The 2024 State of CRM Report
The Evolution of Customer Relationship Management: A Look at the Last Five Years, Plus Where It’s Headed
Insights from 800+ sales, marketing, service, and IT leaders around the world on what new CRM activities leading organizations have adopted over the past five years and what they’ll be prioritizing moving forward.
The Modern Data Stack:
The ability to track individual customer interactions and analyze that data is a game-changer, especially in an age where customers crave a personalized experience. This sort of data-driven approach to business relationships is still relatively new, though. In just the last few years alone, CRM has evolved far beyond being just a tool for contact management. The features of today’s CRM solutions are a far cry from what they were a few years ago, let alone a few decades ago. While contact management is still a core function, sure, CRM now has something for every team and individual in your organization.
A MESSAGE FROM OUR CEO
“CRM has certainly evolved in the last five years, and as our customers tell us, it has reached a critical tipping point as they consider the health and wellness of their customer-facing operations. CRM can work wonders for your business, to be sure, keeping sales, marketing and service teams in sync so they can successfully provide those great experiences. Almost 60% of our respondents reported that they view CRM as more important for achieving sales and marketing goals than five years ago. That’s a powerful statement on CRM’s evolution.”
2024 CRM Market Research
The Struggle with Internal Usage and Tech Stack Restrictions is Real
The most prominent CRM challenges faced were technology integration, platform feature limitations, and internal knowledge and skills.
Intelligent Forecasting is The Future
Leaders cite forecasting and pipeline insights as the most important CRM-based activity that organizations are prioritizing today, followed by intent data/lead scoring.
Lead Generation is Exponentially Growing, and It’s Not Slowing Down
45% say capturing intent data and/or lead scoring is a higher priority today than five years ago.
You Have the Data; You Just Don’t Have The Right Tool To See and Use it Effectively
45% cite getting a complete view of customer interactions as the top priority for maximizing CRM over the next five years followed by 33% prioritizing customer service and upsell/cross-sell opportunities.
Sales Pipeline Management is Make-it or Break-it for Growing Organizations
Pipeline visibility, quality of leads, and quantity of leads are the top reported areas that CRM has helped to optimize for the customer journey.
Past, Present, and Future:
A Deeper Look Into The Evolution of CRM
In a recent research study conducted by SugarCRM, we asked 800+ sales, service, marketing, and IT leaders how they evolved their CRM use over the past five years, and what they plan to prioritize moving forward. Watch those results here.
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