world’s smartest CRM” by marrying data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing and deep data discovery1 with its business applications.     .... " 

Microsoft Dynamics

Brought to my attention for examination and review.   Microsoft Dynamics is an  amalgam of Microsoft's CRM and ERP offerings.  How will this ultimately be integrated to systems like Linkedin after acquisition? As a skill and HR database to provide resources for analysis?  Indications are that this will be further integrated in coming days.

   Via Wikipedia:

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software applications. Microsoft Dynamics applications are delivered through a network of reselling partners who provide specialized services.[1] Very few installations are made without the aid, and cost, of these resellers. In its 2013 update, the first since 2009, Microsoft removed many capabilities of users to access features such as report-writing without the intervention, and cost, of members of their approved reseller network .[2] Microsoft Dynamics is part of Microsoft Business Solutions. Dynamics can be used with other Microsoft solutions, such as SharePoint, Yammer, Office 365, Azure and Outlook. The Microsoft Dynamics focus industries are retail, service, manufacturing, financial services, and public sector. Microsoft Dynamics provides business solutions for both small & medium businesses and Enterprise . ....  " 

Komiko Focuses on Sales Relationships

Former colleagues of mine brought this to my attention, embedded analytics.

Focus on relationships, not management.
Why are you spending your weekends updating a CRM system,
when all of the data is already in your communication tools?

Komiko lets you focus on building relationships and close deals and not bother with the admin work. Messages and documents are captured seamlessly and augment accounts, contacts, opportunities and leads.

It scores opportunities and leads based on communication frequency, recency and the importance of people involved. It helps you know "who is who" in an account and identify the right person to approach the account.

Komiko will create follow up tasks for you, help you execute them with contextual information and template support. .... 

And Blog

Salesforce and Wave Analytics

Just announced:  " .... Wave is the product of two years' worth of engineering and runs on top of Salesforce's core platform, Buscemi said. That means it's integrated with Salesforce's applications for CRM (customer relationship management), support and other areas from the get-go, and can also be embedded into apps built with the platform.

The new service is different from other approaches to analytics: It's search based, with data stored in a schema-less fashion. This allows for rapid, iterative exploration by users who are in search of answers to questions, according to Buscemi. It also means IT departments don't have to pull together traditional data marts for users before they can get started. ... " 

Consumer Goods Visionaries: P&G's 1- Consumer Place

I see that Steve Aaron, former colleague, has been identified in Consumer Goods Technology as the architect of P&G's revolutionary 1, Consumer Place. See an interview with him here.   A number of interesting levels of details are included.  Congratulations, Aaron!

" ... he architected 1, Consumer Place, a figurative street address designed to consolidate all of P&G’s marketing programs into a single, secure and scalable global marketing platform and ecosystem, enabling coordinated, analytics-driven decision making across the entire company. For the first time, P&G is now able to see what is working and share solutions and best practices across brands. ... " 

The post also contains a number of practitioners in other consumer goods companies.

Emergent Distribution Models

Viewing distribution models.   " ...  With direct sales forces under heavy pressure and channel partners becoming scarcer as the reseller market undergoes shifts, a new type of distribution that encompasses both and more is emerging. This new model takes into account not just general sales tactics; it also considers the latest in social, CRM, app-usage and help-desk technologies.  ... " 

CRM Data is Incorrect or Out of Date

Frost & Sullivan and IBM write about the problems with CRM data.   The article contains many statistics about the problem and how integrating solutions that making connections between the channels your customers have started to use and your decision making capabilities have become essential.  " ... 23% of an organization’s CRM data is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date... "    This document is about how smarter commerce can help to place that intelligence in place and in context.

Now 12% of the US population refer to social media before making a decision, and the data that comes from social is usually unstructured.    Large enterprises have increasingly looked at this data to leverage what they do.  But now smaller companies can play in the space effectively. .  Because this kind of data tends to be volatile and near real time as well,  its accuracy and timeliness is essential.

In addition, it is more important than ever to make sure that you quickly close the loop with your customer in the same social spaces.  Do your managers and executives know when your customers are making important statements about products and services?

So what is needed?  The ability to integrate solution methods that look for patterns, inform decision makers about changes that occur, and link those patterns to specific processes within a company.  That provides the platform for real time action that allows the midsize company to plan, react and ultimately compete.

Excellent document, well worth reading.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines  of a smarter planet. More on that here:  http://goo.gl/S6P7m  

Brands Talk to Users on Foursquare

In a new development, brands can communicate to their most frequent check-ins via Foursquare.  Making the interaction bi directional in useful ways has been talked about for some time, but recent updates now allow it to happen.  " ...  The tool has the potential to give brands a reason to actively manage Foursquare -- which had lacked a CRM component -- that they didn't have before, according to Rob Reed, founder of the location-based marketing platform MomentFeed, which has clients such as Cinnabon and Chili's.... "

Smarter Commerce for the Mid Size Business

Good futures piece on this topic.
To help companies understand the Smarter Commerce Institute, the SMB Group and CRM Essentials are working on a series of posts discussing how technology is empowering today’s customer, and why companies have to change their approach in order to build strong relationships with them. This is the final post in the series ... 

Social Customer Engagement Index Survey

The Society for New Communications Research is very pleased to be collaborating with the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals, SOCAP and Social Media Today's TheSocialCustomer.com, to compile the Social Customer Engagement Index.

This project was initiated this past year to explore how companies are using social technologies to better support their customers through improved customer relationships, service and support.

The initial study reveals important data and insights on the evolution of customer service and support, and social media's increasing role in this function. You can download the whitepaper with analysis from Brent Leary of CRM Essentials, LLC here.

We are now reprising the study with a new survey. The results will be used to update the white paper, which will include insights from SNCR Fellows and will once again be available on TheSocialCustomer.com. If you are involved in customer care, CRM, or consumer affairs, we hope you will participate in this important initiative by completing this brief survey.

PLEASE TAKE THE SURVEY

Thank you very much for your time and participation! We look forward to sharing the results with you!

Best Buy to Buy Back

Evan Schuman in StoreFrontBackTalk writes about the intriguing implications of Best Buy re-purchasing used products: ' ... With the economy putting intense pressure on supplier costs—while also making lower cost merchandise highly attractive—Best Buy is quietly making a push into the secondary market, a strategy that is opening huge possibilities in its CRM analytics. Suddenly, a sold product starts the clock on when it can be profitably bought back ... '... And it's an application for the process known as reverse logistics.
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