The Value of Real-Time CRM and Analytics

CRM Magazine recently published an article discussing the importance and future of real-time CRM titled 'Information at Your Fingertips': These five business drivers will propel real-time CRM. Based on an increasingly knowledgeable and less loyal customer base, the article predicts that real-time CRM solutions will expand in importance over the next decade. As a data analysis solution provider, ProWorks advocates the use of data to make better business decisions and CRM is no different. In order to be of real value to the customer however, CRM solutions must deliver real-time tools and information to the business user when it counts the most; when he is in contact with the customer.

Historically, CRM solutions have concentrated on the collection of customer data and making it available to executives and managers through scorecards and dashboards to monitor business operations from an elevated point of view. The challenge is to convert CRM data into actionable information that is available to the sales and service representatives that work directly with the customers. Providing floor level users with real-time tools that let them do their jobs better and easier, gives CRM an appeal for day to day adoption.

CRM analytics delivered at real-time speed can provide users with important insights about a specific customer and recommended actions to service that particular customer better. What types of products and services is this customer likely to need now and in the future? What are the key sales drivers for this customer? What values and incentives are most important to this customer? The answers to these types of questions are examples of how CRM analysis can be of real-time benefit to CRM end users and their customers.