HubSpot likes to see CRM as a solution to what it describes as a “crisis of disconnection” between businesses, their partners and customers.
It pushes the message that the proliferation of digital technology during the pandemic has made it difficult for companies to connect with their data, systems and customers.
Businesses are “in a crisis of disconnection right now,” said HubSpot’s chief executive officer, Yamini Rangan. “They are disconnected from their customers, as consumers tune out saturated channels. They’re not connected to their peers in a more hybrid world.”
There has been a 37 percent increase in the average number of SaaS applications used by businesses worldwide since 2020, according to HubSpot.
For “many businesses, this means their tech stack has become a disconnected patchwork of platforms and software,” says HubSpot’s APAC marketing director Kat Warboys. This can make it more difficult to get an integrated view of the customer.
Changes in consumer behavior have also made it difficult for organizations to create meaningful connections with them. “With digitization and consumerization accelerating, consumers are now more independent, and expect more intuitive experiences from businesses,” Warboys said.
“Effective customer relationship management, through the right tools, gives businesses the option to sync consumer data, understand purchasing behaviors from a range of segmentation tools and personalize communications with customers,” he added.
Customer connection, not customer management
“We believe the businesses that will win in the future will be those that focus on customer connection, not customer management,” Rangan said.
As such, HubSpot announced a range of tools at the recent HubSpot INBOUND event in the US. This includes payment schedules that allow HubSpot merchants to customize payments by collection dates and amounts. Additionally, quote-to-cash solutions are designed to save teams time through the quoting, billing and contracting process.
HubSpot also released new data management enhancements to provide “transparent and timely data insight” through import error handling and automation. Data quality automation recommendations aim to eliminate manual correction of data errors. With the help of HubSpot AI, customers can set up automation to resolve issues as they arise.
Customer journey analytics, available in public beta later this year, will provide marketers with detailed visualizations designed to make it easier to identify moments in the customer journey that can be optimized for more efficient conversion, and deeper insights into customer behaviors. HubSpot also announced improvements to campaigns to give marketers an integrated view of all initiatives together.
New features to help customer service teams create more connected experiences were also announced. Teams using Service Hub can now engage with their customers through a fully connected service desk, with helpdesk, channels, and automation.
The new WhatsApp integration, available through public beta, allows teams to connect a WhatsApp business account to their shared inbox to communicate with prospects and customers without leaving the HubSpot platform. Inbound calling allows customers to make and receive calls from HubSpot without revealing their personal phone numbers.
HubSpot also announced new features to keep customer data connected, clean and secure. The custom object builder allows teams to create customized data models without code and implement consistent data entry with property validations.
And its new AI assistant feature provides metrics to inform marketing strategies, such as SEO and optimized timing. This information can be used to identify the unique needs of potential clients, create personalized connections and maintain relationships.
Warboys told CRN, “when AI is done right, it saves your team time while simultaneously creating a tailored experience for consumers, at scale. It’s a more sophisticated and personalized approach towards inbound marketing and a more personal connection with the help of AI.”
In CRM platforms, AI can help business efficiency by allowing users to “set up automation to solve any issues in real time as they arise,” Warboys said.
Consolidation of mantra
Not surprisingly, HubSpot claims that when companies use a fully integrated all-in-one CRM platform, they see better “data connectivity”.
It also pushes the line that companies are seeing greater return on investment from fully integrated CRM tech stacks. More point solutions drive higher cost of ownership, primarily driven by increased personnel costs associated with using multiple tools, the company says.
The CEO of Salesforce consulting partner FullCRM, Helen Peterson, also promotes the benefits of fully integrated CRM platforms for achieving customer connections. The customer service, marketing, ecommerce and service domains within businesses “will be more interested in CRM” than many non-integrated systems, he notes.
He also noted the high “cost of integration between several systems.”
Another consideration, in Peterson’s view, is that “many operating systems are product-based, rather than customer centric, which makes it difficult for businesses because the customer is not the focus.”
Gartner UK VP CRM analyst, Julian Poulter, recognized the importance of “having a single unified view of customer data in one place, that all aspects of relationship management (sales, service) can be used and activated .”
“If the [CRM] Parts are in different systems, or the data is not integrated then it makes it difficult to execute a good customer experience. For example, if someone complains, do we want to send them a marketing offer five minutes later? Probably not, but it depends on the data put together,” Poulter said.
CRM suites with a common data model have a “significant advantage over non-integrated systems,” he says.
However, a 2022 CRM Gartner report stated that “only small and some medium-sized organizations are successful in accomplishing all of their goals with a single CRM application. In general, the larger the organization, the greater number of CRM applications in use, and more integration is needed.This is due to the political nature of CRM, where different geographies, brands, divisions and departments have different, sometimes conflicting, goals.
Poulter told CRN that “some organizations are doing an organization-wide CRM implementation,” but “because of the politics between departments, getting agreement on it can be very difficult. So, why the leading organizations like Salesforce and ServiceNow are selling C-Level digital transformation messages, rather than just CRM.”
“HubSpot’s sweet spot is the mid-market enterprise, and its legacy is small and medium-sized enterprise customers. In these smaller organizations, the issues are less challenging and it is easier for them to decide to implement the whole thing,” he commented.