Leading CRM analyst of Independent Research Firm, shares his thoughts on emerging CRM trends with BPMonline

BPMonline, the global expert in customer relationship strategies and business process management, is featuring exclusive video interviews with William Band, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, Inc.. Mr. Band focuses on helping organizations establish and validate CRM strategies and deliver the best possible customer experience to their clients.

In these interviews Mr. Band shares observations and forecasts on major CRM trends for the next 12 months and describes key challenges companies will face in ‘the age of the customer’. He outlines the overall need to improve customer experience and the growing need in analytics and customer information, emphasizing the importance of obtaining a 360 degree view of customers. He also explains how mobile technologies help customer-facing employees interact with customers more effectively.

Current trends and challenges that companies face show that they no longer can compete on product differentiation alone, and need to find ways to differentiate. Mr. Band foresees this in deep analysis of internal business processes merging traditional CRM strategies with BPM capabilities. Customers increasingly have more power over the relationships between themselves and the vendor, which is why companies, in order to remain competitive, have to look far beyond traditional sales, marketing and service initiatives.